T5.1 Multivan with Parking Heater using leisure battery for climatronic fan

[mattlun]

(Tried to search but could not find any matches... Please link if this has been discussed before.)
I have installed a new leisure battery system with solar and switchable engine charging, using Victron electronics. All seems to work fine, but when driving there is an unexpected currenf from the leisure battery - related to the climatronic. When running the standard fan it seems to use the lesiure feed and not the ordinary starter battery feed, so I must have the DC/DC always swithed on to make sure that I do not loose the charging level... Is this a known behaviour? The good thing is that the climatronic switches on when running the parking heater without ignition on, but it seems to give me no option but to always have the enging charging on during driving. Any advice?

 

[roadtripper]

Start with basic info so people can help:

What edition van do you have?

Was this a factory install originally or later conversion?

Post some pics of your install

 

[mattlun]

Start with basic info so people can help:

What edition van do you have?

Was this a factory install originally or later conversion?

Post some pics of your install S

Ah - sure!

This is a Swedish 2015 5.1 Multivan with a factory installed parking heater - Webasto Thermo Top C according to label.
There was also a factory installed leisure battery under the drivers seat with relay separation, but this is now replaced with a Lithium 150Ah battery and a Victron Orion DC/DC charger. I moved all the positive feeds from the old battery to the new, so I guess the fan/climatronic is connected to one of these.

 

[roadtripper]

And why do you turn the Orion off?

 

[mattlun]

And why do you turn the Orion off?

Good Question. The Orion has a remote on/off port and I use this with a manual switch. From my VW ID4 I have learnt to stay within 20%-80% charge and that is why I am using the switch sometimes while driving. Maybe this is not needed for a LiFePo4 leisure battery?

 

[roadtripper]

That is the ideal range for a lithium battery and certainly worth striving for, but the cycle life of a decent LiFePo is usually so high it's probably not worth the inconvenience.

Personally I'd pay more attention to limiting discharge than worrying too much about full charging. Surely the Solar will be fully charging anyway?

 

[oldiebut goodie]

Not all the year in Sweden!

 

[roadtripper]

Agreed - but if you are going all the trouble of manually engaging chargers to carefully manage the battery why only do one of the 2 chargers?