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mvader (Victron Energy) avatar image
mvader (Victron Energy) asked

Venus OS v2.65~3 available for testing

Good afternoon all!

Exciting times, a brand new version available to be field tested which has various improvements.

The most exciting one for me is that this adds an option to remotely update firmware for a VE.Bus system (MultiPlus, Quattros, etc). Which will be a tremendous time saver and helps to reduce travel and so forth in case a firmware update of the Inverter/chargers is needed. More information in the change-log below.

Next, there is nice fix for the HTML5 Marine Integration App. Anyone having Garmin, Raymarine or Navico MFDs, please test this and let us know if all works well. We tested on our setups, but we don't have all variants in screen size to our disposal.

The timeline for this release is that I'm hoping to get it all done and over with before April. Lets see how far we get with that.

This post is intended for all people participating in the Venus OS Beta test program.

Changelog v2.65~1, ~2 and ~3


HTML5 App / Marine MFD Integration

  • Improve scaling on high resolution displays: no longer show a small box in the middle and nothing around it; instead use the full screensize.


Remote firmware updates

  • Add Remote firmware updating for products connected with VE.Bus: Multis, Quattros and Inverters. Note that this is a brand new feature; and still being tested. We very much encourage you testing it as well; but then make sure do it only when (a) you're right next to the system to restart/reconfigure it in case necessary and (b) are familiar with MK3s, VEConfigure, VictronConnect and other tools and knowledge to reconfigure your inverter in case necessary. Details here.
  • Various improvements, and increase baudrate for MPPT RS updates from 19200 to 115200.


Managed batteries / DVCC / CAN-bus BMS:

  • Add user configurable maximum charge voltage override. This feature is for managed batteries such as Pylontech, BYD, Freedomwon, MG and others that are connected via CAN-bus. Normally, the battery controls the charge voltage. For newly installed batteries, there can be so much imbalance that its necessary to slowly charge them to prevent cell-overvoltage shutdowns. That is what this new setting is for: allow installers to efficiently take matters into their own hands when necessary. Right from the GX Device, no need to open VEConfigure and/or reconfigure the Solar Chargers. We do recommend to disable this setting again once everything runs normally, typically after a few days. There is a screenshot below, that shows the setting.
  • Improve the recently added CAN-bus network statistics for the Cerbo GX; in some cases the error and dropped counters increased while they shouldn't. No more.
  • Force enable DVCC for BYD BBox-L and BYD Premium batteries


GUI

  • Sort the Device list, nice for large systems! It will remain sorted also when new devices are connected while already running. Thank you @audiether for helping in this!
  • Add feature to remove a Disconnected device: in case there are disconnected devices, the option to remove them is visible at the bottom.
  • In the device-list, show the irradiation for the IMT meters, so its no longer required to go into the menu to see it.
  • Improve showing of inverter/charger "AC-in ignore" status, and move them to the submenu called Advanced; requires VE.Bus firmware 475 or later.
  • Change the default of the Adaptive brightness setting to "on". This will only affect newly produced Cerbo GX-es.
  • Improve stability on overloaded systems
  • Fix various translations


PV Inverter monitoring

  • Improve serial number and firmware version display. For Fronius, now the inverter firmware and the datamanager firmware are reported, rather than inverter only.
  • Better handle Fronius datamanagers that are slow in response due to having many PV Inverters connected to them


MPPT RS & Inverter RS

  • various improvements, both in the VE.Can driver, the VE.Direct driver as well as other related parts. But still not everything is included nor tested. I'll add a complete list of changes once its all in and tested.


ESS

  • Show warning "#49 Grid meter not found" when in case ESS is configured to work with a grid meter, while no grid meter is available.


VE.Direct communication

  • Improve how the VRM device instance number is obtained. This fixes VRM instance renumbering occurring sometimes for products such as Solar chargers or BMVs when connected via USB.


VRM Portal

  • Transmit the status of the DVCC user configurable voltage- and current-limits, for support purposes.
  • Update Ignore AC input status source


Modbus-TCP

  • Add register for the new DVCC max charge voltage setting
  • Fix registers for the inverter/charger Ignore AC-status


Conclusion

That is all for now, for any regressions (= things that used to work but no longer work since this new version) and also any other possible bugs, welcome to post as an Answer below.


Have a good day! Matthijs


Ps. Various screenshots of the new functionality:


New user configurable max charge voltage override

1614941632074.png


IMT Irradiance information in the Device List

1614941690659.png

Ignore AC input status

1614942280820.png


Multi or Quattro showing in the FW Update List

1614942981314.png


First "Are you sure?" popup when updating a Multi or Quattro

1614942339233.png

Venus OS
1614941632074.png (44.3 KiB)
1614941690659.png (47.8 KiB)
1614942257019.png (37.4 KiB)
1614942280820.png (37.2 KiB)
1614942339233.png (99.9 KiB)
1614942981314.png (47.0 KiB)
4 comments
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Kevin Windrem avatar image Kevin Windrem commented Ā·

Is there a Raspberry Pi 4 build for v2.65~3 available?

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mvader (Victron Energy) avatar image mvader (Victron Energy) ā™¦ā™¦ Kevin Windrem commented Ā·

No not yet. v2.60 branches donā€™t include rpi4.

But Iā€™ll be making new Venus OS large builds soon; thats for now the only place for rpi4

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nickdb avatar image nickdb ā™¦ā™¦ commented Ā·

Matthijs, great news on the remote updates.

Just a pity VE configure is still required, that makes it tough for us Mac users.

Are there plans to be able to do the config work natively in the web platform?

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mvader (Victron Energy) avatar image mvader (Victron Energy) ā™¦ā™¦ nickdb ā™¦ā™¦ commented Ā·

Hi Nick, yes thats a pity; but I dont see any solution for that coming anytime soon for these product ranges.


Perhaps, someday, we can do these remote settings with VictronConnect.

Just like to route towards mac and other platforms is VictronConnect: more and more features can be done with that. Such as the recently released split-, parallel and three phase setting with that.


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3 Answers
Mark avatar image
Mark answered Ā·

6419d7b0-9387-426b-bfd1-cbeefc8788e4.png

Unable to update remotely to latest version!


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mvader (Victron Energy) avatar image mvader (Victron Energy) ā™¦ā™¦ commented Ā·

Hi Mark, maybe you have a too old CCGX? Did you check the linked draft manual and requirements?

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n-dee avatar image
n-dee answered Ā·

Is this firmwareupdate also usable with 3-phase system?

I'm using 6x Multiplus II 5000 (3x2)

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mvader (Victron Energy) avatar image mvader (Victron Energy) ā™¦ā™¦ commented Ā·

Hi! yes, it is.

As explained, be prepared for a failure :-) - (though we tested it quite extensively already).


and better wait a few hours: Iā€™ll have a newer version of v2.65 available which has various stability improvements wrt this new fw update featue

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mvader (Victron Energy) avatar image mvader (Victron Energy) ā™¦ā™¦ mvader (Victron Energy) ā™¦ā™¦ commented Ā·

hi, new version online now - see new post. have a good evening.

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hummingbear avatar image
hummingbear answered Ā·

@mvader (Victron Energy) Really glad to see the update for the instance numbering, been wanting this for a long time!

I grab MQTT data from the Venus device, will this change how I reference the instance? Will it try keep the instance number the same now?

For example I get the charge controller charge state over mqtt from `N/{id}/solarcharger/289/State`

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mvader (Victron Energy) avatar image mvader (Victron Energy) ā™¦ā™¦ commented Ā·

Hey @hummingbear, welcome! it shouldnt change. The process works like this: on startup/connection Venus OS check if it already has a reserved instance for the specified bmv/solarcharger/inverter/etc serialnumber .


if it has, it will use that.


if not it will try to reserve a prefered one: and which one is determined using the same logic that we had before. In your case resulting in 290 by the looks of it.

And then it will use that.


on next boot, it will get the 290 immediately from the reserved list.


if ever you disconnect this one, and connect a new charger with other serial number, it will get another number. Since 290 is already reserved for the other serial number.


that explains it?

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hummingbear avatar image hummingbear mvader (Victron Energy) ā™¦ā™¦ commented Ā·

Thank you, appreciate the explanation. This morning after I did my update I noticed that all the devices switched instance numbers. I was able to re-plug them in at a specific order and then they were assigned the correct instance number (this is what I usually had to do in the past)

I'm concerned that maybe it has a the wrong instance number for some of my devices. Where is that data stored on the pi/venus (wondering if I can confirm/edit the file to make sure it's correct)

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mvader (Victron Energy) avatar image mvader (Victron Energy) ā™¦ā™¦ hummingbear commented Ā·

/data/conf/settings.xml.


you can can also browse it with dbus-spy, and then go to the com.victronenergy.settings entry.

What I expect is that no matter how you plug it, each ve direct device always gets the same instance

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hummingbear avatar image hummingbear mvader (Victron Energy) ā™¦ā™¦ commented Ā·

I'll take a look, thank you!

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mvader (Victron Energy) avatar image mvader (Victron Energy) ā™¦ā™¦ hummingbear commented Ā·

Hey H. As all other issues on this Q&A are closed Iā€™ll lock it. For more on these instances please ask in the latest one - if needed. Thanks!

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