So Ive been working on integrating support for third party batteries and have come to the conclusion that it would be best to create installable modules and add them to the supported list.
And I honestly have no idea how to do that, or who is responsible for the third party batteries github.
Afaik, I cant do the work myself but rather need someone to do it for me? Since Ive added tested support for two battery manufacturers and have a third untested version, who do I get in touch with about having that support added to the official installer?
Also, is there a cerbo installer front end that I should port my other work to ?
Then theres also the issue of a bluetooth bug I found in the kernel, Ive reported it to the appropriate people, as its a ālinux thingā. The issue however also arises in the cerbo kernel as well and could essentially be fixed in the next release.
Victron donāt generally support third party mods. They only support CAN based batteries that use the victron BMS CAN spec and complete the relevant testing. This is achieved via contacting the regional manager.
There are already other third party mods, such as serial battery, which are independently maintained and supported.
Hi, that is largely beyond the scope of this community.
Best approach is to mail your request to your regional manager, details on the victron contact page.
Maybe @guystewart can advise? The passion and enthusiasm is great though.
What you see at first sight and get you excitedā¦
You will find out that the hardware and (important) low level drivers are not open-source. Which is normal.
The system exposes to the exterior MQTT and Modbus and based on them you can do whatever you want with the data.
More of that the MQTT and Modbus drivers are also open-source. Which is good.
Also the structure of the dbus system is also open source and therefore, whatever you cannot do at high level you can do at low level.
Additionally, the comms over the buses are becoming more and more open, because of the enthusiasts that have reverse engineered them and itās now common knowledge how to pick or poke additional info.
So, you see, itās not that badā¦
What you donāt see at first sight and get you somehow disappointedā¦
What started ādifferentā from other manufacturers (openes, userās involvment, etc) and used as a strength in marketing, now somehow backfired and made some a little bit uncomfortable.
I am also an enthusiast like you, but soon realized that this community is not for ideas exchange, but more for testing Victron ideas, in the limits defined by Victron and not for outside of the box thinking.
You need to follow a code, being put back in place almost immediately by quoting the rules if you step out of the bounds.
And you will find that the more ārigorousā ones are having or getting advantages from Victron in various forms.
But, then again, itās normal, because the base domain for this community itās victronenergyā¦
Once you get past these, you can look relaxed at the community and see that the new users that are meeting the Victron universe for the first time, donāt have any chance and get trapped here. Because the Victron universe is quite complex, from both technical and social point of viewā¦
It will become a sadistic/masochistic relationship where the users want for more and Victron says maybe laterā¦
Rant overā¦ Waiting for moderationā¦ Just kiddingā¦ Or not.
Thatās because the hardware evolved on the runā¦ Iāve said my 2 cents here about it.
In my opinion this is not an obstacle. Itās the easiest to get pass byā¦
The components used on all hardwares are general purpose components, obtainable on bulk on Alibaba.
Because of some of the things we are involved in, we have contacts on some far eastern companies, that, for a fee, are extracting for you the firmware from almost any microcontroller.
Iāve personally witnessed the process where they were exposing the microcontrollerās die and removed the flash array protection at physical level. Then, itās only a matter of reading back the flash array through JTAG.
This is possible because all western companies are making the commercial chips on their country and therefore they have access and knowledge to the layout of the physical die and where different functional blocks are located.
In commercial, general purpose products (like Victronās) nobody is using the latest chips with cutting edge flash protection. Most microcontrollers used have only some simple bits that are set/reset for flash and/or eeprom protections, easier to invalidate if you have access to the physical die.
Once you have the unencrypted firmware, itās easier to use tools like IDA Pro to find out the encryption algorithm and then all subsequent firmware updates to be decrypted.
I believe we are talking about different thingsā¦
You are talking about Cerbo - the system controller (isnāt it?) and I am talking about inverters, chargers, MPPTs - the workload horsesā¦
On Cerbo all is in clear, the others have the firmware encrypted. And the inverters can work without Cerbo, but not the other way around.
You can duplicate the hardware of an inverter, but without the firmware itās difficult to multiply it, so there is the magic spotā¦
Do you think it is feasible, at all, to modify the MP-II firmware to accept lower minimum voltage settings? I run Li-Ion 12S, 44V nominal. Safe cell Voltage range from 3V to 4.2V, 36V to 50.4V. I can set the lower cut-off voltage limits on the MP-II (via mk3-usb plus laptop and old fashioned Victron app) to 36V and indeed it will run (almost) that low in inverter mode. But the lowest āsafe rechargeā voltage I can set is 5.2V higher at 41.2V which means it will never discharge lower than that in ESS/DESS mode, leaving about 20 to 25% capacity āon the tableā. And yes I am aware the inverter gets quirky on its waveforms at those low voltages but still I rather have the ability to do a full discharge onto the grid, occasionally for battery cycle/capacity measurements.
Yeah, I got that, hahaha. I was just wondering whether it could be as simple as decompiling the f/w (or the app for that matter) searching for that 40.2V minimum limit and change or disable it, hoping it is implemented as an interface / data entry only feature, and not checked further down the line during operation.
Anyway, Iāve some other projects much more āin your neck of the woodsā, BMS related. Iāll circle back to you when I find the time to pick those projects up again.
