I’ve created a Raspberry Pi Hat to simplify using a Raspberry Pi as a Venus GX device. This Hat adds useful features like a relay, a temperature sensor connection, digital pins, a shutdown button, and a power input, all by simply plugging it on top of the Raspberry Pi.
It also includes extensive protection for the inputs, which is important for ensuring the safety and reliability of the system.
While the Hat doesn’t support VE CAN or VE Bus directly, I’ve kept it simple because, in many cases, it’s more practical to just use a USB adapter for those connections. Buying the adapter separately is a safer and more straightforward option, especially when you’re already spending on the gear.
If this sounds interesting to you, I’d be happy to share more details, including source code or photos—just let me know if you’d like more information.
Definitely interested in this. In my case Tank and temperature sensors are the main reason I still have a CerboGX. However it’s really slow and would love to retire it.
@adamkirby have you considered collaborating on : Victron Raspi HAT - VictronEnergy lots of valuable work done by @RobDuthie
I was thinking if we could share the project for people to order from PCBWay/JLCPCB or some other place that were people can place orders on a pre-built version.
Yes if you want to. Will need to get a couple of prototypes under for testing etc.
As a lot of venus drivers have changed etc, i do have some basic prototypes running on a raspi 3B+ and 4 hardware.
All the relays 6x and GPIO work OK, also the 4x temp and 4x tank sensors work OK, the only little issue was the VE direct ports, had drivers issues, have not check that for awhile.
Also i had a DIN rail mounted cover enclosure for the board from Ali express that would have fitted OK.
Even though I fully encourage DIY projects I must also draw my professional installer card.
When counting all hours and energy put in certain DIY projects, it’s often cheaper to go for the commercial (in this case: Cerbo GX) solution, support wise.
While perfectly fine for development purposes, in a production system you basically just want to pull the warranty card for any hickup you might encounter.
This is, obviously, only available on officially supported hardware.
Victron has allowed the use of their software on alternative hardware (probably to rightfully encourage community improvements) but one has to ask oneself the question “is this what I’d want to be running my critical systems on, without official support ?”
Yes, a Cerbo GX is (sort of) expensive, but given the abundance of connectivity options it packs it’s actually not priced too bad.
Disclaimer: I’m not trying to discredit your endeavor or hard work in any way.
I’m simply trying to point out that reliability and warranty can often turn out cheaper than a DIY project, even if you account your own hourly cost to be zero.
If your proposal ends up improving the, officially supported, user experience then of course I’m all for
I have looked into that however they cannot install the fuse and solder it, i may redesign it but as the parts cost can be high due to specialist parts i could supply one if you are interested as i have parts by the thousands.
