A hot topic
It turned out that our Victron Orions placed in the engine room don’t like the warm environment. We were getting warning notifications on our Cerbo GX, the controller that orchestrates the complete charging system on the boat, that it was overheating.
More power
We were keen to maximise the amount of power we were taking out of the alternator and pumping in to the lithium battery bank and so a secondary Orion DC to DC converter was the solution. But we still had the issue of the overheating and given the second Orion was also being placed in the engine room to minimise cable runs from the alternator to the battery terminals.
The cooling solution
It turns out that this is a common problem and happily, engineers with a smarter mind than ours have already found a solution. An internet search revealed a cooling fan mount and a link to the fans its was designed around that could be bought from Temo.
Our good friend and excellent engineer Mel Klopper has mastered 3D printing and so we asked him to print two for us.
Fitting and wiring
The next question was how to wire the fans in, however we knew that we already had a cooling solution in the engine compartment by way of a fan that draws air in to the engine compartment when it reaches a certain temperature. It was just a case of wiring these low power 12v fans in to the same connections as the main cooling fan.
Success
Since the installation we’ve never had a warning notification and the fans continue to do their job.
