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doug24 asked

Battery profile help please

Hello

My son is converting a 2015 Ford Transit to a camper van. We believe it has a "smart" alternator.

He has bought a Victron Orion-Tr Smart 12 12 30 charger and a Varta LFD 180Ah leisure battery. We've connected the charger to the 60A "customer connection point" (CCP).

Would one of the standard AGM deep cycle profiles be appropriate for this battery? If not, what would be appropriate values for a user defined profile?

If we start with a standard profile, is it possible to monitor the graph in the app and use it to make adjustments to the profile? If so, what is the strategy?

Thanks in advance for any advice. Sorry, we're new to all this!

Doug

battery charging
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Alexandra avatar image Alexandra ♦ commented ·

@Doug24

You would need to see what varta recommend for the battery it should have the information on the side of the battery or on a spec sheet that came with the battery.

Usually I pick the profile then tweak the voltages that way you have the corect absorption time and charge profile set.

14.2 v is probably the charged voltage. Again just check the info.

Also make sure the 30A charge current is also not too high for the battery as well by using it's c rating.

Example a 190ah battery with a C10 rating should only be charged max with 19A

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doug24 avatar image doug24 Alexandra ♦ commented ·

Hello Alexandra. Thanks for your reply. We've looked everywhere we can think of on the internet for charging data for the Varta battery, but can't find anything. There's nothing on the battery itself or the (tiny) booklet that was stuck on the side. I've sent an email to Varta technical support but no reply yet. If you know of anywhere we might get the charging information could you please let me know?

Regarding the charge current. The battery has written on it "180Ah(C20) 153Ah(C5)". I presume this means that if we charge at 30A we'll get 153Ah, but if charged at 9A we'll get 180Ah. Is this correct? Are we ok charging at 30A?

Many thanks.

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Alexandra avatar image Alexandra ♦ doug24 commented ·

@Doug24

The preset for agm spiral cell should be ok. The voltages look like the typical voltages most agms ask for.

And most charge at about 20% of their capacity. 30A is a sixth of its capacity so a little less than the C5 rating. Should be ok. Hard to say for sure since varta are not sharing information. The charge algorithm in the victron adjusts the amp input to the battery anyway through the stages of charging from what I understand anyway.

Battery capacity drops on agm depending on how fast you are pulling the power out that is why varta have given 2 ratings there. The c20 is the capacity over 20 hours (180/20 so drawing about 9amps out for loads) and c5 is the capacity you would or should get over 5 hours (180/5 =36A for loads means you will only get 156ah out of the battery) . That is if you are drawing drawing it dead flat though, which is not really a great idea with agm.

I did have a look around and it seems varta do not give out any information at all on charging except on their motorcycle batteries so not much help there.

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