Just now, The Terrible Triplett said:

Matthijs called me twice on the issue ... no Voltronic devices. Would not go there if I was in your shoes, Victron relationship is worth a lot more than a few Axperts data.

Two sides to this really. Let me see if I can explain it.

You sort of have to know how the CCGX updates and how it is packaged. It runs on openembedded, which uses opkg/ipkg, a package format not too dissimilar from Debian's deb format. They ship updates using these packages. That is how it is done now. It means when you update your ccgx, anything you installed manually remains in place. You can add on anything you want, as it is after all only a Linux computer.

However... this is about to change. They will in future do image-based updates, which will overwrite changes you made. You would have to re-apply any changes you made after each update, and you would not be able to use automatic updates.

In other words, it is in your interest to get the proposed functionality adopted into the CCGX. I think THIS is where the limitations will be placed: They are not going to accept code in the official code base that supports hardware from direct competitors. That is understood, accepted and obvious.

But, absolutely nobody can stop you from making your own package, installing it on your Pi/CCGX, and turning off automatic updates. It obviously won't work as well, you'd have no support, and so forth. In a perfect world, you'll buy a Multiplus next time though :-)

I used a similar sales pitch, they thought about it for 2 weeks, and still said no, please don't.

1 minute ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

I used a similar sales pitch, they thought about it for 2 weeks, and still said no, please don't.

Well, I'm not going to do it. I briefly considered it, just to prove it can be done... but honestly, I had my misgivings too.

Someone could do it though... it would not be difficult. If you already had the MPPT and the BMV, it could save you a lot of time... :-)

Anyway, sorry I brought it up. Point reinforced. The Chinese (inverters, not people) are persona non Grata here :-)

1 hour ago, plonkster said:

The Chinese (inverters, not people) are persona non Grata here :-)

Correct. There is no chances that Victron will make any sales out the users of Voltronic due to price - I agree.

Plus they checked. Voltronic is a Taiwanese listed company, so they can do such themselves any time the want.

1 hour ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

Correct. There is no chances that Victron will make any sales out the users of Voltronic due to price - I agree.

Plus they checked. Voltronic is a Taiwanese listed company, so they can do such themselves any time the want.

Not 100% true. I have sold & installed some BMV monitors and battery balancers at clients with Axpert inverters.. 

2 minutes ago, SilverNodashi said:

Not 100% true. I have sold & installed some BMV monitors and battery balancers at clients with Axpert inverters.. 

What we mean is that if Axpert users are using a Victron web services, that there will not be enough inverter sales coming from that to justify such access.

The sale of BMV's in SA, was also checked. The amount and profit margins are nowhere near what they need to justify such a move. 

3 hours ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

no smiley thingy

Btw, I've been typing smileys since 1997. It's muscle memory and they always look the same. For some odd reason, many forum and other chat products have decided not to use the traditional emoticon encoding, and so my smileys :-) and tongue-in-cheek comes out all conventional looking :-P Which is cool.

I have some contacts from the old days that you can spot anywhere because they have no nose smile the wrong way round (:

And then there were the nights we were a bit %-), and the morning after when it was more like %-(. I mean, back then the internet had way less pictures and the pictures were in your head. Like when playing Zork. We registered for accounts on the unix server so we could run ircII in a screen session and "always be online"...

You know, back in my days we spoke on the phone, had face to face conversations and you gave your girl XXX at the end of a letter.

Now we are chatting to people here, in Pakistan. Yo!

I think I am now the proud owner of the very first Infini software that runs on RPi . It reads all the data and uploads to emoncms and pvoutput!

Runs stable, CPU load is <1%. Attached screenshot shows 3% total CPU load with two simultaneous VNC sessions plus Infini software.
These RPi's are brilliant and the software Manie wrote is super efficient.

Thanks Manie, not even a full day and you have a working RPi app. Can't thank you enough.

C

Are you guys going to make a available for other users here on the forum?

TTT

I'm just the monkey behind the screen, it's all Manie's work. He did me a huge favor by letting me test and use it. So it's entirely his decision what happens to it.

C

I think I am now the proud owner of the very first Infini software that runs on RPi . It reads all the data and uploads to emoncms and pvoutput!

Runs stable, CPU load is

These RPi's are brilliant and the software Manie wrote is super efficient.

Thanks Manie, not even a full day and you have a working RPi app. Can't thank you enough.

C

Thank you with your help and also to test it. I must also give credit to JDP with help on the project.

I will be testing the Axpert and see how it goes.

Good news that we have the Axpert and Infini 3kva and Bmv runnig on the pi like a desktop app. Soon we will be testing the 5kva Infini[emoji1]

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

So with others posting good results. Small victory for me too. You may recall that a large part of this thread, in the beginning, was me just trying to talk to my Can-bus based charge controller. I eventually managed that with an arduino, some canbus hardware,  and just enough code to fake half of ve-direct. That was so minimal it doesn't even do a checksum as is mandated by the protocol. As a result this would never work with other software (such as the official software).

I also needed a BMV for a project, but didn't have one, so I took another arduino and faked the VE-direct protocol on it. But I messed it up a bit and the serial number I returned in the hex and text protocols mismatched, causing it to bail out. I fixed that tonight.

Thanks to TTT for sending me the proper response to one of the Hex requests. :-)

My plan is to now move some of this over to my can-reader project. That will turn it into a proper vecan->vedirect converter, which will allow using those charge controllers with vrmlogger.

Posting it here, because this is the Rpi thread, and lack of a can port might bother others too.

Here she is for now.

https://github.com/izak/vedirect-simulator

Plonkster, do you know how you differentiate between a hard core developer and a real developer?
- The one goes and builds a Arduino that pretends to be a BMV, then writes the software he needs, and then buys a BMV later.
- The other one goes and orders a BMV online, connects it, then writes the software he needs.

12 minutes ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

builds a Arduino that pretends to be a BMV

Ulterior motives. I was already committed to faking the VE-Direct side when I built the can-bus solution for the Pi. Two birds with one stone and all that.

Now I only have to merge the code bases and I will have a device that allows you to plug your can-bus controller into the original software on the Pi. Some things won't work of course (like firmware updates), for that you'll need to buy a real CCGX :-)

Btw, line 100 in vedirect.ino. That is the proper way to make a variable loop cyclically through a range. Faster than using an if statement to detect when I need to "turn around". Just something I learned recently, CPUs are seriously just faster at doing the math then deciding if they need to do it.

(and branch prediction is a real thing nowadays... I wonder if it plays a role on the arduino? Would not be surprised).

1 hour ago, plonkster said:

Some things won't work of course (like firmware updates)

I use VictronConnect nowadays to upgrade MPPT's and BMV's. Falling of a horse easy.

But then you have one of the two MPPT's that falls in a different category.

2 hours ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

But then you have one of the two MPPT's that falls in a different category.

And you do NOT want to know what the can-usb cable costs for updating that thing! You're better off just buying the CCGX.

Then again, the only reason you want to update firmware on these things is to try something new. Like when hub-1 came out for example...

I must admit, I am VERY happy that I picked up re. your controllers can-bus.

These ones nowadays are not only cheaper, but also easier to connect to: http://www.sonopsolar.co.za/product/victron-charge-controller-mppt-15085-tr/

This is THE cheapest VE-Direct to USB cable I have ever seen - R230.01 incl VAT! : http://www.sonopsolar.co.za/product/ccgx-to-bmv-700-cable/

With LCD: https://www.victronenergy.com/solar-charge-controllers/smartsolar-charge-controller-150-85-150-100

18 minutes ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

These ones nowadays are not only cheaper, but also easier to connect to: http://www.sonopsolar.co.za/product/victron-charge-controller-mppt-15085-tr/

When I bought mine, this model didn't even exist yet. I was undecided on the day I bought the 150/70. I was standing in the ExSolar showroom, with the 100/50 in my hand that day, I was about to pay for it. As I recall it was about 5.5k at the time. As a passing thought, I asked the salesperson to throw in a cable as well, thinking that SURELY that can't be more than maybe R400. The cable turned out to be a tad over 1k.

It's funny how these things work. I was undecided, quite willing to spend a little extra, especially since the 100/50 was limited to 12V/24V while the big brother can do 48V as well. I decided on the 100/50 because, so I reasoned, I can almost buy two of these for the price of the bigger one. When I heard the price of the cable though, the total price tag (for two 100/50s) went up to 11k, vs the 9k for big brother. Big brother also has an LCD screen.

At the time, the 150/70 and 150/85 models were the only ones you could use with hub-1 too.

The rest is history. I ended up with the can model.

FWIW. Since SolWEB, every time I shop with my eyes, I check first:
What type of data can I get?
What does the cable cost?

Either one of those not on the latest Victron / Morningstar standards, I lose interest on the spot. 

The time is passing fast for complicated ways of doing it.

That is quite a good price.

Does anyone know if there are VD-Direct cables available with a "right-angled" plug on the  BMV side? My BMV-702 is installed in a housing that's not very deep. The cable is bent quite badly at the back and I will either have to change the housing or get a cable that sits flatter against the meter.

C

nope you won't find one, change the housing rather - get a 4way Surface mount Hager box. I put mine into one looks ok and deep enough

@plonkster I see Teamviewer has souped up their security: Teamviewer Upgraded Security