Victron Venus OS and a Rasberry

[Diabalo]

jmbigland Below is a link to a helpfull video of the DC-DC Step Down Converter 5-36V to 1.25-32V 5A LED Buck Voltage Regulator on ebay. I put this up as some sellers don't give any instructions.

 

[Soots]

I'm I the only one powering the PI directly from leisure batt connected USB? Sometimes the screen displays the low power symbol, other than that no hick-ups.

Hi Raul, I'm going to power mine from battery too, this weekend hopefully!
Has anyone been able to get their fogstar batteries to be seen on VRM , please? Ive 2 X 300 Ah's.
(Fitted by RogerIvy )

 

[Lenny HB]

Hi Raul, I'm going to power mine from battery too, this weekend hopefully!
Has anyone been able to get their fogstar batteries to be seen on VRM , please? Ive 2 X 300 Ah's.
(Fitted by RogerIvy )

Better to use a Victron shunt much more accurate.

 

[Two on Tour]

I have my JK-BMS reporting to my RasPi, but I tend to ignore it and rely on my Victron shunt, as Lenny HB says, it is way more accurate than my battery JK-BMS.

 

[Raul]

I have my JK-BMS reporting to my RasPi, but I tend to ignore it and rely on my Victron shunt, as Lenny HB says, it is way more accurate than my battery JK-BMS.

Hi Paul, does it show cell voltages temp delta v etc. in vrm? Or only on LAN console?

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Two on Tour]

Hi Paul, does it show cell voltages temp delta v etc. in vrm? Or only on LAN console?

Hi Raul, the VRM can show a fair amount of data from the BMS if you like graphs, and you can get the individual cell voltages via the remote console.

 

[Raul]

I have a 8s JK bms in the van, what port did you use? And what cable?
Thank you.

 

[Two on Tour]

I have a 8s JK bms in the van, what port did you use? And what cable?
Thank you.

Blimey Raul, now you're asking, I rigged it up 18 months ago.
Give me a few minutes to delve into the grey matter and remember what was what, and go to the van and have a look at the BMS.

 

[Two on Tour]

I have a 8s JK bms in the van, what port did you use? And what cable?
Thank you.

Okay, I bought a RS485 converter for the jkbms from Amazon and a RS485 to USB converter from Aliexpress.
The RS485 converter in my case plugs into the GPS port on my JK-B2A8S20P, but may be different if you're using a different jkbms.
I used 4 core screened alarm cabled (just in case of any interference) from the RS485 converter to the USB converter at the RasPi end.
The code to load on the Venus OS is to be found on Github.

Andy from the Off-Grid Garage did a video on setting this up, and also a series of videos for Seplos batteries connected to Victron which may be of interest.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/HiCOZZIE-C...e-Adapter-As-Shown/dp/B0CX8T43X2?tag=mhf04-21

RS485 To USB 485 Converter Adapter Support Win7 XP WIN98 WIN2000 WINXP WIN7 WIN10 VISTA - AliExpress 7

Smarter Shopping, Better Living! Aliexpress.com

www.aliexpress.com

https://github.com/Louisvdw/dbus-serialbattery

 

[Raul]

Thank you I will have a play at this later on. Seplos works with seplos rg45 cable to can. I'm using BMS studio to set up seplos, so far all seplos I did works wonders. Just set protocol same pylontech. Except first one I had a bit of finding things. All on seplos site.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[matbic]

Random thought... All the hab electronics in my Geist appear to be mostly from a canbus type system (I think it's CI-bus???). The Truma iNet app has access to tank levels, battery voltages, etc. I think the lights work with the bus too as they all go back to the same type of modules... I wonder if I can get the Pi to talk to the canbus?

CI-bus is not a CAN bus, it’s a proprietary version of the industry standard LIN bus. LIN bus has become very popular with car manufacturers because it much cheaper than CAN. You can get a LIN bus adapter which will decode the CI-bus data. But but the problem is CI-bus is proprietary and it’s very difficult to get hold of the specification. So seeing the stream of CI-bus (LIN bus) data is not very useful.

Truma do offer a CI-bus interface for 3rd party access on some versions of their control panel. But without the specifications it’s not much use.

However, they don’t use this CI-bus for communication between their own units. They use their own LIN bus based communication and this is not published.

In summary the Truma protocol is a challenge to implement directly on a RasPi it has very harsh timing constraints. It’s also a challenge decoding the Truma LIN protocol.

I just wish Truma had the same open philosophy of say Victron who make it so easy they adopt industry standards and publish all we need to interface to their products.

 

[matbic]

Will a canbus board work with the CI-Bus? Are they all similar enough that I'll be able to figure it out? I don't mind a bit of script level hacking. But looking at pages of hex is beyond me.

No - CI bus is based on the LIN bus not the CAN bus.

 

[jmbigland]

jmbigland Below is a link to a helpfull video of the DC-DC Step Down Converter 5-36V to 1.25-32V 5A LED Buck Voltage Regulator on ebay. I put this up as some sellers don't give any instructions.

Appreciate this thanks
Away this weekend & will watch properly when home

 

[Raul]

Just a warning for those running cerbo and Colour control, I haven't tested on RPI, but, the new official update 3.55 has bugs, don't upgrade just yet. I run a colour control on 3.54 and updated this morning to 3.55, the SOC disappeared all together with the shunt on VE direct. Rebooted back on stored previous version of 3.54, and all works at it should.
I suspect this affects all the official and third party GX devices.

 

[AdrianChen]

Just a warning for those running cerbo and Colour control, I haven't tested on RPI, but, the new official update 3.55 has bugs, don't upgrade just yet. I run a colour control on 3.54 and updated this morning to 3.55, the SOC disappeared all together with the shunt on VE direct. Rebooted back on stored previous version of 3.54, and all works at it should.
I suspect this affects all the official and third party GX devices.

A guy reported he lost his smart meters - He reported they came back when he took his USB hub out of the system... Is yours wired direct?

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Raul]

A guy reported he lost his smart meters - He reported they came back when he took his USB hub out of the system... Is yours wired direct?

Yes, its a small system over my utility/storage one solar charger on VE direct, and smart shunt on the other VE direct port. Inverter on VE bus, no USB port used, or the CAN.
This is on a colour control GX built 2023, not old.
I will be using an energy meter rs485 to USB next week, ( its in the post), and I will be using one of the usb on the GX.
For the time being I will stay with this firmware.

 

[AdrianChen]

Mmm, what a pain - last update I did was to Beta 3.71, then 3.72 had to be rebooted after the update, only then did it work - Think there were some old elements left behind not cleared with the update. Shouldn't need that with a full release....

Edited - getting old wrong version numbers....