Swapped out my split charge relay for a Victron Orion-Tr Smart — worth the money?

Finally got round to upgrading the van's charging setup last week. Had a basic 30A split charge relay in there for years and while it did the job, I kept reading about voltage drop issues and it not properly topping up lithium batteries. Picked up a Victron Orion-Tr Smart 12/12-30A isolated DC-DC charger from Bimble Solar for around £160. Not cheap, but figured it was time to stop bodging it.

Install took me a couple of hours — ran new 10mm² cable from the starter battery, fused it close to the source with a 40A ANL, and wired it into my 200Ah lithium leisure bank. Connected it up to the Victron app via Bluetooth and set it to the lithium profile. First proper run on the motorway and it was pushing a solid 30A into the bank the whole way, which the old relay never came close to doing consistently.

The thing I'm still getting my head round is the engine detection sensitivity setting. I've got it on the default 13.2V threshold but on a cold morning it occasionally kicks in a second or two before the engine's properly settled. Anyone else tweaked that setting, and what voltage did you land on? Also curious whether anyone's running the Orion alongside solar — I've got 300W of panels on the roof through an MPPT and wondering if there are any gotchas with both sources hitting the battery at the same time.

ValleyBoater | Posts: 847 | Location: South Wales

@Davo2 Good move! The Orion-Tr Smart is a proper bit of kit. The main thing people don't realise until they've used one is how well it handles the alternator protection side — particularly important if you've got a newer vehicle with a smart alternator that deliberately suppresses voltage to save fuel. Old split charge relays basically give up on those and barely push anything useful into your leisure battery. The Orion actually negotiates that properly.

The Bluetooth monitoring through VictronConnect is surprisingly useful too — you can see exactly what current you're actually getting while driving, which quickly becomes addictive!

What size did you go for, the 18A or 30A isolated version? And are you running it alongside solar or purely vehicle charging? Makes a difference to how you'd configure the absorption settings.

Rob1963 | Posts: 2,341 | Location: —

Split charge relays are basically just "close enough" charging — the Orion-Tr Smart actually regulates the output voltage properly, so your leisure bank gets a full absorption charge rather than whatever the alternator happens to be doing that day. Running one on my static caravan setup via a tow vehicle and the difference in state-of-charge was immediately obvious on the Victron app. Worth noting: get the isolated version if your chassis and leisure earth aren't common — learned that the hard way. Also enable the engine-running detection via voltage threshold rather than D+ wire if your van's modern; half these newer ECUs throw a fit if you start tapping into D+ signals.

JoeFisher | Posts: 612 | Location: Derbyshire

Made the same swap about 18 months ago, @Davo2, and haven't looked back. The big thing nobody mentions enough is how well it plays with modern smart alternators — the relay was constantly confusing mine and triggering the ECU's variable voltage management at the wrong times. The Orion just handles it gracefully.

The Bluetooth monitoring through VictronConnect is also genuinely useful rather than gimmicky — being able to see exactly what's going in while you're driving takes the guesswork out completely. Just make sure you've got the input/output voltages configured properly before you set off anywhere, as the defaults aren't always ideal straight out of the box. Worth spending 20 minutes with the app getting it dialled in properly.

WD40Wizard78 | Posts: 1,156 | Location: —

One thing worth flagging that nobody's mentioned yet — the Orion-Tr Smart's Bluetooth programmability is genuinely useful if you're running lithium. You can dial in the absorption and float voltages precisely rather than accepting whatever the alternator throws at the battery. I've got the 30A non-isolated version in my Transit conversion feeding a Fogstar 100Ah LiFePO4, and setting it up to cut off cleanly at 14.2V made a real difference to long-term cell balance.

Also worth checking whether your alternator is smart/variable voltage — some Euro 6 engines actively drop output voltage to save fuel, which can fool a relay into thinking the battery is full when it isn't. The Orion-Tr handles this far more gracefully with its input voltage sensing logic.

@Davo2 which variant did you go for, isolated or non-isolated?