Victron / Inverter Charging Equipment

This page illustrates my inverter, alternator and battery layout / build.

One large concern with using Lithium LifePo4 batteries, is most now include a BMS (Battery Management System). (I believe that Battle Born and Victron do not). This interface, will turn off the battery if the voltage gets to low or high, the temperature gets to low or high and if the amperage draw gets to high. While on the surface this may sound good (and it is) - the system needs to be designed around this.

My Victron system is configured around the EG4 battery system capacity, so for the most part this is good.

Where things get intresting is with the Alternator. My bus has a Delco 50DN that will push 270amps at 24v. If not designed properly and the alternator is pushing a large supply of power - and then the BMS shuts the battery down - all this power will create what is called a load dump and pending the power provided - melt the alternator. After research, I found the Sterling Alternator Protection Device. Its sole purpose is to prevent a load dump from ruining the alternator and your system. If this load dump were to happen - the voltage will spike (and current drop) - the Sterling APD will dispate the load dump. Worst case scenerio the Sterling APD will burn up - but that is a much better scenerio at $80 then melting a $3k alternator and locking up engine belts.

What I am continuing to do in my videos and research, is to get information from the batteries BMS and have it communicate with the rest of my system. Currently, I have the parameters the BMS will use for shut down configured into my Victron system. For the alternator system, I found a WakeSpeed WS500 device that will control the voltage and amperage of my alternator. With this device I have entered the BMS paramenters into it, so it will work around BMS settings as well.

What I am currently working on is getting the EG4 Battery, Victron System and WS500 communicating via a CAN network. Once set up properly, the EG4's Battery BMS will talk to the Victron system and WS500, sending shut down information to each prior to doing so - so either system can shut itself down prior to the BMS shutting itself down. The BMS will also communicate its power levels - instructing the WS500 and Victron system when and how to charge the batteries.

I currently have the WS500 plugged into the Victron system - and the Victron system see's the WS500 - but the information is not correct. The version 2 of the EG4 Battery I have is now supposed to connect via CAN to the Victron system. I need to order the correct cable and then figure out the Victron settings - so more research is needed but hoping to have this completed in 2023.

Below is a wiring diagram to help explain the layout and configuration.

Below are associate links to the equipment used on my bus

Some before and after photos. We purchased the bus with (4) Outback inverters but had an issue with them syncing correctly. I rewired them in a new configuration but still had issues, so I removed them and replaced with (2) Victron Units. After my (6) 8D batteries blew up, I replaced them as well.