Which victron DC to DC to buy?
- Thread starter sipep
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- dc - dc charger victron
Give us some clues as to what your system is:
- What capacity of leisure battery?
- What type of battery?
- Are you intending to add solar?
- Do you want, or intend to upgrade your storage?
If you are investing time and money putting in all this kit it would make sense to go with LiFePo if you can, you'll get twice the usable capacity as you can use nearly all of the charge whereas a lead acid will start to be damaged if you drop below 50%
I have a huge amount of money going out ATM.. poptop etc.. I'll need to get the mid range solutions
Keep in mind when pricing up that 100ah AGM == 50ah LiFePo.
Those are not silly money anymore
For example these are all around the £170 mark, in fact the LiFePo are slightly cheaper:
uk.eco-worthy.com
uk.renogy.com
Compared with a good brand AGM:
www.tayna.co.uk
They're also a lot smaller than the equivalent AGM so easier to fit, and the decent brands you can fit a second later in parallel if you find you need more.
Those are not silly money anymore
For example these are all around the £170 mark, in fact the LiFePo are slightly cheaper:
12V 50Ah LiFePO4 Battery | Deep Cycle & 10-Year Life
Trust in our 12V 50Ah LiFePO4 Battery to deliver over 3000+ deep cycles and power your caravan or marine craft for years
uk.eco-worthy.com
12V 50Ah Core Series Deep Cycle Lithium Iron Phosphate Battery
Trust Renogy for all your off-grid solar panel system needs. Simply add the Rigid Solar Panels, Foldable Solar Suitcases, curated Solar Kits, Charge Controllers and the Mounts to cart to save!
uk.renogy.com
LA95 Varta Professional Dual Purpose AGM Leisure Battery 840 095 085
LA95 VARTA Professional Dual Purpose AGM Leisure Battery <i>Innovation with Purpose, Premium Experience, Powerful History</i> VARTA was founded in 1887 Germany, and was established fully in 1904 by delivering the first electric vehicle battery, famously driven by Thomas Edison. Soon after, VARTA...
www.tayna.co.uk
They're also a lot smaller than the equivalent AGM so easier to fit, and the decent brands you can fit a second later in parallel if you find you need more.
Keep in mind when pricing up that 100ah AGM == 50ah LiFePo.
Those are not silly money anymore
For example these are all around the £170 mark, in fact the LiFePo are slightly cheaper:
12V 50Ah LiFePO4 Battery | Deep Cycle & 10-Year Life
Trust in our 12V 50Ah LiFePO4 Battery to deliver over 3000+ deep cycles and power your caravan or marine craft for yearsCompared with a good brand AGM:12V 50Ah Core Series Deep Cycle Lithium Iron Phosphate Battery
Trust Renogy for all your off-grid solar panel system needs. Simply add the Rigid Solar Panels, Foldable Solar Suitcases, curated Solar Kits, Charge Controllers and the Mounts to cart to save!
LA95 Varta Professional Dual Purpose AGM Leisure Battery 840 095 085
LA95 VARTA Professional Dual Purpose AGM Leisure Battery <i>Innovation with Purpose, Premium Experience, Powerful History</i> VARTA was founded in 1887 Germany, and was established fully in 1904 by delivering the first electric vehicle battery, famously driven by Thomas Edison. Soon after, VARTA...
They're also a lot smaller than the equivalent AGM so easier to fit, and the decent brands you can fit a second later in parallel if you find you need more.
That 50% rule gets trotted out a lot on this forum, and you can see where it came from historically, but the pure "100aH AGM == 50Ah LifePo" is not actually true with any half-decent modern LA battery. I've explained this before in this post:
Lithium LifePo4 12v Batteries - Time For An Upgrade?
I've got a factory fitted leisure battery under the factory swivel base so the base seat battery looks really good as an upgrade, but is it as simple as just swapping them, and do I need to worry about leaving permanently in the van? I've got a factory fitted leisure battery under the factory...
The OP has made it very clear that budget is a prime consideration, so an AGM is the most obvious contender unless his power requirements specifically demand a lithium.
Depends on how heavy you are using your battery, and the OP hasn't indicated how much they are using it.
The 50% rule certainly does count if the bank is in heavy use. On the narrowboat we used to have to replace 4 x 110aH batteries in under 2 years before we had the gauge fitted, now it's been 4 years and they are still going strong. Granted that bank is being taken down by heavy use 6 days a week for most of the year but it does have an effect. If you're running the battery close to low every night you are away using a CPAP machine for instance that might be a consideration.
The 50% rule certainly does count if the bank is in heavy use. On the narrowboat we used to have to replace 4 x 110aH batteries in under 2 years before we had the gauge fitted, now it's been 4 years and they are still going strong. Granted that bank is being taken down by heavy use 6 days a week for most of the year but it does have an effect. If you're running the battery close to low every night you are away using a CPAP machine for instance that might be a consideration.
Are you planning to be off grid more or mostly on EHU?
@sipep With winter coming up and a few months of not needing to spend major money (after that pop top), try and somehow afford a Roamer 230Ah under seat battery. We use a 200Ah Roamer and have had no battery anxiety with that being pumped up by a 180 Watt solar panel. You would genuinely have no future worries about upgrading one of those. No worries about running it down to empty, not that I think you ever would just doing a couple of nights away. Roamer are a great company to deal with, with help at the end of an email or phone. Beg, borrow, steal to get one of those. Wholeheartedly recommended by quite a few on here, including the legend that is @Dellmassive !
The good news is that's a completely standard setup in terms of power requirements, you're not going to need anything very extreme. If it was me, I'd go with an AGM battery with a DC-DC that's expandable to lithium and with a solar input if possible. Adding a solar panel at some point would give you a lot more flexibility if you do venture into more extended off-grid trips.
It's worth looking around at other DC-DC options than the Victron Orion though, that unit is a weird weak spot in their, otherwise good, lineup because it's very inefficient with the result that it gets extremely hot and so needs good ventilation. You could consider votronic, ctek and renogy units too.
So the question really is do you want to run extreme 240v loads such as a cooker or a heater.
Because if you are trying to keep a lid on the budget then given a mid range DC-DC core system you could probably spend the same amount of money on a decent EHU setup + charger OR expand your core system for longer runtime and solar.
Both will work, but only the EHU will run extreme 240v heating type loads if you want to do that over the winter.
However you mention you are fitting a diesel heater so I'd verge towards a 12v centric system with solar if you can.
Invest well in the stuff that's hard to change. If you want to go AGM I would recommend making sure any chargers you put in are lithium compatible. To be honest most are these days, just don't put one of the old school "all in one" EHU systems in like a Sergeant. They have a built in lead acid only charger that would be a pain to work around in the future (see various threads of folks trying to upgrade)
Okay , this sounds like my direction. I need to look for something that can be expanded in the future for solar.
I don’t have experience with that one, although I’m sure someone here will. A fair few people use the Renogy judging by some of the threads here?
The CTEK has some quirks when used for lithium found by @Dellmassive you should be aware of. I don't think that impact's it's use in AGM.
If solar is a future expansion you could add an MPPT controller at that point. Victron's has a good reputation and isn't massive.
If solar is a future expansion you could add an MPPT controller at that point. Victron's has a good reputation and isn't massive.
Renogy 12V 50A DC-DC On-board Battery Charger with BT2 Bluetooth Module set, Smart Battery Charger with MPPT suitable for Gel, AGM, and Lithium Batteries in RVs, Cars, Boats, Yachts https://amzn.eu/d/6GJzCfj
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