Victron mppt for vehicle battery

[MarkJ]

I’d more or less settled on using Victron stuff but had a last minute thought.

when parked up between trips I was thinking to leave the solar on to keep the batteries charged but realised the Victron only has one battery output and there’s no way I could keep the vehicle battery topped up as well.

Is there any easy way of doing this? Could I use the “load” outputs somehow?

thanks

 

[linkshouse]

You could use a Battery Master, that’s what I had on my old Hymer and it worked a treat.

 

[Deleted member 4404]

Yes, Battery Master. Easy to fit and not expensive.

 

[Millie Master]

Unless my lack of "BLACK ART" knowledge is fudging my mind, surely if you have a set up similar to mine which has worked reliably for 5 years of extensive use, then isn't it one of the easiest ways to go?

I have a heavy duty cable coming from the pos. side of the battery into a heavy duty fuse, then a split charge relay and then on to the first of my LB's. The pos post of this first LB battery has the cable going to if from the VB as well as a cable from the solar panel and another heavy duty cable which goes to the 2nd of my equal sized/power LB's.
The neg. side post of the 1st LB has a heavy duty cable going to an earthing point as well as cables coming in from the solar panel and a further heavy duty cable going off the the 2nd LB.

I bought the split charge relay, heavy duty fuse and all the heavy duty cables and associated fixings off an ebay site and I seem to recall that the entire bundle came to less than £50.

 

[wildebus]

I’d more or less settled on using Victron stuff but had a last minute thought.

when parked up between trips I was thinking to leave the solar on to keep the batteries charged but realised the Victron only has one battery output and there’s no way I could keep the vehicle battery topped up as well.

Is there any easy way of doing this? Could I use the “load” outputs somehow?

thanks

I believe you intend to use the Victron Orion B2B Charger for Leisure Battery charging when driving? If that is the case then that is uni-directional (unlike a VSR) so you need to add "something" to charge the Starter Battery from Solar.
Options are:
1) A Battery Maintainer such as the brand new Ablemail AMT-12 , or a Battery Master from the previous century
2) If you are using a Victron MPPT with 20A or lower Capability (so a 100/20, 100/15 or 75/10 for example), it will have a pair of LOAD terminals and you can use those to connect to the Starter Battery and configure the LOAD algorithm so those are only active when you want (e.g. you could set it so it is only live when the Leisure Battery is above 13.8V - that would make it operate in just the same way as a VSR would when used for Solar Charging)

If you have a bigger Victron than a 100/20, than option 1 is your best best, but if you Victron is 20A or lower AND is a SmartSolar (not BlueSolar), than I would recommend going for option 2.

 

[SquirrellCook]

Dave, have you looked at the Meanwell DC DC converters. If you were only trying to maintain the engine start battery from the leisure I guess just an amp or so would be enough. This was one I was looking at to charge 24volts from 12volts. SD-25A-24 My only worry would be are they current limiting or could the load run away with it's demand and kill the poor thing. The output voltage is adjustable and I don't think they are expensive.

 

[wildebus]

Dave, have you looked at the Meanwell DC DC converters. If you were only trying to maintain the engine start battery from the leisure I guess just an amp or so would be enough. This was one I was looking at the charge 24volts from 12volts. SD-25A-24 My only worry would be are they current limiting or could the load run away with it's demand and kill the poor thing. The output voltage is adjustable and I don't think they are expensive.

Not looked at those before. Looks like a good range of capacities there... I'll have a look at those in more detail later tonight
your comment about potential run away loads reminds me to say something ... This is about the Victron Battery Protect devices but could apply to other converters potentially - The Victron Battery Protect units must only be fitted in a setup where current will flow one direction (e.g. Power Source to Load). If the Voltage on the Load side is greater than than the Voltage on the Source side, you can get reverse-flow and it can damage the device, potentially in a very serious way! So you would never fit one of these between two batteries (i.e. Leisure and Starter).
Not saying these Converters have the same issue, but they will be designed to be uni-directional I am sure and a reverse current could cause an issue?

 

[MarkJ]

I believe you intend to use the Victron Orion B2B Charger for Leisure Battery charging when driving? If that is the case then that is uni-directional (unlike a VSR) so you need to add "something" to charge the Starter Battery from Solar.
Options are:
1) A Battery Maintainer such as the brand new Ablemail AMT-12 , or a Battery Master from the previous century
2) If you are using a Victron MPPT with 20A or lower Capability (so a 100/20, 100/15 or 75/10 for example), it will have a pair of LOAD terminals and you can use those to connect to the Starter Battery and configure the LOAD algorithm so those are only active when you want (e.g. you could set it so it is only live when the Leisure Battery is above 13.8V - that would make it operate in just the same way as a VSR would when used for Solar Charging)

If you have a bigger Victron than a 100/20, than option 1 is your best best, but if you Victron is 20A or lower AND is a SmartSolar (not BlueSolar), than I would recommend going for option 2.

Thanks. The Ablemail looks like the ideal thing, for two reasons
1 I sometimes keep the van in a barn between trips where there won’t be any solar, so as long as the LBs are in good shape when I park up it'll all work still
2 I had an idea for a future project that might have used the “load” terminals so didn’t want to use them unless I had to

Problem solved, thanks....

 

[MarkJ]

Yes, Battery Master. Easy to fit and not expensive.

Thanks, will take a look

 

[trevskoda]

Here is the proper jobby,1 amp to starter battery

 

[Nabsim]

That’s what I have as well Trev but no good to op as they have already bought a Victron

 

[RAW]

My set up is fairly simple, there is a Leisure battery (LB) in the back to Solar via Victron MPPT and isolated to Front LB via a simple switch.
There is a VSR between the LB at Front and Front Engine Battery, the VSR operates at over 13.8V in both directions so if Solar power is sufficient to charge the first two LB batteries full and there is a 13.8V from the leisure side then it will allow charge current to then flow to the Engine Battery. However, I have only really seen this happen when there has been a great deal of Solar to be harvested by the Panel, so not very often in the North of England !!

 

[wildebus]

My set up is fairly simple, there is a Leisure battery (LB) in the back to Solar via Victron MPPT and isolated to Front LB via a simple switch.
There is a VSR between the LB at Front and Front Engine Battery, the VSR operates at over 13.8V in both directions so if Solar power is sufficient to charge the first two LB batteries full and there is a 13.8V from the leisure side then it will allow charge current to then flow to the Engine Battery. However, I have only really seen this happen when there has been a great deal of Solar to be harvested by the Panel, so not very often in the North of England !!

This time of year Solar (unless you have a lot of it and it is tilted to the sun position to boot) is a poor charging device. Maintaining a battery with it once fully charged is doable as only a few Ahs should be needed. Once Easter arrives should be a different matter though

I'm going to try a little tweak to my setup as (another!) experiment ... I have a Victron Battery Combiner (their term for a VSR) and am going to fit a 30A B2B in parallel with it so theoretically will have Bulk-Charging + Intelligent Charging as well as reverse Leisure-to-Starter charging available.
I did this before with a relay that selected VSR OR B2B but never both - this time both may be active at the same time, which will be interesting to see

 

[RAW]

This time of year Solar (unless you have a lot of it and it is tilted to the sun position to boot) is a poor charging device. Maintaining a battery with it once fully charged is doable as only a few Ahs should be needed. Once Easter arrives should be a different matter though

I'm going to try a little tweak to my setup as (another!) experiment ... I have a Victron Battery Combiner (their term for a VSR) and am going to fit a 30A B2B in parallel with it so theoretically will have Bulk-Charging + Intelligent Charging as well as reverse Leisure-to-Starter charging available.
I did this before with a relay that selected VSR OR B2B but never both - this time both may be active at the same time, which will be interesting to see

Yes indeed, my solar panel works well but has almost nothing coming in at this time of year.
Has a slight southern tilt but more to the East, when I do another Van I will make it so Solar panel can be moved and tilted from the roof.

What you are saying about the new set-up sounds interesting, look forward to hearing about it. On another note if you have a non-victron 240V Battery charger how can you make Venus OS aware of it, or is it not possible ?

 

[wildebus]

....What you are saying about the new set-up sounds interesting, look forward to hearing about it. On another note if you have a non-victron 240V Battery charger how can you make Venus OS aware of it, or is it not possible ?

Nope, it will not know about it, but the BMV Monitor will see a positive charge coming into the battery, so you will see it in that respect, just the same as the current coming in from the Split-charge relay.

 

[Heppy]

I believe you intend to use the Victron Orion B2B Charger for Leisure Battery charging when driving? If that is the case then that is uni-directional (unlike a VSR) so you need to add "something" to charge the Starter Battery from Solar.
Options are:
1) A Battery Maintainer such as the brand new Ablemail AMT-12 , or a Battery Master from the previous century
2) If you are using a Victron MPPT with 20A or lower Capability (so a 100/20, 100/15 or 75/10 for example), it will have a pair of LOAD terminals and you can use those to connect to the Starter Battery and configure the LOAD algorithm so those are only active when you want (e.g. you could set it so it is only live when the Leisure Battery is above 13.8V - that would make it operate in just the same way as a VSR would when used for Solar Charging)

If you have a bigger Victron than a 100/20, than option 1 is your best best, but if you Victron is 20A or lower AND is a SmartSolar (not BlueSolar), than I would recommend going for option 2.
[/QUOTE

 

[Andrew Mason]

As per RAW, I have a dual sense VSR (www.portablepowertech). I also have 2 x 100W panels in series through Victron MPPT charger. The van has been parked down the north facing side of the house (ie in the shade all winter) waiting to go somewhere, and although was no good all of Nov-Jan it is working fine now (am on the south coast). Probably would have worked quite a few days through winter if not in the shade.
Having the panels in series ups the voltage and so triggers the VSR in lower sunlight.

(Unknowingly, I left the compressor fridge on around 01 Dec hence battery voltage drop)