Thread: Traxide Issue? or DC/DC charger Issue or D4 problem

The real issue is the 9.7v not the settings. If the wiring was correct you wouldn't want it pulling any battery down to 9.7v to charge the van.

I had my own D4 and camper out over the weekend, and thought i would check how it was behaving - I had installed the same DCDC as you (non isolated), but haven't yet used it - camper is still brand new.

Anyway, I'm getting the same symptoms, and I'm putting it down to voltage drop over the cabling in the camper, particularly when the unit is starting up.

My findings:

D4 idling, voltage was reading at 14.6 at the front cig plug (cheap ebay voltmeter - take with a grain of salt), 14.55 at the rear Anderson (Traxide) and 12.7 at the DCDC input (not a typo)

The engine would audibly load up every ~20sec, which corresponded to the IID tool showing an increase of alternator amps/load. Lasted for a few seconds, then drop back to 'normal'

Whilst this was happening, the voltage at the cig plug didn't move by more than a volt (always over 13.7v), and the Anderson point at the car also barely moved. Voltage at the DCDC, both measured by the victron and my multimeter showed it dropping to sub 10v. This triggered the just-starting victron to assume the car was off, and so it would shut down.

As a fact finding mission, I could force the Victron to stay on by disabling the voltage cutout, and setting the engine sense volts super low - talking 9v now. Doing that, even with the voltage drop, I was seeing about 20A going into the battery at idle (measured using a shunt). Strangely, once the Victron was running, the volts would come back up to about 12v...

Those settings won't work in practice, as the unit now no longer sensed the engine correctly, and the DCDC happily kept charging from the traxide kit even when I shut the car off.

I dare say a successful fix for my system is two-fold - run an ignition sense wire to the car to bypass the voltage cutout guesswork, and ideally, upgrade the cabling in the camper to something less Chinese. It looks like 6 B&S, but i suspect not all cables are measured equally, and potentially it is also taking a sub-optimal path from the hitch to the battery, with more length than really needed...

Hi verbs and your first problem to solve is, as you posted, fixing the trailer cabling ( wiring ) to the house batteries.

Next, in the WHITE plug at the rear of your D4 is the FRIDGE circuit. Use this circuit to control the IGNITION sense on the DC/DC device.


BUT.

Once the trailer cabling is fixed, try bypassing the DC/DC device and you will find your house batteries will charge MUCH FASTER direct from your alternator ( via the Traxide setup )

I have heaps customers with D3s and D4s, towing caravans with as much as three 120Ah house batteries and they have no trouble charging them while driving.

Originally Posted by drivesafe

Hi verbs and your first problem to solve is, as you posted, fixing the trailer cabling ( wiring ) to the house batteries.

Next, in the WHITE plug at the rear of your D4 is the FRIDGE circuit. Use this circuit to control the IGNITION sense on the DC/DC device.


BUT.

Once the trailer cabling is fixed, try bypassing the DC/DC device and you will find your house batteries will charge MUCH FASTER direct from your alternator ( via the Traxide setup )

I have heaps customers with D3s and D4s, towing caravans with as much as three 120Ah house batteries and they have no trouble charging them while driving.

Thanks Tim,

Definitely keen to try without the DCDC, however with the batteries being Lithium, I understood the story to be a little different? Indeed my old trailer, with 210Ah of AGMs didn't have a DCDC and never looked back!

Annoyingly, I have previously removed the white socket in favour of a permanently mounted Anderson point. I don't want to undo that, so now I'm considering the euro 13-pin style to replace the black socket, and return full functionality to the back of the car. Change the plug on the trailer to enable one-plug functionality for lights as well as fridge etc.

Keeping an adapter in the boot means the occasional hired trailer can still be used without fuss.

Hi again Veeps and sorry, I did not realise you had lithium house batteries and yes, you need the DC/DC.

Thanks Veebs and Tim

I have been in a van park for a few days so it's been good to use 240v power. The weather has been so lousy I wouldn't have been getting any solar input if I was free camping.

Have not been able to get a multi-meter so will wait till I'm home. Appreciate the testing Veebs. Previously in the van I had 250 Ah of AGM. The wire from the traxide anderson plug went straight to the vans (House) batteries. They charged up perfectly. When I changed over to Lithium, I did some testing to find which was the wire to charge the vans batteries. It is a pretty decent size cable and I'm pretty sure it is a 6 B&S. Measured the diameter of the copper and counted the number of copper strands, so I'm fairly confident that there wouldn't be much voltage drop from the Anderson plug to the vans batteries.

As indicated in my first post, with engine detection cutout turned on the Orion unit seemed to have a variable input voltage 9.6 up to 13.3 volts and so was cycling the unit on and off. However, when engine cutout detection was turned off, the Orion unit recorded a steady 13.2-13.3 v as the input voltage and the orion unit continued to charge perfectly.

This makes me suspect that either the Orion unit has a glitch (I have contacted the supplier and they are happy to have the Orion unit sent back to them after I finish this trip). I don't think it's an Earthing issue or a voltage drop issue. I'll manage to get by, by disabling the engine shutdown detection. The traxide's low voltage cutout will still work and the D4's starting battery will be kept safe. It's easy with the Bluetooth monitoring of the Orion unit to turn engine shutdown detection on and off as needed.

Originally Posted by drivesafe

Hi again Veeps and sorry, I did not realise you had lithium house batteries and yes, you need the DC/DC.

Let us know when you come up with a better solution to that

The other safer option of it has it.. Turn it down from 40 amps to 20amps and see how it behaves. The lower inrush current might help the vehicle maintain a higher voltage to satisfy the charger.

I had a charger do similar on a customer dual Battery set up.. The power input didn't drop on the multimeter.. But the charger thought it did and the same issue occurred. Dry solder joint. Repaired and sent back. (It dropped a little with load, but not as much as the charger reported)