Hello, I am new to this community and to Victron. i have a phoenix 12|1200 inverter and a Bluesolar mppt 100 | 50 charge controller. Can I monitor both devices with one bluetooth dongle? How do I connect everything correctly?
I am interested in monitoring the output of my panels, charge/discharge of the batteries, and consumption of my off-grid house.
Thank you very much
@arstrube
No you need two BT dongles. One on each device.
The dongles connect to the VE direct port.
Monitoring your battery State of Charge requires a smart shunt (has its own Bluetooth) as the Phoenix only uses voltage.
The other option is a Cerbo S and ve direct cables. Not sure how that will pan out cost wise where you are.
Thank you Alexandra. I am beginning to wrap my head around this… Currently, there is a chinese TR16 battery capacity meter which has a normal (not smart) shunt. I will ask a local technician about how to proceed from there; obviously there is much more to it than just connecting a bluetooth dongle…
The mppt and inverter will appear in one app though. They do a live broadcast or instant readout
I have put the dongle on the MPP and it works more or less fine for monitoring the battery.
My inverter, however, doesn not seem to have VE.direct. Instead, it has a green connector for two wires that I don’t know what it is for. According to the manual I downloaded, there should be a VE.direct in that place. Perhaps I have an older model?
The only thing that occurs to me is to put a standard electricity meter in the power outlet where everything is plugged in.
With that, I could at least manually establish some values for my power consumption.
What inverter to do you have?
This one? VE direct is usually a white plug close to the green h/l remote connector.
Unless you have a completely different inverter?
A power meter will work as well.
