Sanity check Argofet & Orion XS 12/12-50 circuit diagram

[collinsp]

Hi Guys,

Am about to replace my current house bank (is just about dead) and will be upgrading to Lithium. Have read as much as I can about the pluses, minuses and potential pitfalls and wanted to sanity check the attached circuit diagram. I have left the output 2 on the Argofet empty at the moment, as going to have sell a kidney for the upgrade and would rather keep the other, but the plan would be to purchase another Orion XS 12/12-50 in a few months and wire into bank1 so that both banks were independent. Was also wondering if the Orion XS will still sense the engine start in this setup? I will use 25mm2 cable from the alternator to the Argofet and is less than 2M run, Was going to use 16mm2 from the Orion XS to the batteries, again around 2M run. Have I missed anything?

Any suggestions would be welcome before I press the order button.

Paul

 

[collinsp]

Image attached

 

[lektran]

I'm not familiar with a DC charger taking directly from the alternator, normally it takes from a battery that is being charged by the alternator.

So you would ditch the argofet, send alternator output to the start battery and take power from there to the lifepo4 via the orion.

 

[Baggywrinkle]

Have a look at the Victron Schematics page ...

System schematics - Victron Energy

Your drawing is a subset of this .....

https://www.victronenergy.com/uploa...-generator-MPPT-BMV-Cerbo-Orion-Tr-Smarts.pdf

 

[collinsp]

I'm not familiar with a DC charger taking directly from the alternator, normally it takes from a battery that is being charged by the alternator.

So you would ditch the argofet, send alternator output to the start battery and take power from there to the lifepo4 via the orion.

The reason I am thinking about this route is so the starter battery does not keep supplying the power to DC to DC charger and reducing it's lifespan. The Orion XS would be drawing from the Argofet but I believe they can also be powered directly from alternator. Not sure if there is the correct route but have read that having Lithium drawing from AGM all the time can reduce their life span of the AGM ??? Plus, the Argofet not that expensive but love to hear thoughts on that . . . .

 

[stranded]

This may not be at all relevant to you and I have no knowledge, just passing on info I received about my 3 output Sterling ProSplitR installation.

I directly asked Sterling support whether I could simply leave the service bank (3 of 3) output from ProSplit empty when I replaced it with dc to dc via the start battery. They said yes, that should be fine.

Fortunately, between getting that advice from Sterling and doing the installation I downloaded a copy of the ProSplit instruction leaflet and saw a very prominent warning on this very point - don’t do it: if an output is unused you must bridge the unused output terminal to one that is being used, using 25mm2 cable.

Did that and it seems to work fine. Assume something to do with how the ProSplit allots charge only once banks higher in the hierarchy are sufficiently charged. And like I said, is probably completely irrelevant to to your setup, but thought worth passing on in case useful.

 

[collinsp]

This may not be at all relevant to you and I have no knowledge, just passing on info I received about my 3 output Sterling ProSplitR installation.

I directly asked Sterling support whether I could simply leave the service bank (3 of 3) output from ProSplit empty when I replaced it with dc to dc via the start battery. They said yes, that should be fine.

Fortunately, between getting that advice from Sterling and doing the installation I downloaded a copy of the ProSplit instruction leaflet and saw a very prominent warning on this very point - don’t do it: if an output is unused you must bridge the unused output terminal to one that is being used, using 25mm2 cable.

Did that and it seems to work fine. Assume something to do with how the ProSplit allots charge only once banks higher in the hierarchy are sufficiently charged. And like I said, is probably completely irrelevant to to your setup, but thought worth passing on in case useful.

Good point, will check with Victron and thanks

 

[PaulRainbow]

Good point, will check with Victron and thanks

Does not apply to the Victron chargers or the Argofet. Doesn't apply to the Sterling pro charger (mains) either.