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sq8ijk avatar image
sq8ijk asked

Peak Power Pack 40Ah and SmartSolar charge controller - how to connect & setup

Hello,


I have two Victron devices which I am planning to use to charge my laptop via laptop cigarette car charger (Input: 7A / 11..12V):

  • Victron MPPT 75|15 SmartSolar charge controller which I am planning to connect to 160W solar panels
  • Victron Peak Power Pack 40Ah (PPP)


Now I am puzzled what would be the best setup and how to connect them as from the instructions there are couple options e.g.:

  1. Connect laptop charger from the SmartSolar LOAD and connect BATT to the Car/Solar input of the PPP (Peak Power Pack)
  2. Connect SmartSolar BATT to the Input 1 of the PPP - Input 1 is the same as high current output and then connect Laptop charget to the Output 2 of the PPP.
  3. Connect SmartSolar BATT to the Car/Solar input of the PPP and the laptop charget to the Ouptut 2 of the PPP.
  4. Connect SmartSolar BATT to the Input 2 (the same as the Output 2) of the PPP and then laptop charger to the Output 1 of the PPP
  5. Connect SmartSolar BATT to the Input 2 (the same as the Output 2) of the PPP and then laptop charger to the LOAD of the SmartSolar.

And so on, in short the laptop charger can be connected to either SmartSolar LOAD or the OUTPUT 1 or the OUTPUT 2 of the PPP.

And the BATT from the SmartSolar can be connected to the Car/Solar, Input 1 or Input 2 of the PPP, so I am puzzled which option to chose as in theory all should work.

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1 Answer
wkirby avatar image
wkirby answered ·

I would do the following.

Connect MPPT Battery terminals to Output 1 of the PPP. Output 1 can accept the maximum charge current that the MPPT can provide.
Make sure that you set up the MPPT Absorb setting to 14.0V as this is the recommended charge Voltage.

The laptop charger can be connected to Output 2 for simplicity.
Alternatively, the laptop charger can be connected to the Load terminals of the MPPT. This option will allow the consumption data from the MPPT to be recorded in the VictronConnect app.

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sq8ijk avatar image sq8ijk commented ·

@WKirby Thank you. Make perfect sense, plus there is a benefit of having manual switch off button in the PPP to shut off entire solar setup.

The SmartSolar has LiFePO4 profile, which sets the voltage to 14.2V, however I did lower down it to 14.0V. The float voltage is set at 13.5V, which from reading should be fine for this type of battery as float should not really be used with LiFePO4. Also I did lower current to 10A as I calculated my solar panels won't go over 9A anyway.

Do you think I should add 15A fuse between MPPT and PPP ? There is one 20A fuse on the SmartSolar, however I am unsure which connection is fused.

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