Anyone else running a Victron Orion-TR Smart in parallel — is it actually worth the faff?

Just picked up a second Victron Orion-TR Smart 12/12-30 to run alongside my existing one, thinking 60A combined ought to keep my 200Ah Fogstar Drift LiFePO4 happy on long drives. Took about an hour of cursing at the VE.Direct cables before I got them talking to each other properly through the app.

The synchronised charging profiles are almost magical — both units ramp up and down together, no weird voltage fighting. That said, I'm seeing the pair occasionally drop to about 45A combined rather than the full 60A, and I can't work out if that's the van's alternator throttling back or the Orions being precious.

Running off a stock 110A alternator in a 2019 Transit, so I'm not expecting miracles, but the maths should be closer than this. Anyone tuned their absorption voltage down slightly to squeeze more consistent amps out of a parallel pair?

Hey @DailyAdventure! Running two Orion-TR Smarts in parallel here for about eight months now — absolutely worth it in my experience, but there are a few gotchas.

Make sure both units are on the same firmware version before you do anything else, otherwise the synchronisation via VE.Direct can get a bit temperamental. Also ensure you're using separate, equal-length cable runs to the leisure battery — don't just piggyback off the first unit's terminals or you'll get uneven current sharing.

The 60A combined is genuinely brilliant for keeping a Drift topped up on motorway runs. I've got a similar setup with a 200Ah Drift and typically see 90–95% SOC after a couple of hours.

One thing — have you configured them both as a "networked" pair in the VictronConnect app yet? That's where most people seem to get unstuck initially.