I recently tried to enable Dynamic ESS, wasn’t happy, then tried making a node red setup using the various victron packages/palettes to drive the charge/discharge logic according to the current electricity price. I set up node red on a separate server where I run all my home automation stuff, and enabled the DBUS-via-TCP setting to have node red write on the dbus.
This worked well enough - I was able to set scheduled charge days/levels/duration from node red. But then this somehow led to weird errors that caused spurious “BMS connection lost” and “low battery” alerts which basically took the whole system out of service. So I disabled everything again, stopped my node red instance etc and wanted to just have the same state as before.
But now my ESS assistant seems to be gone (Settings → ESS → “No ESS assistant found”, although sometimes the screen flickers and some settings are visible for a fraction of a second) and I have not been able to bring it back by reconfiguring with VE.Configure (using remote config down/upload). VE.Configure shows the ESS assistant as existing in the config. I have also updated firmware of both Cerbo GX and Multiplus, removing the ESS assistant and adding it again, to no avail.
Any ideas? The only thing left that I can think of would be a factory reset of the cerbo.
I was reading your post about ESS assistant not found.
I am having exactly the same problem.
I’m in Belgium.I have a 3-phase system with 3x MultiplusII 48/5000/70, initially 1 with integrated GX card. 31kWh pylontech Force L2.
After installation it was working fine in pure ESS mode, self consumption only.
Some time later I started using a cloud based application called GBB to charge the battery based on EPEX prices during winter.
It was OK, until 1 day I got the same issue as yourself. Message “No ESS assistant found” and BMS lost alarm followed by Low Battery voltage alarm. At the same time the system becomes partly unreachable from LAN. My other EMS system where the victron was conencted shows error messages that communication with the Victron is lost or intermittent.
Multiple reboots, firmware up/downgrades didn’t help. Putting the system in “Keep batteries charged” overnight seemed to clear the problem, so that in the morning I could switch back to normal mode.
Initially I removed the communication with the cloud GBB service to check if the problem was related to it. But it was not.
I stopped using GBB and switched on Victron’s Dynamic ESS. That cleared the fault and worked for 2 weeks with no issues. I then changed the Dynamic ESS from green mode to trade mode. At the same time the issues came back. No ESS assistant found.
There seems to be a relation between the issue and the communication between the Cerbo and any external service or control via LAN or API.
I have no programming skills at all.
Together with the dealer we already replaced the GX card in the Multiplus. That helped for some weeks and the issue came back. Then we took the GX card out of service and installed a Cerbo.
Same problem after a few days.
Did you manage to find out what the root cause of the problem is and how to solve it?
Many thanks for your replies.