VE.Direct

Hello-

On a VE.Direct USB Interface, there is a SN (LLYYWWSSSSS) printed on the label on the device, but there is also a serial number reported in the USB "Serial Number" descriptor string which does not seem to match up, with format (VE5Axxxx).

My question is if there is some mapping of SSSSS to xxxx to determine the label serial number based on the USB serial number (or vice versa)?

Thank you!

I have a Venus GX with 2 MPPTs SmartSolar. How much VE-Direct Cables I need? Because the MPPTs communicate over BT. Is one Cable enough to get all data to the GX?

Does anyone have a copy/archive of older versions of the Victron Connect app for PC? The full details are below. mpptprefs is also an option but I can't find a copy online anymore.

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I have a MPPT75/15 being used as part of a small solar setup for running security cameras on my garage. I have the 4-pin serial port on the MPPT connected to a radio transceiver that relays commands to/from a raspberry Pi at my house. This then extracts various parameters from the ve.direct output (once per second) and sends data to SmartThings so I can see all the details on a wall tablet that is part of my home-automation setup.

This has worked for years, no trouble. Every now and then I would connect my house-side transceiver to Victron Connect on the PC to do firmware updates etc. Again, no trouble.

However, when trying this recently, Victron Connect just can't find the controller. I have verified that comms is working ok bi-directionally. The Android app also cannot communicate with the controller when using a USB-OTG adapter hosting the radio transceiver. In both cases (PC and Android apps) I can load a terminal emulator and see the data coming in from the controller.

So my guess is soemthing is broken in later versions of the Victron Connect apps. I realise this setup is probably not familiar to all, but it has worked reliably bi-directionally for many years without a hitch. At some point I seem to have lost the ability to have data received by the controller.

I did notice that when I unplugged and replugged the connection to the MPPT controller, the load came on! I wonder if the thing is set to have th eload controlled by the RX pin. But how to change this after it has been set (and how did it get that way). Pulling both battery and solar power to reset the unit does not help.

Thanks.

I've some MPPT100-20s connected to a Cerbo via VE.Direct and VE.Direct/USB cables.

At some stage I might have to temporarily add a bluetooth dongle to the MPPTs to change settings. Obviously this involves unplugging the VE.Direct/(USB) cable first.

Can this be done while the Cerbo and MPPTs remain turned on, or is there a risk of blowing something up during hot plugging?

Cheers

I have a Victron SmartSolar charge controller 100/20 that I installed in my trailer. I am planning to add a Victron SmartShunt to replace a less capable battery monitor currently installed. I am confused by the value/need of the VE direct. Per the online literature, the VE direct appears to transmit the battery temperature and battery voltage from the SmartShunt to the solar charge controller. I am not monitoring the battery temperature (I am using LiFePO4) and the solar charge controller already measures the battery voltage.

Questions:

Am I missing something?

Do people use the VE direct function in this configuration?

It is approx 60 ft from the batteries to the Pilot House. How can I connect a Smart Shunt to the Cerbo GX when the longest VE Direct cable is only 10 meters (32 ft)?

FYI - This is only tempoary until the LiFePO4 batteries arrive in several months. LiFePo4 batteries will use Lynx Smart BMS and connects to the Cerbo GX via network cables.

Has anyone found a way to stop the VE direct plugs dropping off - they seem quite weak compared with other connections on my boat electrics and electronics.

It seems to be pretty well documented that there are issues with ve.direct devices shuffling around device IDs in a system. This is an extreme nuisance for multiple reasons. Firstly, your device history in the GX and VRM essentially get lost. Secondly, if you have a well defined Advanced view in VRM with many widgets, these have to be redone every time the device IDs get shuffled which is a considerable pain due to the interface. While a pretty interface, it is NOT at all an enjoyable process to arrange your widgets in VRM.

I have had this happen twice now in my system in the last 3 days and it is very frustrating and really breaks your historical data used for trending and analysis.

It seems that currently, devices get tracked by their ve.direct device id (288+). This is a transient value that appears to get assigned to devices when they are connected/on power up (or if a random reshuffle occurs?) and is simple a bus communication port. Given that every device has a unique serial number (and likely other under the hood identifiers as well) why isn't data logged against that vs against the device ID which seems to change randomly without reason. This would represent a much more "stable" view into your data and allow me to trust the long term trends much more.

Thanks!

Greetings,

my BMV-712 is installed with the victron shunt. There is a ve.direct connection via the victron USB cable to a Raspberry PI. The text output from the ve.direct has been working flawlessly for a few weeks.

I added a temperature sensor today, and now it only transmit garbage. If i remove the temperature sensor i still see no text display, just random data.

Anyone have any thoughts on whats going on ?

Thanks !

-Lenny

Just installed a Cerbo GX and Smart Shunt.

Powered everything on, and no smart shunt on the Cerbo. I do see it on bluetooth, so I updated the firmware. I have not yet tried a full power cycle. I did reboot the Cerbo a few times.

Not sure if related, but the Multiplus also did not show up on the cerbo. I connected that to VE Bus ethernet port. I plan to try a separate ethernet cable, also had trouble with MK3 to USB adapter to update firmware on Multi.

Was a crazy day. Any advice or trouble shooting ideas would be awesome!

I try to get as much information as possible from a Peak Power Pack. What I see is a different behaviour than what's documented. E.g. "VE.Direct-Protocol-3.32.pdf" states in the Introduction: "On power up, a VE.Direct interface will always be in Text-mode, and continuously transmits
all run-time fields. As soon as it receives a valid HEX-message,..." But I've never seen any text message from my Peak Power Pack. I use the software from https://github.com/TheWandrr/vedirect_to_mqtt to read Peak Power Pack with a USB cable. But I only get the main_voltage and the temperature right now. And a message I can't find any documentation:

Parsing data from main_voltage [ED8D] = 13.530

Parsing data from temp [EDEC] = 313.000

ParseHexMessage(A002100100000001A)

So where can I find specific information about how to "talk" to a Peak Power Pack. I need to know if it's charged and the SOC (I know that's a hard question).

I want to switch off my MPPT with ignition on. So I have to pull down RX to GND, and therefore I prepared the mentioned cable with a JST plug.

But I recognized that on a high signal the resistance between COM (black) and REMOTE (red) is still some 52kOhms. Is this too much to pull down RX to GND or will it work?

Hello,

the software VictronConnect don't find my mppt.

I have already installed driver and my computer find usb driver for usb port.

I have windows 8.

Can you help me to solve the issue?

thanks

So I have two MPPT 100/50, BMV-712, Color Controller (and Multiplus-2 12/1600/70-16, & 2 x Blue Nova BN13V-108-1.4K 12V LiFePO4 batteries in parallel). That's three VE.Direct devices but there are only two VE.Direct connectors on the Color Controller. I created a BlueTooth network which incorporates all three sources of info (BMV & MPPT's) but although the MPPT's seem to know about each other (plus battery temperature via the BMV) - the Color Controller only seems to monitor the current flow from the one MPPT that has the VE.Direct cable. Also accessing my system via vrm.victronenergy.com only see's the one/same MPPT device.
Annoying. I'm not seeing the value of BlueTooth and How do I sort this out to properly monitor ALL devices?

I think to connect a Smartshunt with a VE Direct LoRaWAN, to read remotely the battery State of Charge and other parameters Smartshunt may send to the VRM Portal.

Is this a legitimate, feasible use case supported by Victron? Anybody tested this configuration?

I read VE Direct LoRaWAN manual but I do not see compatibility with the SmartShunt. Thus my questions above.

Below an excerpt form the VE Direct LORaWAN manual:

Product compatibility

Hi All, I am looking for some options on the best way to connect multiple devices to my Multiplus GX. Up until now I have just had a BMV 700 plugged into the VE.Direct port but now I have installed 250/70 VE.Can MPPT. Originally I thought I could just use VE.Can as stated by the distributor I purchased from but on further research it’s BMS-can only. Is it possible to plug the MPPT in with a VE.direct to USB adapter? Or maybe connect the BMV to the MPPT via Bluetooth then plug the MPPT into the GX with VE.direct, would that still pass all the information through from the BMV? Or maybe there is a bridge so that I can interface VE.can to VE.bus? Failing that maybe there is a new BMS master I could use with a current sensor that would pass information through on BMS-can making the BMV redundant and freeing up the VE.direct port for the MPPT? Any pointers greatly appreciated. Cheers, James

The project that I am currently working on has 6 mppt 150/35 smart solar controllers. I would like to have them all being monitored using the cerbo gx and Victron Connect. I would like to use VE.Direct to connect all 6 smart solar controllers. Would it be possible to add an additional Cerbo GX on the same network, giving me the additional 3 VE.Direct ports needed to monitor all 6 mppt smart solar controllers.

I have:

Phoenix inverter 12/375

Smartsolar 100/30

Smartshunt

Planning to get cerbo/GX to connect everything via ve.direct

I also have a blue smart ip67 12v/25a. I no longer have PV panels hooked up to the smartsolar

can I wire the blue smart ip67 output (either in power supply mode or charger) to the PV input on the smartsolar to workaround the lack of ve.direct connectivity on the blue smart charger?

I have a VE.Bus BMS connected to a MPPT 100/50 solar charger via a VE.Direct non-inverting remote on/off cable. The MPTT has a single VE.Direct port, so I can't monitor it using my Cerbo GX.

I guess one option is to install a separate charge disconnect device. Any other ideas?

Thanks.

Bonjour à tous, j'ai acheté récemment un fourgon aménagé équipé d'un MPPT BlueSolar 75/15. Je viens de commander un dongle VE-Direct pour pouvoir avoir les infos du MPPT sur mon smartphone. Ma question est, peut-on connecter directement le dongle au MPPT si celui-ci est déjà en fonctionnement (branché aux capteurs solaires et aux batteries) ou faut-il éteindre le MPPT pour connecter le dongle. Merci pour votre aide.

"inverter output voltage and current" readings on the Advanced page of VRM go negative output current (-0.2 for example), sometimes, while it is actively powering a load (tv, phone, computer).

Remote Console shows 0VA but theres 17watts being used as shown by my Smart Plug.

Surely it's impossible for the inverter to do that (negative current).

trying to make sense of a range check error that apperes when i am using configure to commission a new 230 volt multi II 24v with VE config III

am using windows 8

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I have a MPPT charger and a raspberry pi running Vinus OS connected to the VRM portal. Is there a way to link the MPPT controller to the RPI using bluetooth instead of the USB/VE.direct cable ?

I have lost power on pin 4 (Power +) of the VE Direct port. I still have data coming through but no power. Is there any way to test or repair this further or does it mean replacement a unit is required?

System is including:

1. RS 48/6000
2. CCGX
3. BYD LVS

RS 48/6000 is connected to the CCGX via VE.Direct

Problem: CCGX shows 49% SOC but Inverter shows 98%

Dose anybody know how I should fix this problem?

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Dear All ,

I have a peculiar issue that the inverter even with hard coded lower voltage cut-off at 18.7V
and alarm at 20V ( Via VictronConnect and latest FW )

and still the inverter cuts off at 24 V exactly.

The current shunt and MPPT controller reports the same voltage during the shutdown

I hope someone could provide some light ?

Thank you

The Harvester

Dear All ,

As far as I understand there is a way to change the inverter lower cut-off values for battery voltage.

when I installed the Inverter I didn't change any of the default settings ( I think, I couldn't get the software to work on my pc ), and now I have an issue with the Inverter not working under 24V when the battery bank gets drained under 24V

The main question is, IF I can change the setting for the lower cut off value from my raspberry pi running the official Generic Venus Device image and uploading data to the vrm of Victron.

and this preferably to be done remotely since I can't physically get to it.

Thank you in advance

The harvester.

Hello guys.

The GX device is not showing energy flow to the inverter??

I am a experienced Victron builder, but have encountered this new problem.

Just finished a DC system for a customer ( AC inverter for the aircondition )

All devices in the system are updated to the latest firmware.

Inverter is connected via VE direct to the cerbo

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Yours sincerely,

Lasse Myrén
Technical supervisor

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lmy@gsolenergy.com
www.gsolenergy.com

We support Sustainable Development Goal 7
Ensure access to affordable, reliable,
sustainable and modern energy for all.

Can I use the Smart Shunt’s ve direct port to put a Bluetooth dongle on an extension for additional coverage? Also can Smart Shunt use the ve direct to USB cable to connect to a computer?

Do Phoenix VE.Direct and Cerbo GX work fully together? Or are there differences with VE.Bus? Do I have any restrictions with VE.Direct regarding Cerbo GX and VRM Portal?