Dear Victron its time to change your controls cabling

Q&A and troubleshooting
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1

Dear Victron Team,

Please accept the below feedback from me, it is intended to be delivered in a constructive way from a customer that is overall happy with the products and systems.

Firstly, I am a data centre controls specialist with extensive experience in Modbus, Lora, RS485, analogue, PLC, sensors etc, and my complaint today covers the choices that Victron has made when it comes to cabling their controls systems.

A few years ago, a 42foot yacht was considered absolutely huge, today a 38foot (12m) Catamaran that is 6.5m wide is considered small, entry level. Class A RVs are also becoming more and more common.

Along the way battery technoloigy has changed with Lifepo4 and other chemistries, but you know all this,.

The issue is this, the electrical loads have shot up, and with it the cost and size of power cabling.

What has not changed is the tech (protocols) cables and connectors for controlling all of the fantastic devices the we use to charge and consume and monitor our energy.

I am fortunate to own a 38foot catamaran with a 12 volt system. My equipment list is as follows:
1: Ekrano GX
2: 5 x MPPT - 4 with ve.direct and 1 with ve.can
3 1 x Skylla IP65 with ve.can
4: 1 x Smart inverter 3kva
5: 2 x Orion XS 12/50 with ve.direct
6: Lynx smart BMS with ve.can
7: Smart shunt with ve.direct
8: 4 x Smart Lithium NG batteries

The controls are made up of the following types:
1: Simple two wire cables for the ATD to the SKylla as it does not speak the full Victron language over ve.can
2: RJ45 for ve.can connections
3: VE.direct cables both with USB/Ve.direct and plain ve.direct
4: M8 connections for BMS
5: VE.can to NMEA

Compare the last data centre I built, which was relatively small at 8 Megawatts and about 2000 racks and 5000 meters square dof space. We had the following controls:
1: Plain analogue cabling dry contacts
2: Modbus RTU / RS485 terminated in phoenix contact terminal blocks.
3: Modbus TCP over RJ45

Thats it.

My main complaint is that VE.Direct is a 100% pain in the backside. Connectors fall out, ve.direct cables from factory vary in the tightness of fit. 10m max length which is not enough for my catamaran of 38 feet.

The use of USB extenders in a marine envronment is pure madness. My Startech 10m (x2) extension and Startech industrial USB hub (x2) has cost a total of 280 Euros, which is nearly 50% the cost of the ekrano GX they are connected to. This is a workaround to a deeper problem. THe USB to Ve.direct cables are an additional cost above the 280 euros, and I bought 6 of them…

The only reason I needed them is the 10m limit of ve.direct cables is not enough to reach from the chart table to the engine bays where the Orion XS DCDC chargers are, or to the various locations where the MPPT chargers are.

I prioritised shorter power cables lengths over shorter control cables lengths which is industry best practice, both in data centres AND in the marine world.

My suggestion is to move to a simple phoenix contact connector and use RS485 across the board. Keep the RJ45 connector if you really want, but in the marine world, that one can be prone to corrosion and is harder to repair.

Decent belden shielded RS485 cable can be used by customers like me who have longer cable runs passing through electrically noizy places, and for shorter runs RS485 really doesnt care.

I have no idea how people use your products on much larger boats, or maybe thats why I see images of Victron screens in weird places, and why the remote console in VRM or the new Android app is so popular, but these are all workarounds in my opinion.

I should add that the Scheiber monitoring systems popular and ubiquitous on french built boats (which I detest) don’t have this problem and have a decent concept of CAN bus or LIN bus) and have at least standardised on a connector (which is positively latched and NEVER falls out) and cabling which seems to be very tolerant of lengths…

Anyway, my rant is over, thank you for reading and I hope you take the feedback as intended, constructively.

Best regards,

Alex

2

VE-Direct can work over much more than 10m…although this is neither supported by or recommended by Victron.
The cables can be carefully extended by cutting them in half, and using cat5 to extend, using 1 pair for power - black and red, and one pair each for data, using the red power line as the signal ground.

However, I do agree that - a massive - simplification could be made by migrating entirely to a CAN standard connection for all products. This would suit most environments. RS485 - used by VE-bus connections - is going to have too slow a data rate c/f CAN, and the CAN protocol would cover the requirements of both the VE-direct protocol and the VE-bus protocol.
This move is possibly indicated by the use of VE-CAN on the latest solar chargers.

3

Instead of the Ekrano you could have used the Cerbo (+ GX Touch) and place that at a central place or where the most components are.
Than you would have needed only a HDMI extension to the GX Touch (and a USB power supply near the display).

4

Hello,

Thanks for your comment, and in fact that had been my original specification, I was advised by my dealer to choose the Ekrano… Anyway. It certainly would have kept the space in my dashboard clear of cabling.

I still feel that the HDMI extension is a work around, and will gain some distance but doesnt solve the overall long term issues.

NMEA 2000 Bus and VE.CAN have a single cable that runs around the boat / van / house / whatever. Much cheaper in the long run, no USB to ve.direct. Not having many different ve.direct cables etc.

Strangely the GX devices now have 2 (4 in/out) separate CAN ports on the back but only 3 ve.direct, the ratio seems all wrong to me.

Best,

Alex

5

Hi,

Thanks for your comment.

Yes latest MPPTs over a certain size have ve.can, but the brand spanking new Orion XS and smaller MPPTs dont.

And some devices have VE.can but dont talk to BMS for example the Skylle IP65

Thanks for the correction on the RS485 bus speeds, I should have clarified a cabling standard from a communication protocol / standard.

Alex

6

for CAN devices, you have ‘producers’ and ‘consumers’ of information. Most peripheral devices: BMS, chargers, solar controllers etc., are producers of information. They will only respond to targeted commands. So a BMS won’t produce a targeted command for a charger for example.
The Consumers of information like the Cerbo can take all the information, process it and then send targeted commands to the ‘producers’.
This means that if you change the system by adding or deleting a component, then only the ‘consumer’ has to accommodate the change.
It would complicate the code and communication requirements if any producer (e.g. BMS) was also required to produce all the targeted commands required to control the various different chargers that might be on the bus.
Whilst the cerbo only has 3 VE direct ports (3 different PV plane orientations ought to be sufficient), it is possible to add more via a USB port (numerous posts).

7

Indeed, and thanks for correcting me again on the traffic flow for commands. WHilst the BMS does send commands to the batteries, it does not on the ve.can bus. That is driven by the GX device and in my case using DVCC.

Currently I have 7 ve.direct connections as follows:

4 x mppt on a usb hub
1 x inverter on gx device
2 x orion xs on gx device

Then there is an additional mppt on ve.can and an ac charger on ve.can.

Total Cost of ve.direct cables is 63 Euro
Total Cost of ve.direct usb cables is 120 Euro
Total cost of USB hub and cable (Startech) 150 Euro (could be less with cheaper less rugged components, that was my choice)
Total ve.direct cost for project connecting 7 devices: 333 Euro

Now the total project cost for the ve.can device portion:

GX device to Lynx BMS to Skylla charger to MPPT 90Euro

My system is working fine, as I said at the beginning I am very happy with it, but I am trying to make a case that work needs to be done on the controls cabling, and you can see here that the ve.direct cost was ~50% the cost of the GX device itself and massively more complex to install and more costly than the VE.can system. The costs I state above were planned for and the project can be considered a success, however I say agian to Victron that its time to rationalise the control cabling methodologies that it sells.

That, and the JST connector for ve.direct I and others strongly dislike.

Many thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts.

Alex

P.S. I also have their AC ET112 Grid Power meter, and that uses another USB port for its RS485 connection…

8

I’m not as smart as you technically, but you’ve exactly captured my issues and feelings about the Victron wiring on my 46’ cat. What a mess.

9

Instead of spending a fortune on usb to ve.direct cables use one or more duppa USB to quad ve.direct port adaptors.

10

Hi,

Thanks for the pointer, sadly they are out of stock, and I am actually in Italy at the moment.

The fact that there is a third party thinking about this and coming up with solutions further reinforces my point I think.

Alex

11

One of the standout strengths of the Victron ecosystem is its flexibility when it comes to custom system design.
It doesn’t lock you into a single approach, and its ability to integrate with external systems is equally adaptable. That openness is a big part of why I value the brand.
And part of the reasons why an outside person can think of a solution and offer it as an integration. Your system while it has similar components to other is still a very custom design and so would have a need for some niche product.

Still not disregarding your points though, i guess the next issue would be backwards compatibility if the whole range were to change.

12

This is the issue that the CAN bus was supposed to eliminate, though one ends up spending a deal on the can cables and infrastructure. Victron has been heading towards CAN bus integration on a number of products, and this data all ends up on one CAN bus (hopefully). What is needed is a VE-direct to CAN module for those MPPT’s that don’t have CAN yet.

13

Your MPPT are not supposed to be 10m away from the gx. They are usually sitting near the battery and that rarely is 38 feet wide :smiling_face:

PV wires run out to the panels, not the 12V DC Bus of the battery to remote mppts.

(I assume you just put them randomly on the 12V consumer lines, wherever you placed panels. That’s not how a installation is supposed to be, the manual states each mppt should have a equal dc-2-battery distance.)

Other than that i also prefer vecan mppts.

14

Well, in my case its not MPPT, but Orion XS DC-DC charger (ve.can not available), and according to the instructions this device should be close to the alternator, and anyway heavy DC cable lengths and sizes dictate it being closer to the alternator. So one of these is in the Starboard Engine compartment.

The Ekrano GX is is at the nav station which is 5m from the back of the boat, and the boat is 6.5 m wide. When add the length dictated by factory cable ducts (going, up, down, left and right etc) it easily exceeds this distance.

The whole point of controls is to have it convienient to do just that, control it, without diving in engine bay etc, and extra low voltage and low current cables are much safer to have stringing about your house, factory, building etc than large heavy power cables.

Just the loop of VE.Direct cable to enable the cabling cabinet door of the Ekrano to open and close safely consumes 0.5m…

These are problems solved back in the last century with RS485 modbus etc… And yes this is what ve.can is, and as you state, solves the problem, but highlights my whole point in this thread about the issue of controls cabling with the victron ecosystem.

15

… or just a unideal product choice for the target environment.

Should have taken a cerbo gx, put it where the tech stuff belongs and just run a display up where you want data vizualized.
(Either wired display, or even wireless)

Wireless display (with touch control) through a android tablet in gx kiosk mode would still work with the ekrano, but ofc putting the ekrano “in the basement” wouldn’t have required a builtin display then.

16

Hi,

I am not saying its not solvable one way or the other, in your example now instead of having a long ve.direct cable now we have a long HDMI cable (or wifi, which for industrial controls is a no-no for me), and yes passive 1080P should be able to do 10 to 15 meters or so, provided that we don’t have EMI interference issues along the way, but we must accept another non-industrial type of cable/protocol/connector.

Yes, maybe the cerbo gx mk2 (except that the choice for Ekrano was made as its the more powerful cerbo out there. In this case I opted for a faster cerbo at the cost of the cabling and controls compromise) would have been better choice if we accept that an HDMI cable is the lesser of the evils.

Really, I am saying that for these sorts of applications control cabling would be better following established industrial connectors and protocols and cabling / connector standards, and yes ve.can is an answer to that, but its just not supported widely enough across the product range.

My much hated Scheiber systems at least have this right, everything else is no good (to me).

Dont get me wrong, I love my victron system and it does everything I need it to. Please forgive my rant.

Alex

17

A long CAT 5 cable for display purposes doesn’t seem unreasonable.
This probably isn’t an issue for most users.
Fixed - domestic and commercial - installs are probably the bread and butter of the organisation, so I would imagine the focus is on what suits those requirements most.
Mobile and marine is always a more challenging environment from an installation and requirements perspective, so preferences and needs will vary.

18

I always wondered if that was true in Europe, Australia, etc. where Victron has put significant effort into AC product availability (i.e. inverters), ESS, DESS, etc. I don’t live in those areas so it was just idle speculation on my part. In North America, however, it is the opposite. Victron’s bread and butter here is primarily in mobile and marine installations and there is little available in AC products, no ESS, and certainly no DESS. Few of the AC products available here carry product safety listings required for passing inspections or required by insurance policies. I know I sound like I’m always complaining about this because I do :slight_smile: Hopefully I’ll get my wish someday.

As for the original topic, I hate VE.Direct connections, too, especially in mobile/marine installations. They don’t make a reliable connection (no tab to hold them in) and are hard to connect in a tight boat or marine compartment. We don’t usually have issues with the JST connectors falling out on their own, but it’s easy for a user to bump a cable or in the case of the Ekrano with the wall mount box, each time the box is opened one of those VE.Direct cables usually gets dislodged.

It would be nice if Victron would bring VE.Can to some of the smaller MPPTs like the 150/35 and 150/45, but I would take a split-phase inverter with UL1741SB listing first :slight_smile:

19

Completely agree re vedirect connections. I wouldn’t want to depend on that in a demanding mobile environment.
Knowing little about the US market, my impression from this forum is that it is biased to RV type use.

20

Very much so. Victron has ceded the stationary installation market (except maybe for small, off-grid systems) to Chinese OEMs or companies relabeling Chinese OEM products. I don’t think it was intentional, but it has happened and will be hard to make up market share in grid-connected installations here. Of course, our current politics here in the USA aren’t exactly making our country an attractive place to do business for Victron or really any other company aside from fossil fuels companies. But, I’ll leave that discussion for another time and place. :wink: