Renogy DC to DC Charger 12V 60A Lifepo4 Battery Charger - On-Board Marine/RV/Boat & Car Battery Chargers for AGM, Gel, Flooded, Lithium - Multi-Stage Smart Charging

Read some bad reviews on this but have ran Renogy DC/DC for years (get new ones when I upgrade or change vehicles) and never had one problem.

This charger is for my pickup bed/camper and charges a lithium battery. The power supply is isolated from the starter battery. This charger is set up to isolate itself from the starter battery. I didn’t read carefully about the two wires that appeared to be optional. They’re described in the manual and one is required. When the charger wouldn’t charge and I read instructions more carefully, I discovered the unit required connection with one of those little wires to a power source only on when the ignition was on. I made a wire, plugged it in the appropriate slot (requires a very small blade screwdriver) and connected it to the already isolated positive power wire input to the charger. Started the engine and the battery said it was charging at 20 amps. Perfect! The second little wire allows you to charge at 10 amps. I’m adding rocker switches to these wires so I can turn them on or off easily. There is a warning about using this charger around flammable fumes so I want to easily turn it off when hauling fuel.

I installed the device correctly with the ignition wire that only turns on the device when the engine is running. I talked with renogy twice and we confirmed all the connections were perfect.. This device continued to drain my starter battery and it was also popping 100 amp in line fuses between the starter battery and the DC charger, as I have braided 4AWG going from the starter battery to this charger per the manual. renogy tried to tell me that my starter battery was no good. I informed them that if my starter battery was not providing enough electricity the Red fault light would be on, which is one of the design outputs of their DC charger, per thier manual. I also explained to them if there’s not enough electricity coming from the starter battery it’s not going to pop 100 amp breaker repeatedly when i'm driving. i am military and I called back to duty after i bought this charger so I couldn’t install this until three months after I bought it. amazon they said there’s no return option available. I noticed on the 40 amp charger. They did an upgrade which is an automatic alternator checker so I think this problem is well known. UPDATE: I contacted Renogy 10 days ago and they asked for photos of my installation of the charger which was done per the manual. I informed them the device failed right out of the box. I sent the photos in and they said it would be 24-48hr and i haven’t heard from them after 10 days. I then called them and was transferred many times and received the run around. they are now asking for me to conduct resistance testing on thier own device not connected to anything and to test my starter battery. they said if they’re happy with these results, they’ll send me a return authorization for me to send the device back to them. They will test it and either send it back to me or send another device back to me. This whole process will take many many weeks. so ridiculous. I have no faith in their device now. I’ve never had a company ask me to do electrical tests on their own device to ensure that it works before i can return it to them.

Does exactly what I got it for! Install is very simple. I like the terminal design, very secure connections for my wire lugs. Not all lugs will fit in here, but I have found that most 4awg lugs that I purchased in a kit from another Amazon seller have fit perfectly in this device. When others haven't fit, I've been able to cut to size. I noticed that manu reviewers say it runs hot. Mine is definitely warm to the touch when charging at 60a, but I wouldn't say it is hot and I certainly wouldn't worry about the heat generated from the device creating a fire or burn hazard. I've run run this baby now daily for about 1 week and am very happy with this product. I would purchase again and highly recommend this unit!

Update 1/5/23: Renogy support reached out to me to follow up on my review below. The bluetooth issues I mentioned were likely due to my old phone (I had an iPhone X at the time). I recently upgraded to the latest iPhone 14, and no longer have any issues. After several months of use, the charger appears to now correctly disconnect after shutting the engine down. I don't really know what changed (update, different battery voltages, etc), but this appears to no longer be an issue for me. I did end up installing a high amp disconnect switch on the starter battery connection (something everyone should probably do as a backup), so I can manually disconnect it if I don't want charging to happen in either direction. Renogy support was fantastic, thank you Daniel for all your help. I'm adding a star to my overall review as a result. If the cut-in/cut-out voltages were able to be customized, this would easily be a 5 star product. -------------------------------------------- Original Review: Pros: Setup is pretty easy, anderson connectors are nice to work with. No need for a signal wire if you have a traditional alternator, so wiring is super straightforward. Bi-directional charging works well, kept my house lithiums charged while driving, and my starter battery is always topped up now since I have access to shore power, solar, or generator depending on situation. Cons: $500 is way too high for what you get, Renogy app is clunky and requires weird workarounds to reconnect bluetooth, the cut-in/cut out voltages are not optimized for lithium house batteries (even on lithium mode). I'll try and elaborate on the cons mentioned above: The charging logic for maintaining the starter battery is not ideal if you have house lithiums. Per Renogy's manual: "The auxiliary battery will charge the starter battery only when the voltage of the auxiliary battery is greater than 12.7V". This is ok if your house batteries are AGM/Flooded with lower resting voltages, but for lithiums 12.7V is really low, and I don't really want it to continue pulling energy from the house batteries in that state. Unfortunately, this isn't one of the parameters you can adjust in Renogy's app either. The equivalent Sterling charger (BB1240) has this level set at 13.5V when you have a lithium setup which seems like a much more reasonable cutoff to me. My actual testing confirmed that this was the case, it continued to charge the starter battery from the house batteries even when the voltages hit 12.9/12.8. Also, the house battery charging cut-in happens when the starter battery hits 13.5V+ (after a 15 second delay). This works great, the 15 second delay lets energy spikes that come from starting your engine settle before engaging the charger, and 13.5V is a good starting measure. However once charging starts, the cut-off voltage for charging your house batteries from the alternator/starter battery is (again) 12.7V, and it is another parameter that you can't change. I find that when we shut our sprinter down, the starter battery tends to stay around 12.8V or 12.9V for a while resting. This, unfortunately, leaves the rego in charge mode, and it will continue to attempt charging your house batteries directly from the starter battery. I noticed this because I went back and hit the main disconnect switch for our house batteries, and the rego continued to power the whole system for a while using just the starter battery 😬. So, if you plan on installing this I would recommend a high-amp disconnect switch on the input side. I found the Renogy DC Home app clunky to work with too. Bluetooth would disconnect the second I let the screen dim, and it would not reconnect to the dc/dc charger until I navigated all the way back to the main screen and hit refresh. Renogy, if you are listening, this would be SO MUCH MORE USEFUL If we could tweak the cut-in/cut-out voltages in user mode to better match our setup (or at least tweak them to actually match the battery type you have selected).

I installed these units to charge the 2x 600ah battery bank(s) shown above. My instalation draws power from a 250 amp engine alternator. The charging units have primary input and output hookups of solid metal with machine screws to secure the wires. They also have 2x additional wire inputs. One wire input activates the unit, it will not charge untill voltage is applied to the "D+" terminal. This allows it to fuction as a battery isolator relay, whereby it wont charge untill its told to by the activation wire. It also has a second activation wire for a 50% power mode. This knocks the charging amperage down to 30 amps, and I highly reccomend wireing this lead to a toggle switch. I installed 2x units and found that a 250 amp alternator cannot power more than one of these at idle engine speed. At highway speed and higher rpm, I can run both units at 60 amps. but at night time with all lights on in the RV, I can only run one at 60 amps and the other at 50% power without overdrawing the alternator. The installation instructions indicate that they "may draw upto" 90 amps, but upon installation i havnt seen more than 65 amps. I installed 2 of these units which is kinda crazy, i did it by isolating two battery banks with a giant diode array, in the form of a battery isolator diode set installed "upside down" on the negative terminal side. but take note that a 250 amp alternator can barely power both of them when tacked ontop of the other electrical load for the RV. Installing one unit with a common 130-150 amp alternator it would be advised to install the amperage reduction function to avoid overtaxing the alternator at low engine rpm. The units have internal cooling cans that SUCK AIR from the electrical input side, and EXPEL AIR on the electrical output side. This information is only apparent AFTER installation, so ill include it here. 2 gauge cable worked fine. to install the activation leads, unscrew the tiny screw above the wiring opening, insert the wire, then tighten the screw. This information is not included in the instructions so i include it here. Since you will probibly wire the activation lead to turn the unit on whenever the engine is running, advise installing an interupt switch for that lead, or a giant battery disconnect switch for the voltage input as I did.

I've used this almost a year now and pretty happy. I use the custom settings to charge a 400 AH lithium battery bank. Pros: - Easy to install - Seems to work reliably - Runs cool - Connections are Anderson PP75 “Powerpoles” which I liked and are way better than typical screw terminals Cons: - The software, as typical for Renogy, makes little sense. The Bluetooth app screens are somewhat nonsensical and frustrating - but - it does work for the basics, at least on my iPhone - Big giant external rotating selection switch makes me afraid I will nudge it by accident. I may pour epoxy on it. - Missing some important settings - Missing a way to disable reverse charging for some circumstances (so I just thrown the breaker I installed) - Big and Heavy Overall I have to give it 5 stars. It works, and Renogy for now has the ONLY bidirectional DC-DC charger which is the big attraction for me.

The item is great. I use it in my car to power a car refrigerator. It’s very stable, and I’ve been using it continuously. Very good.