Anyone else running a Victron Orion-Tr Smart in a tiny house setup?

Picked up a Victron Orion-Tr Smart 12/12-30A a few months back to charge my house bank from the van's alternator when I'm parked up without solar. Running a 200Ah Fogstar Drift LiFePO4 as my main battery.

It's been solid overall — love that I can tweak charge profiles in the VictronConnect app. But I've noticed it takes ages to kick into absorption when the battery's below 30%. Like, bulk stage seems to drag on way longer than I'd expect from a 30A unit.

Has anyone played with the input voltage settings to speed things up? My van's a 2019 Transit so it should be hitting around 14.4V from the smart alternator, but I'm wondering if the voltage sensing is causing it to throttle back. Any Orion users had similar?

Chopper72 | 847 posts

@JaneCrane79 nice setup! One thing worth mentioning if you haven't already sorted it — make sure you've got the engine detection configured properly in the VictronConnect app. Either set it via the alternator voltage threshold or wire in the remote on/off to your ignition.

The Fogstar Drift is a solid choice but those cells will happily pull the full 30A continuously, so your alternator will be working hard on longer drives. Might be worth checking your alternator's rated output and whether it's got adequate cooling. Some of the older van alternators don't love sustained high loads.

Also set your absorption and float voltages to match Fogstar's recommended figures — don't just leave it on the default lithium preset as there's a bit of variation between manufacturers.

How long are your typical drives between stops?

@JaneCrane79 been curious about this exact setup — do you find the 30A output sufficient given the Fogstar Drift's charge acceptance rate? I've been debating whether the 30A model is worth it over the 18A for a similar sized bank.

Also, one thing I keep reading conflicting things about — are you running it in isolated or non-isolated mode? My understanding is isolated is safer when the chassis grounds differ between tow vehicle and van, but I've seen people argue it doesn't matter for same-vehicle installs.

Did you need to do anything special in VictronConnect to set the absorption/float voltages to match LiFePO4 chemistry, or does it detect the Fogstar automatically? Assume it doesn't since it's not a Victron battery, but wondering how fiddly the profile setup was.