Issue with VE.can MPPT and NMEA2000

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question

fguiot asked Sep 4, '23

Issue with VE.can MPPT and NMEA2000

Hi all, Hope someone can really help sorting out this issue :

I'm struggling connecting a Cerbo GX + VE.Can MPPT's to my NMEA2000 network.

The NMEA 2000 network is correctly wired with 2x terminators at each end of the bus and working happily without Victron in the ecosystem. The issue is when I'm adding Victron to the NMEA 2000 bus.

I'm monitoring the NMEA 2000 bus from the Garmin GPSMap and also with the Cerbo GX.

When connecting only the Cerbo GX to the network (no MPPT attached), all is fine, I have no issue at all and the Cerbo GX Network Status page (Settings/Services/VE.Can port) is happy with no errors.

As soon as I'm adding one MPPT in the NMEA bus, I'm getting load of errors, dropped packets, Bus off, Bus Warning, etc...

And the result is that I get communication errors between the autopilot and the GPSMap for example.

Connecting only Cerbo GX and MPPT together via VE.Can port doesn't show any errors on the Network status page, and Venus OS correctly reports MPPT status and informations.

So I suspect the MPPT regulator itself is not NMEA compliant. I have tried a second MPPT regulator with same results.

The MPPT are 150/70 VE.Can models, running the latest to date Firmware.

I tried both Cerbo GX version 2.92 and version 3.00 with same results.

thanks in advance for your advice.

MPPT Controllers VE.Can NMEA 2000 - N2K

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Answer 1 · 2023-09-04T10:34:46Z

Here is what I get from the console just one minute or so after connecting the MPPT to the NMEA2K:

root@einstein:~# ip -s -d link show can0

5: can0: <NOARP,UP,LOWER_UP,ECHO> mtu 16 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP mode DEFAULT group default qlen 100

link/can promiscuity 0 minmtu 0 maxmtu 0

can state ERROR-WARNING (berr-counter tx 242 rx 0) restart-ms 100

bitrate 250000 sample-point 0.875

tq 250 prop-seg 6 phase-seg1 7 phase-seg2 2 sjw 1

sun4i_can: tseg1 1..16 tseg2 1..8 sjw 1..4 brp 1..64 brp-inc 1

clock 24000000

re-started bus-errors arbit-lost error-warn error-pass bus-off

925 198056 0 1128 201 925 numtxqueues 1 numrxqueues 1 gso_max_size 65536 gso_max_segs 65535

RX: bytes packets errors dropped overrun mcast

712709908 89091068 198073 0 17 0

TX: bytes packets errors dropped carrier collsns

579593336 72449367 0 925 0 0

root@einstein:~# grep '.*' /sys/class/net/can0/statistics/*

/sys/class/net/can0/statistics/collisions:0

/sys/class/net/can0/statistics/multicast:0

/sys/class/net/can0/statistics/rx_bytes:712766802

/sys/class/net/can0/statistics/rx_compressed:0

/sys/class/net/can0/statistics/rx_crc_errors:0

/sys/class/net/can0/statistics/rx_dropped:0

/sys/class/net/can0/statistics/rx_errors:199569

/sys/class/net/can0/statistics/rx_fifo_errors:0

/sys/class/net/can0/statistics/rx_frame_errors:0

/sys/class/net/can0/statistics/rx_length_errors:0

/sys/class/net/can0/statistics/rx_missed_errors:0

/sys/class/net/can0/statistics/rx_nohandler:0

/sys/class/net/can0/statistics/rx_over_errors:17

/sys/class/net/can0/statistics/rx_packets:89098196

/sys/class/net/can0/statistics/tx_aborted_errors:930

/sys/class/net/can0/statistics/tx_bytes:579596416

/sys/class/net/can0/statistics/tx_carrier_errors:0

/sys/class/net/can0/statistics/tx_compressed:0

/sys/class/net/can0/statistics/tx_dropped:930

/sys/class/net/can0/statistics/tx_errors:0

/sys/class/net/can0/statistics/tx_fifo_errors:0

/sys/class/net/can0/statistics/tx_heartbeat_errors:0

/sys/class/net/can0/statistics/tx_packets:72449752

/sys/class/net/can0/statistics/tx_window_errors:0

Answer 2 · 2023-09-05T10:53:35Z

urbansk answered · Sep 05, 2023 at 10:53 AM

I have the same problem and newer got a solution from Vitron!

https://community.victronenergy.com/questions/133949/connecting-smartsolar-15070-vecan-to-nmea-200-neto.html

I ended up installing a N2K bridge device:

https://www.yachtd.com/products/nmea_bridge.html

/Urban

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fguiot commented · Sep 05, 2023 at 02:13 PM

@UrbanSk thanks for taking the time to reply. I feel less alone... :-)

@Victron, can you please have a look on what is going on here with the MPPT?

It would be petty to have to add a gateway for fixing this issue. Please...

Cheers

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Answer 3 · 2023-09-06T08:49:52Z

fguiot answered · Sep 06, 2023 at 08:49 AM

I'm not sure if Victron people are looking after all this community discussions.

Should I open an official support ticket, and BTW what is the procedure?

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urbansk commented · Sep 13, 2023 at 11:08 AM

I opened a ticket with Victron Europe but it did not reach the correct authority/people within Victron and ended up with them sending me a new unit with the same problem. If you open a ticket I hope it gets the attention it needs from the right people at Victron. Greetings, Urban

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Answer 4 · 2023-09-06T09:00:45Z

nickdb answered · Sep 06, 2023 at 09:00 AM

Have you followed the instructions in the Cerbo GX manual about connecting NMEA devices and the GX to a NMEA network?

https://www.victronenergy.com/upload/documents/Cerbo_GX/140558-CCGX__Venus_GX__Cerbo_GX__Cerbo-S_GX_Manual-pdf-en.pdf

screenshot-2023-09-06-at-105913.png (328.2 KiB)

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fguiot commented · Sep 06, 2023 at 03:29 PM

@nickdb Yes indeed. And all my tests tends to demonstrate there is a bug or an issue with NMEA2000 support on the MPPT side only. The Cerbo GX works very nicely with he existing NMEA2K network as long as I do not attach a MPPT.

BTW, this doc shows that the MPPT is not NMEA 2000 certified.

Is there anyone here that successfully managed to connect VE.can MPPT to their NMEA bus without any issue?

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capture-decran-2023-09-06-a-170643.png (167.9 KiB)

Answer 5 · 2023-09-06T16:21:52Z

Justin Cook answered · Sep 06, 2023 at 04:21 PM

To be clear, are you trying to connect the MPPT directly to your NMEA backbone or are you, as designed, connecting the MPPT to the Cerbo and the Cerbo to the backbone? The wording of your post makes me think you're trying to do the former, which would explain the issue.

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Answer 6 · 2023-09-11T05:21:35Z

fguiot answered · Sep 11, 2023 at 05:21 AM

@Justin Cook - Bay Marine Supply USA the goal is to connect both Cerbo GX and the mppt to the NMEA2K network so I can play with Signal-k and other cool stuff with cerbo GX.

And indeed for troubleshooting purpose I connected only the MPPT to the NMEA 2K network and it demonstrated they are the culprit. I did the test again this WE. As they transmit very few data (one PNG?) I tend to think the issue is not at protocol level but more at electrical level or timing level.

I hope someone from Victron will have a look at some point. This is ultra esay to reproduce.

Alternatively, as suggested by another person here I introduce a NMEA bridge (YDNB-07) but that's 250$ for fixing something supposed to work out of the box :-(

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Justin Cook ♦♦ commented · Sep 11, 2023 at 03:46 PM

The easiest "out of the box" method is to connect the MPPT to the Cerbo, and the Cerbo to the backbone; did you try that without any issue? I know the VE.Can to NMEA 2000 cable is an alternative for connecting the MPPT straight to the backbone (if supported) but it seems, since you already have a Cerbo, to be a needlessly complex solution.

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fguiot Justin Cook ♦♦ commented · Sep 11, 2023 at 04:44 PM

Yes that was my very first setup.

So I had the NMEA2K -> Cerbo GX -> MPPT

then I tried with multiple NMEA adapters:

NMEA2K -> Cerbo GX

NMEA2K -> MPPT

As long as the MPPT is connected (either directly with its on cable or to the Cerbo) the NMEA bus gets "corrupted".

This is a very simple setup that Victron can easily reproduce: few NMEA devices in the backbone + adding Cerbo and MPPT. They will see that the MPPT is generating some bus errors.

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Answer 7 · 2023-09-20T17:35:21Z

tigrecito answered · Sep 20, 2023 at 05:35 PM

I have no issues with connecting my mppt (smartsolar 75/15) to nmea... at least it doesn´t break my nmea network.

My setup is: BMV and MPPT are connected via ve.direct cable to the cerbo gx. Cerbo is connected via ve.can cable to NMEA. Just to clarify, what are your ve.can port settings? did you remove the fuse of the cable? do you only have your normal nmea terminators or do you also use the cerbo gx terminators (you shouldn´t)? have your devices a current firmware?

best, tig

EDIT: By the way, I have another ussue with that. my BMV and my MPPT are both sending battery.0 and 1 to NMEA network. which results in mixing up values from mppt and bmv at nmea display.. (I opened a thread for that)

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Answer 8 · 2024-01-16T20:15:32Z

dougkimmerly answered · Jan 16 at 08:15 PM

I am having this exact issue with the same devices SmartSolar MPPT 150/70's I have 4 of them.

Daisy chained MPPT1-MPPT2-LynxShunt-MPPT3-MPPT4-Cerbo then VE.Can-NMEA cable into a drop on the NMEA network. As soon as you plug it in the communication voltage drops from 1.8v to 1.2v and you start seeing network errors. (you can still see data on the NMEA network but lots of errors.

Remove the MPPT's and it all works fine LynxShunt-Cerbo-NMEAdrop all good. As soon as you add one of the MPPT's to the chain voltage drops again.

I know this is not the recommended way of connecting these devices so I tried to plug them in individually using the VE.Can-NMEA cable.

Cerbo - NMEA no problem

LynxShunt - NMEA no problem

Any of the MPPT 150/70 - NMEA immediate voltage drop.

There is something in the connection of VE.Can that leaks voltage from the NMEA network. I even tried making my own VE.Can-NMEA cable connecting only the two communication wires in case there was leakage in the cable with the other power wires. No luck still the same.

It is a fault inside the box and needs to be fixed by Victron.

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Answer 9 · 2024-04-05T10:32:45Z

gavincondon answered · Apr 05 at 10:32 AM

Same issue here, two MPPT connected to Cerbo, Cerbo to NMEA2k, works fine, but slowly devices start having connection issues to my GPSMAP.

contacted Victron and they direct me to my place of purchase

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