Renogy DC - DC chargers . . . thoughts??

[collinsp]

Hi All,

I'm in the process of specing/costing up switching my house bank to Lithium and seems the common approach is to use DC-DC chargers to charge from the alternator/start battery. I currently have Victron MPPT's and battery monitor so started down the Victron road as am happy with their products but have also used Renogy Solar panes which am super happy with so took a look at their DC-DC chargers.

Renogy do a 60AMP where as the biggest from Victron in 30AMP and there is also a price difference. I was wondering if anyone has experience of the Renogy DC-DC chargers and how they have found them ?? Have seen some feedback from Van users and most of the feedback seems positive though I did read one or 2 that said they ran rather hot ??

Would welcome any feedback and/or suggestions.

Cheers

 

[andrewAB]

BTW I have seen Victron has a new 50 amp DC-DC that is suposed to be cool and efficient. And expensive.

No experience just following as looking to similar Lithium change if/when my Trojan T105s die.

 

[stranded]

I’ve just installed one of the 50A Victron ones, which I think are to be called Orion XS. Mine is labelled Buckboost, which I suspect is a development name, but I am assured they are identical and seemed to work fine for the short time I had to test it before I had to leave the boat on Sunday. Temperature didn’t seem to be a problem but I literally had 20 minutes so too soon to tell.

 

[Slipstream 34]

I fitted a renogy dc to dc charger last year as part of a lithium upgrade. It failed in the middle of our trip to the Faroes. It ran very warm when it worked. Replaced it with a sterling dc to dc charger. A much smaller unit and runs cold even at max output (60amps). The sterling charger is much better quality than than the Renogy and I think definitely worth the additional cost.

 

[Neeves]

Lots of the components get hot, or warm and most installations are in an enclosed space - on my Lithium installation (which is currently terrestrial) I have wired in 2 x 15cm computer fans, so quite big, to exhaust the warm air to outside. Currently manually operated, I have to plug them into cigarette lighter sockets when I feel the need. I think Geem or Kelpie ?? (as he was then) mentioned the heat generated by components - but don't recall if it was the DC-DC charger or something else....?? I simply thought that a hot box was not sensible.

I have a similar fan removing the warm air produced by the fridge, which is the load for my Lithium, which is held in a separate box. Again warm air surrounding a fridge does not seem efficient.

Jonathan

 

[Kerenza]

I had the same experience as slipstream although not so far from home!
After some time negotiating their fault reporting system I got a full refund. Shame it had a lot of promise.

 

[Slipstream 34]

The alternator is running cooler with the Sterling dc to dc charger for a similar output which would suggest the Renogy charger is noticeably less efficient.

 

[geem]

The existing Victrom ORION DC/DC chargers are 87% efficient and create a lot of heat. The new XS model is supposed to be 98% efficient. It runs cooler. It's physically smaller and will be available in 50A version at 12v. Just new on the market now.

 

[Buck Turgidson]

mine is on order expected end of Feb!

 

[Neeves]

mine is on order expected end of Feb!

For clarity - the Victron XS model...??

Jonathan

 

[Trident]

I've run two Renogy 60a DC DC for the last two years on my cat. No issues whatsoever and unlike the Victron they have a built in fan to cool - 60 amps is a lot though so make sure you have them with enough space around and free airflow or they could overheat and fail