Cerbo GX Digital inputs - Pulse counter not supported?

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raymiller asked Sep 20, '21

Cerbo GX Digital inputs - Pulse counter not supported?

I'm updating my Venus GX to Cerbo GX so it will now support a battery BMS and VE. can bus.

The Cerbo GX manual, section 12.1 Configuration Note for Digital inputs, "Pulse Meter is not supported in Cerbo GX." then give examples of configuring to "pulse"

What does this mean? I can configure all D1-4 as "pulse", and they do seem to count (sometimes) when I earth the Digital inputs - 3.3 Volts but not all pulses are counted.

It would appear if ground pulses are occurring in under many seconds between pulses the pulse counter is not incremented? Is this the correct operation?

What is the minimum ground pulse width needed for the pulse counter to count reliability?

Why the lack of backward compatibility in the more advanced and powerful Cerbo GX?

I used the pulse counter on the Venus GX to record water meter flows and rainfall (tipping bucket) which do not work reliably now on the Cerbo GX which is the replacement for the Venus GX. Can this be fixed?

If the Cerbo GX manual could be a bit more technically specific on the accepted pulse width for the reliable operation of the pulse counter would be much appreciated.

cerbo gx Venus GX - VGX

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Answer 1 · 2021-09-20T06:34:06Z

mvader (Victron Energy) answered · Sep 20, 2021 at 06:34 AM

Hi Raymiller, indeed it can not do pulse counting.

In all honesty, its an oversight early in the design; which was then accepted since its a feature thats only used very rarely.

The next update of the Cerbo GX, in stock in year orso from now, (can be longer) will have pulse counting functional again.

Matthijs

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jjbond commented · May 29, 2023 at 08:54 PM

Wow, no update in years, several posts like this "yea we're working on it" and never an update... What is the current status on being able to integrate a well pump flow / pulse meter into the Cerbo environment? You said in a year or so it would be possible, it's been 2, status please???? Please answer the person's question about if it's a hardware or a software restriction, will we need to buy new Cerbo's to get back the function we lost by moving to Cerbo from Venus????

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Answer 2 · 2021-09-21T20:07:28Z

raymiller answered · Sep 21, 2021 at 08:07 PM

Thanks for the explanation.

Are you meaning the current pulse counting limitation in the current Cerbo GX is hardware or software?

Why I ask the question is that the digital inputs do pulse count, but as I found out if the pulses are too short in duration say < 800ms they are all but ignored.

My solution is to add a 555 timer circuit to the one input which is the major problem to extend the pulse width to around 1 second. (yet to be implemented)

While talking about digital inputs interfacing microcontrollers; as the inputs interface the outside world and can have a range of failure modes, could some consideration be made to the programming to make it not only more fault-tolerant but diagnostic, i.e. being able to set the window of acceptable signal in logic to report out of tolerance inputs? As we know contacts bounce, short circuits happen and intermittent or variable resistance i.e. water ingress into the wiring.

Many thanks, regards from Australia

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Answer 3 · 2022-08-28T06:51:09Z

chuff answered · Aug 28, 2022 at 06:51 AM

hi, is the pulse counter now available in the cerbo GX ? Production version???

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mvader (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented · Aug 28, 2022 at 08:48 AM

Hi @chuff , no, its not; sorry. I don’t know yet when that version will make production.

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rlynch03 mvader (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented · Sep 30, 2022 at 12:26 AM

Not sure if this task is considered a Pulse Meter need but... We would like to monitor how often the Heads Cycle. When it does cycle it will send a signal for approx 15 seconds. Can the Cerbo Track these cycles either with a Digital or Analog input? I understand I will need to use a OptoCoupler to drop the voltage to 5v range. If that works are you able to set auto reset back to zero at certain time frames?

Thank you

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Answer 4 · 2023-05-29T20:53:50Z

jjbond answered · May 29, 2023 at 08:53 PM

Wow, no update in years, several posts like this "yea we're working on it" and never an update... What is the current status on being able to integrate a well pump flow / pulse meter into the Cerbo environment?

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