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Victron Smart Battery Protect 12/24 |100 placement question

geolboy

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Feb 24, 2021
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Hi Folks,
I have a two fold question about the best placement for Victron BP for my VAN build that has LIFEPo4 560Ah 12v house battery bank, REC BMS, Cerbo-GX, Orion-tr DC-DC, Multiplus 3000, and pair of MPPTs 100/30. Originally I purchased the BP thinking of protecting the car battery, when using Orion Dc-Dc charger, as for my indented off-grid travel, starting the engine would be #1 priority over any house loads. However while doing my research I found that almost no one using it this way. Most references in Victron diagrams I find the BP being placed before house load (that's makes most sense to me) or after MPPTs (why?)

What are the practical experiences on this matter, where to best utilize the BP, since I already have it? It seems that Orion Dc-Dc can safely protect car battery from discharging under reasonable use. I drive Ford Transit 2020 and that uses dual AGM battery bank, if this is relevant to the question. I can install the breaker switch between CCP and the Orion and turn it on when needed.

And the second part, what programming parameters needs to be applied to BP when use in the particular manner. It does not have VE.can connector, does it mean it can not talk to Cerbo-GX? And do I even need to install it with REC BMS controlling the cells?

Thanks in advance!
George.
 
I have a Victron Battery Protect between the bus bars and my DC fuse panel. This prevents my DC loads from over discharging the battery. I don't do alternator charging with a DC-DC charger so I can't speak to whether a BP can or should be used on that path.

Do you have DC loads in your system?

The BP does not have a way to connect to a Cerbo GX. It does have Bluetooth though so you can program it and control it via VictronConnect.

While in theory you can rely on the BMS to protect the battery cells, you want the BMS to be the absolute last line of defense when all else fails. Using a BP is a first line of defense against things like DC loads. Your MultiPlus has a user settable low-voltage disconnect so it is also a first line of defense. That should be set to a voltage higher than the BMS LVD. In my system my DC loads are far more critical than my AC loads so I set my MultiPlus to disconnect at a much higher voltage than my BP. But even the BP is set higher than the BMS LVD.
 
I don't have DC loads yet, but it will be all usual small RV stuff, like lights, fridge, chargers. Thanks for the info, you just confirmed my thinking on this, appreciate the response.

If anyone knows how to configure REC BMS to do a remote disconnect to BP (which of those cryptic wires to use ;) ) and if there are settings in the BMS to set, please let me know. Thanks.
 
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