I have a Smart Shunt installed with a Victron MPPT 12/12 30 Solar controller and a Victron Orion-Tr 12/24 30 DC-DC Controller.
I am trying to determine if I should purchase a Victron Battery temperature sensor cable or a Victron Battery Temperature Sense bluetooth device to supply temp info to the system.
I will be running a VE-cable from all devices to a Raspbery Pi to remotely monitor the system.
I understand the Orion-Tr is not compatible with the Battery Sense (as yet), but from what I understand the Orion Tr has its own internal temperature sense for battery management and I understand the Battery Sense will supply temp info directly to the MPPT and Shunt and supposedly the Raspbery Pi device? Albeit I don’t know if that is through the Shunt because all doco says it only receives temp data and does not transmit it?
Clarification as to whether a simpler Battery Sense would work on its own or is a Battery Sensor a better alternative because I believe you should not run both temp sensors in the same system and a Battery Sensor would be able to control the DC to DC controller via the VE Direct network qhereas a Battery Sense cannot report directly to the DC to DC controller or through the Shunt, whereas the Battery Sensor cable can use the Shunt input from the temp sensor to control the DC to DC controller.
My preference is the Battery Sense because of ease of install if it could temperature control all devices and report remotely.
Advice would be greatly helpful in finishing this project to allow temp data to control the MPPT and DC to DC controllers and report the temp through the shunt and the remote Raspbery Pi.
Hope this makes sense and any clarification would be greatly apprecated.
If you have a wired system to a device running Venus OS then I recommend using a wired temperature sensor to the shunt. Bluetooth and wired networks do not always play together nicely and can cause erratic behaviour.
On Venus OS you enable something called DVCC and then choose the SmartShunt to send battery temperature, current and voltage to connected devices so everything ends up using the best values. The internal temperatures in the devices are only approximate. I have linked the DVCC section in the Cerbo GX manual, this should work the same on a rasp Pi.
Hi PW,
Yes I agree based on what I have read that wired and Bluetooth don’t mix well :-).
Just to clarify I was looking to implement the Raspbery Pi solution and was advised that the wired VE.direct to a Raspbery Pi 4 solution was required for remote monitor/control of the system.
So just to clarify in my mind:
Does the bluetooth VE.direct network have the same management capabilities as the directly wired solution?
In other words does the VE.direct network work as if the devices were physically connected as long as the whole system us bluetoothed?
Everything in my system is within a 3 metre radius but cabling to some devices might be challenging.
Thank you in advance.
Cheers Garry
The VE Smart Network is really designed for systems without a GX device. In this case all of the components link together and transfer data so they work as managed. However, if you have a device running VENUS OS then they do not work through the central device by Bluetooth as Venus OS does not connect through VE Smart Networking. Therefore, once you are running Venus OS you need VE Direct wired solution.