UPDATE 2019-10-11: Earlier I wrote that one can now set input current limit *and* control on/off/charger only with a VE.Bus BMS, but thats wrong: input current limit works. Changing between on/off/charger only is still not possible for installations having a VE.Bus BMS. Apologies!

Hello all!

Its been a while, but we've not disappeared ;o). This is the first time to make v2.40 available for testing. It brings lots of changes and features, a few large and many small ones. There are several gems in there. For example that now shore current limit can be set for systems with a VE.Bus BMS (yeah!). Also it simplifies installing a system with a BYD battery by setting the DVCC and SVS config options automatically as well as forcing them in the known good position. And F I N A L L Y: it transmits data out on the NMEA2000 network. For now, it transmits battery monitor data. Inverter/charger data will follow asap. And then many many more changes. Better first get a cup of tea of coffee and then sit and read.

I must say that for many of below I had a hard time writing them down in a concise manner, if you see any improvements on the text, welcome to post below. It will all end up into the official changelog & blog post.

Lastly, if you don't know what this post is about: this is about our GX Product range, and this post is aimed at all the members of the Beta test group. See this information on how to join (and leave) that group is here.

Enjoy the testing. If you see any issues, please post below. Thank you.

Matthijs

Change log

Inverter/charger monitoring & control

• Better support systems with a VE.Bus BMS. It used to be impossible to control the input current limit on a GX Device. Now, as long as the Multi or Quattro is running 415 or newer firmware, this control is available. Switching between On/Off and Charger-only is not possible.
• Add Grid failure aka Shore disconnect detection. When enabled, an alarm is raised when the system hasn't been connected to the AC input defined as Grid or Shore for more than 5 seconds. The alarm shows as a Notification in the GUI, as an alarm on the VRM Portal and is available on ModbusTCP / MQTT. Very nice for backup systems. But also for yachts or vehicles on shore power. Now its no longer necessary create a complicated custom alarm rule on VRM, monitoring Inverter/charge states. Note that this settings monitors that the system is connected to grid/shore. Generator monitoring is already available as part of the Generator start/stop function. This feature does not work for systems using the Ignore AC Input settings in out inverter/chargers: when the system ignores the AC input, ie runs in island mode even though grid is available, it will report a grid failure.
• Send the charger state (Bulk, Absorption, Float, Storage, Equalise) of inverter/charger to the VRM Portal, when in Offgrid mode and charging with power from a PV Inverter wired on the AC output side. Note that this parameter is not yet used on the VRM Portal website, but you can see it already in the CSV/XLSX download. This is useful especially for systems in Off-grid mode with PV Inverters on the output.
• Add VE.Bus network error counters. Useful to help troubleshooting vague VE.Bus Errors cq to rule out cable issues. Counter data is also available on VRM. Needs a document on explaining how to interpret those values.

DVCC & Scheduled charging:

• Scheduled charging: change the hysteresis on SOC when battery full from 0.1% to 5%.
• Complete support for the recently introduced VE.Can MPPTs. All DVCC control features were added: current and voltage limit control, as well as SVS, STS, and Shared Current Sense (SCS). With this change they are now fully functional also for ESS systems and systems with Managed Batteries.
• Add an option to send the battery current as measured by a BMV to the Solar Chargers. This goes hand in hand with a new feature in the Solar Chargers, to end the Absorption phase based on tail current, and then actual to tail current based end of absorption (primarily for lead batteries). This is part of DVCC, and only applies to systems that are not ESS (since then the inverter/charger manages the charge profile), and have a battery monitor such as a BMV-700 or Lynx Shunt VE.Can. Requires a Solar charger firmware version not yet officially released. Download the latest VictronConnect v5.12 beta to use & test this new feature.
• Add an option to use Battery Temperature as measured by a BMV, the GX Device itself, as well as a MultiPlus for other connected chargers: Shared Temperature Sense.
• ESS: use the Multi as source for Solar Charger voltage sense - always.

Managed Batteries (BYD, Pylontech, Freedomwon, and similar)

• Add capacity. Visible on VRM on the diagnostics page, and in the GUI of the GX Device
• Fix Freedomwon Lite recognition. They were being recognised as a LG battery, now as a Freedomwon Lite
• For BYD batteries, MG Energy Systems batteries as well as Victron batteries connected with a Lynx Ion BMS, eliminate the need to the installer to configure DVCC and SVS: they are now automatically set (and unable to change) to the required settings: DVCC=ON and SVS=OFF for both batteries. This will be a nice improvement in making it easier to install those batteries. We'll do the same for more battery brands later.

Other changes

• Add NMEA2000 out function: transmit battery monitor out on the VE.Can/NMEA2000 network so it can be picked up by Marine MFDs. Currently it only transmits battery monitor data. Inverter/charger data will follow soon. This is by default disabled, see Settings -> Services -> CAN-bus to enable it: (screenshot).
• Fix the Navico Fluid Level Sensor Fuel-0 PK, partno. 000-11518-001, not working. Broken in Venus OS v2.30.
• Support using a single-phase PV-inverter connected across a split-phase connection (no neutral). This is a common option in North America where a 240V or 208V PV-inverter is connected to a split-phase supply. Half of the Energy and power as reported by the PV Inverter is attributed to (reported on) L1 and the other 50% on L2.
• PV Inverters: add an option to disable automatic scanning
• Fix that Disabling the built-in WiFi Access Point also made the device to not connect to a WiFi network automatically as well. The workaround was to go into the WiFi menu, or (?) power cycle (I'm not 100% sure about this one). Now its fixed: disabling the built-in access point no longer affects how the device handles connecting to other access points.
• Restore relay state, when configured to be manually controlled, after a reboot. Rather then always resetting it to Open.
• Fix a mistake in the calculation behind the DC System box on the overview. The PV current was not added to the total, causing the value to be wrong. See "Has DC system" in the manual to see what the DC System Box is about.
• Fix bug that prevented setting entering certain IP Addresses. Thank you ScottB for finding this.

Added the IMT Solar Irradiance, temperature and wind meter

Looking for a good way to measure solar irradiance, we tried different meters, and eventually chose the professional irradiance meters from Mencke and Tegtmeyer GmbH in Germany. The type of meter supported are the Si-RS485TC series. They also feature an optional temperature sensor and wind meter. Connection to the GX device is done using our RS485 to USB cables.

Here is how the data is show on VRM. Note that this test system is currently still indoors, not much to see.

[image]

And here is how its visible on the GUI:

[image]

Clean-up of the System Setup and DVCC menus

The System Setup menus was becoming long and cluttered. Now there are two menus, all DVCC related features are in a separate menu. For those not familiar with DVCC: that setting changes the GX Device from a passive monitor, that takes data and makes it available for monitoring and analysis, into a active controller, that optimizes the charge process by taking control and sharing data between the connected devices. More info in the DVCC chapter in the manual. We do have some more textual and UI changes planned for that, later. For now, these screenshots show current status as in v2.40~34:

[image]

[image]

ModbusTCP

• Add menu to see last issues (screenshot!)
• Add Grid Loss alarm register (830)
• Add support for the EasySolar-II and MultiPlus-II GX by mapping the vebus service to unitid 228

MQTT settings cleaned up

• The previous setting, MQTT on LAN has been renamed to "MQTT on LAN (Plaintext)". There is a new setting called "MQTT on LAN (SSL)". The difference between Plaintext and SSL is just that: enabling the plain text one opens it on port 9001 (MQTT over websockets) and on port 1883 (pure MQTT) and the SSL one opens the encrypted variant of that on port 8883. Whats also new is that its now possible to enable MQTT for use on the local LAN, without also enabling the uplink to our cloud broker, which often was required. After the update, settings of existing systems are migrated such that nothing breaks. For details, see here: https://github.com/victronenergy/venus/issues/480.
• The very rarily used and specialty service 'NMEA2000 on MQTT' is now hidden under the superuser access level: we saw far too many people that had enabled that while they don't use it. And it increases CPU load.

More screenshots:

NMEA2000 out function:

[image]

Disabling automatic scanning of a PV Inverter

[image]

ModbusTCP Diagnostics - see the last error

[image]

ModbusTCP Diagnostics - see unitids

[image]

Hi, All

We are currently design a system including a third party smart meters. Just wonder victron have an API document for intergaring with other data sets?

Thanks

Hi,

I successfully enabled 3 additional relays on RPI running latest stable Venus OS but only first two are visible on GUI.

The other 2 are fully functional using CLI dbus Set/Get.

Is it possible to make them all visible on GUI and how?

Thanks,

Mihai

[image]

[image]

While it is possible to use the dbus script, its performance is beyond good and evil.

root@ccgx:~# time dbus -y com.victronenergy.system /Ac/ConsumptionOnOutput/L1/Power GetValue
506

real    0m1.619s
user    0m1.099s
sys     0m0.161s

I mean ... almost 1.7 seconds for something that should have been a simple IPC query. What's going on there?

Would have expected something at least an order of magnitude faster, especially as things like querying /sys/bus go two orders of magnitude faster:

root@ccgx:~# time cat /sys/bus/gpio/devices/gpiochip0/power/control 
auto

real    0m0.018s
user    0m0.001s
sys     0m0.013s

Something really smells in that dbus script.

I am having an issue with everything connected by USB seems to lose it connection randomly and the only way to get them to reconnect is to reboot the system. I have tried two totally different Raspberry Pi with the same outcome. One of the Pi is a 3B the Other is a 3B+ with fresh 2.33 installs. I am connecting a MultiPlus, 2 Smart solar MPPT and a BMV712. My software was set up for the most part using this https://gist.github.com/aaronsb/3a8de2bfc6081ecda268a353125bae14. I skipped the ADAC and CAN stuff. At first I thought it was the USB hat Hub but even if I remove it and use just the pi and display the same thing happens. I am using USB to UART cables that use only the tx rx and ground could they be the issue? I am totally at a loss here.

Hi,

I have seen requests in this forum for a script for dumping excess solar power to hot water tank based on system conditions like SOC, PV power and loads. Here is an example of a possible solution using dbus and a system relay for firing on and off the water tank heater

#!/bin/bash

# Fire ON Relay1 only if all of the folowing conditions are met:

# - Battery SOC >= 80%

# - Solarmax Power >= 1900 W

# - CriticalLoads power <= 1200 W

echo

DATE="Run at $(date +"%a %d%b %Hh%M") UTC"

echo $DATE

GONOGO_SM=`dbus -y com.victronenergy.grid.cgwacs_ttyUSB2_di32_mb1 /Connected GetValue | awk '{printf("%d\n",$3 + 0.5);}'`

GONOGO_BAT=`dbus -y com.victronenergy.battery.socketcan_can0 /Connected GetValue | awk '{printf("%d\n",$3 + 0.5);}'`

GONOGO_MULTI=`dbus -y com.victronenergy.vebus.ttyUSB0 /Connected GetValue | awk '{printf("%d\n",$3 + 0.5);}'`

# Run this script only if PV Inverter, CAN-BUS Battery and Multi are up and running, otherwise turn OFF Relay1

if [ $GONOGO_SM -eq 1 ] && [ $GONOGO_BAT -eq 1 ] && [ $GONOGO_MULTI -eq 1 ]

then

echo "---------------------------------------"

# Read output power of Solarmax, battery SOC and critical loads power consumption

SMP=`dbus -y com.victronenergy.pvinverter.cgwacs_ttyUSB2_di30_mb2 /Ac/L1/Power GetValue | awk '{printf("%d\n",$3 + 0.5);}'`

SOC=`dbus -y com.victronenergy.battery.socketcan_can0 /Soc GetValue | awk '{printf("%d\n",$3 + 0.5);}'`

CLP=`dbus -y com.victronenergy.system /Ac/ConsumptionOnOutput/L1/Power GetValue | awk '{printf("%d\n",$1 + 0.5);}'`

echo "Battery SOC $SOC"%

echo "SolarMax Power $SMP"W

echo "UPSloads Power $CLP"W

# Fire ON relay1 if SOC >= 80, SolarPower >= 1.9kW and Critical Loads <= 1.2kW

STATE=`dbus -y com.victronenergy.system /Relay/1/State GetValue`

if [ $SOC -ge 80 ] && [ $SMP -ge 1900 ] && [ $CLP -le 1200 ]

then

if [ $STATE -eq 0 ]

then

echo "---------------------------------------"

echo "Fire ON Relay1"

dbus -y com.victronenergy.system /Relay/1/State SetValue 1

else

echo "Relay1 is already ON"

fi

else

if [ $STATE -eq 1 ]

then

echo "---------------------------------------"

echo "Power OFF Relay1"

dbus -y com.victronenergy.system /Relay/1/State SetValue 0

else

echo "Relay1 is already OFF"

fi

fi

else

echo "---------------------------------------"

if [ $GONOGO_SM -eq 1 ]

then

echo "Warning! EM111 SOLARMAX PV Inverter meter not responding. Check RS485 connection or EM111!"

fi

if [ $GONOGO_BAT -eq 1 ]

then

echo "Warning! REC-BMS not responding. Check the unit or CAN connection!"

fi

if [ $GONOGO_MULTI -eq 1 ]

then

echo "Warning! MultiPlus not responding. Check the unit status!"

fi

echo "Power OFF Relay1"

dbus -y com.victronenergy.system /Relay/1/State SetValue 0

fi

echo

echo "***************************************"

This script should be executed every minute by crond system daemon using #crontab -e command with the following syntax:

0-59 * * * * /home/root/.ControlRelay1.sh > /dev/null 2>&1

Regards,

Mihai

Given medium size(?) installation:

3 x Quattro 5kVA in 3-phase configuration

2 x MPPT 250/85 - evidently DC coupled

1 x Fronius Symo - AC coupled

1 x Venus GX

on last count, the docs mention a total of 13 (2 x 1 of the MPPTs, 2 in the Venus GX and 9 in the Quattros) programmable relays, where the 9 (3 x 3) of the Quattros probably behave like just 3 (yes?) in sync.

I'm missing the relay functions in Venus and Quattros under ESS operation. There is docs for the MPPT relay functionality.

Ideally, I would like the Venus GX relays to indicate various "excess energy" states. I can get a "battery full", but on top of that I would need

* "MPPTs are (about to) being throttled"

* "Fronius is (about to) being throttled"

So this could trigger some consumers to shave off some of the excess energy. HowTo?

Yacht Electrical Problems

We have multiple charging sources:

1. Shore Power: Victron Multiplus 3kVA, 240-12V, 120Amp
2. Solar Panels: Victron MPPT 150/45, 480W panels
3. Genset: Direct DC, 200Amp Alternator, Balmar 614 Smart Regulator
4. Engine: Direct DC, 80 Amp Alternator, Balmar 614 Smart Regulator

We have a Victron BMV712 Smart and a Smartguage to monitor the AGM batteries (765 AmpHr).

These have individual charging systems and we find it difficult to balance the system. Consequentially in the morning when the sun activates the solar panels the MPPT charger thinks it’s in Bulk/Absorb but the Shore Power thinks it’s on float. Some cycling occurs as the MPPT tries to take over.

We have been thinking about the priorities:

1. When Shore Power is on the MPPT is not required
2. When the Genset is on the MPPT is not required
3. When the Engine is on the MPPT is not required

What can we do to balance the system?

Hello I saw a new menu on VRM ( under multi.quattro) - advanced - Ve bus diagnostics

Following is the output for my system.

How do I interpret the results? Important for me as I was battling BVe bus Error #1 and #3 -few weeks back which are normally attributable to poor network cabling

[image]

I recently got a pair of Victron 60 ah NON-SMART 12.8v Lithium iron phosphate batteries on ebay. They were both received at around 13.2v which is fine, but the seller also gave me 2 more of the same spec that were each at around 9.9v.

Being the non-smart versions, I obviously can’t connect with bluetooth to see the individual cell voltage, but is there any way at all that this information can be seen? I currently have a Victron 100/20 MPPT charge controller, and will have a VE.bus BMS on order soon. Will the BMS interterface with the smart solar charger, or with any other device and pass the individual cell voltage on so I can see that?

I also have a rPi if it’s somehow possible to do with that...

I connected the two 9.9v batteries in parallel yesterday and charged them at 1A (the lowest I could set the smart solar 100/20) untll the votlage got to 11.5v this morning (it held at 10.04v overnight), where it seemed to stop, then upped it to 2ah and it’s now at 12.95v.

EDIT: It charged up gradually to 14.0v today, but it has since fallen back down to 10.73 now that no charge is coming in. I’ll se how it does overnight.

Any further thoughts welcome.

I'm wanting to connect to a BMV-712 smart with bluetooth to my already setup Raspberry pi.

Currently have the latest version of Rasbain running, with a Octoprint server ( 3d printer server ). Plus a number of other sensors, and servers. I have a lot of time and configuration setup in this current install. I don't want to have to re start installing it all if I don't have to.

Is there a way to connect to the bmv, without installing all of the Venus OS. ? Or do I have to running it all, and rebuild if possible all the other servers on top of it ?

End goal, connect via bluetooth, collect the data and display it, and use it to control other items such as replay's. Plus trend the usage.

and how?

Thanks,

Mihai

Hey Everyone,

I am designing a massive solar upgrade for my 34' Bounder. I spend most of my time 'Boondocking' in US National Forests and my current electrical system, I love puns, is sorely lacking.

The new system will have 1600 watts of roof-mounted polycrystalline solar panels and a second 1000 watts of ground deployed flexible (5)-200w solar panels. I will be using Victron Smart Solar Controllers all built around a MultiPlus 24/3000 inverter charger.

I want to store all of that glorious 'Free' power in 2-Tesla Battery Modules wired in parallel. The modules I am planning to purchase have the 'Hacked' battery boards already connected to Tenergy 5-in-1's, so that takes care of cell-balancing. I have a thermostat and water circulator for temperature control.

If I am correct, the Multiplus charger and Solar Controllers will handle the over-voltage changing concerns.

So now I am down to low voltage cutoff. Like most I was looking at a BP-100 until the fire issues surfaced. I read an article able how you could reverse-current through the battery protects, but at a greatly reduced capacity.

I wanted to ask if anyone is having trouble with the BP-220 battery protect? The BP-100 fires are being caused by the MultiPlus bulk-charging and overloading the reduced reverse-current through the battery protect.

The BP-220 seems to be much more robust and I am wondering if its 'greater' reduced reverse current is enough to handle the MultiPlus 24/3000 charger?

Thanks,

ML

I am considering building a Rasberry Pi device to monitor my two SmartSolar controllers via USB cables. What would I be missing from buying a Venus GX? I really don't need much of an interface if I can web or vnc into it. Can it upload the the Victron VRM website? Thanks, Bill

Hi,

we (SSL Energy GmbH from Germany) are producer of new battery storage system, called eSafe with LiFePo cells.

We want to add communication between our BMS and Victron Multigrid or Venus to make our battery compatible to Victron Inverters.

We have possibility to create a CAN-Bus communication between our BMS and Inverter. Can someone provide us with information, how we have to go on with this?

Thanks in advance

Hubert Merkle
SSL Energie GmbH

I have an OctoGX gateway connected to 9 SmartSolar Charger MPPTs. For all but 2 of the Chargers I can find the Unit ID according to the Device Instance using the 'CCGX-Modbus-TCP-register-list-2.31', but two of the chargers have Device Instance 295 and 296 which aren't lister in the spreadsheet.

Is there a way to find the Unit ID of these two so that I can connect to them over ModbusTCP like the others?

Not sure I'm going about this right. In my trailer I have a MPPT 100/15 solar controller installed. I bought a Venus GX and will be buying a Multiplus 12/300/120. I purchased a Raspberry Pi 3 B+ to use instead of a CCGX as a display. What do I need to do to set this all up to seamlessly observe and control my system? I thought I had it figured out until I went to set up Venus OS on the Pi.

Hi,

We would like to run some experiments with the MQTT service on Victron systems. Is there some sort of sandbox available that we can use? Thanks.

Cheers,

Imre

Hi everybody,

I am currently setting up my RV with some Victron equipment (BMV, smart MPPT, etc) as a central element I use a pi with Venus OS.

My question is, is it possible to have Grafana/InfluxDB on the same device? I do not what to run a second pi just for that as energy consumption is always critical.

I am not a Linux guru and struggling installing the docker-composer on my Venus OS pi.

Thank you for any help and/or tips.

Cheers

Dirk

Keen to have the radiation sensor Si-RS485TC Series -integrated with the Venus . Do you have a plannned release date for this update?

Hi there, i have a BMV and encounter a problem with charge efficiency. Peukert is set to 1.00 (i have a LiFePO4 Battery with 100AH) and during several weeks the SOC drifts extremly (SOC was shown 78% and i put on the charger but the battery was already full and then it synchronizied) ... the Problem is that if you only have partial charging (over some days/weeks) the SOC will drift away heavily. So i wish that i could set the Charge Efficiency in the BMV to 99.5% or something to have more accurate values.

Hi, Im trying to replicate the graph, which is available at vrm portal. I want to implement it in my total house dashboard in Grafana, toghether with water, gas and other consumptions.

I was successfull in catching mqtt stream and filtering out ACTUAL data for battery SoC, AC load, PV yield etc..., which is great! Its a very nice substitute for remote console. Path for the actual data looks like this for example: N/<myid>/system/0/Ac/ConsumptionOnOutput/L1/Power

Its very difficult to replicate the historical data though. Could you share, how you compile the graph and how you get the data? It would be a great help.

If I subscribe to this message, N/<myid>/solarcharger/256/History/Daily/0/Yield, I get slightly different numbers then in vrm graph. Even if I check some days back (Daily 1, Daily 2 etc) its always different. Also, I cant find data for the total AC consuption of the installation, total power to battery, from battery, direct use....

Thanks!

Vit

[image]

Grid showing or consumsion showing 0% i have colour control gx 712 bvm and victron inverter 12/2000/120 plus mppt 100/50 they are all linked to my controller . Its showing tho when i plug the shoreline but no more info on usage thank you hope you can help

example ( GX menus )

settings>services MQTT switch sets Dbus value

who watchs this dbus value and starts or stops this service.

I current have tasks that are loaded on booting and managed by the SVC daemonservice

which stop fine by disabling svc -d but have not found how the svc -u command is being set when the dbus service flag is again enabled.

please do not say svc ( daemonservice as this only monitors and maintains tasks if they stop )

are services like MQTT always in memory and just put into a blocking or sleep mode when service is disabled?

Why does my MPPT 100/20 shut the load off when I enable DVCC? Cant get it back on, unless turn dvcc feature off. Tried with ”always on”, and the batterylife management options. Load controll stays off no matter what, untill i turn dvcc off.

Venus gx with release candidate FW, MPPT 100/20 with most recent FW and BVM712 with most recent fw.

Problem started when i upgraded most recent fw to bmv, it gave low battery alarm and when i tried to reset that alarm from several places, it didnt let mppt load control to go back on.

Thanks for implementing battery current update in latest MPPT firmware version. It nicely complements allowing adaptive absorption time to be turned off (useful for my Lithium with very variable charge rates).

What response should I receive from MPPT firmware version 1.44 when updating the Battery Charge Current with Hex Protocol. Register is 0x200A

0x200A Battery charge current (*8) 0.001 sn32 A

I think I'm receiving "1" which looks promising but I'm more used to seeing the new setting echoed back to me when changing values.

Sent:- :80A200030F8FFFFFD which represents 2 amps.

Returned:- :80A200122

Does this response indicate update successful?

I want to connect a BlueSolar MPPT 150/70 CAN and a BlueNova battery to a GX device. According to the BlueNova page on the VE site https://www.victronenergy.com/live/battery_compatibility:bluenova

Select the VE.Can & CAN-bus BMS (250 kbaud) CAN-profile in the CCGX. Menu path: Settings → Services → CAN-profile. Note that this changes the function of a VE.Can port: it is not possible to connect both VE.Can products and a Bluenova battery together.

Andre has informed me that I should use a Venus GX as it has 2 CAN bus ports. What is not obvious from the documentation on the web is which CAN bus port on the Venus GX to use with which device.

Also, the second CAN bus port only has a 3 way connector and is not isolated. Can a non-isolated port be used? What is the cable connection to the 8 way CAN bus port on the Battery or the MPPT?

According to this post: https://community.victronenergy.com/questions/19500/bluesolar-mppt-15085-can-bus-batrium-bms.html, the Venus GX cannot control the BlueSolar MPPT 150/70 CAN. If this is the case, then is there any merit in connecting it at all?