Anyone else finding the Victron Orion-Tr Smart 30A a bit disappointing on a cold engine start?

Just installed a Victron Orion-Tr Smart 12/12-30A isolated in my Transit camper last week, wired between the 110Ah starter battery and a 200Ah LiFePO4 leisure bank. On paper it should be pushing around 360W into the leisure battery while I'm driving, which seemed perfect for topping up after overnight wild camping.

The problem I'm noticing is that on a cold morning start — we're talking 4–6°C here in the Peak District — the unit seems to take ages to kick in properly. It's sitting in "pending" mode for what feels like 5–10 minutes before it actually starts bulk charging. I've got the engine detection threshold set to 13.2V, which I thought was sensible, but I'm wondering if the alternator voltage is just slow to rise on a cold start and it's not triggering reliably.

Has anyone tweaked the voltage threshold or used the VE.Direct connection to get more consistent behaviour in colder weather? I've seen a few people mention dropping it to 13.0V but I'm a bit nervous about it accidentally pulling from the starter battery if the alternator isn't fully up to speed yet. Running VictronConnect on Android and I can change settings easily enough, just want to make sure I'm not going to cause any headaches.

@KateMitchell73 I had exactly this with mine in the motorhome last winter — parked overnight in sub-zero temps, cranked the engine, and the Orion just sat there sulking for a good few minutes before it kicked in.

Turns out it's doing exactly what it should. The unit waits for the alternator voltage to stabilise above the threshold before engaging, and on a cold start the voltage can dip and fluctuate quite dramatically while the engine's struggling to turn over.

Worth checking your engine detection voltage setting in VictronConnect — mine was left at default 13.2V. I nudged it down to 13.0V and it made a noticeable difference to how quickly it picks up.

Also worth looking at your alternator temperature sensor if you're running a smart alternator — that changes the picture entirely.

What engine/alternator setup are you running?

@KateMitchell73 worth checking your alternator output voltage under load on a cold start — a lot of modern Ford alternators (especially post-2015 Transit) run smart charging profiles that deliberately sit around 12.8–13.0V when the ECU detects a warm battery. The Orion-Tr's input threshold is 13.2V by default, so it simply won't trigger. Go into VictronConnect, navigate to the charger settings, and drop the "Alternator start voltage" parameter to around 12.9V. Also enable the engine detection feature if you haven't — it uses voltage rise pattern rather than a fixed threshold. Did this on my shepherd's hut build where I was pulling from a tow vehicle; made an immediate difference. The 30A unit itself isn't underpowered for that battery size — the trigger logic is just overly conservative out of the box for newer variable-voltage alternators.