HOW TO: Victron VRM and Sixfab Hotspot

[bdosborn]

Nifty! I installed it on mine. I had to reset the superuser password via the console but all was good after that.

Bruce

[lfhoward]

Nifty! I installed it on mine. I had to reset the superuser password via the console but all was good after that.

Bruce

Nice!

Andy mentioned in passing on one of the comments on his YouTube video that there is actually a way to connect the BMS of a DIY battery like ours up to the Venus GX also! I didn't think you could do this unless you had a Victron branded battery. BUT, I did some Googling and found out that a hack does exist! Check this out:

Louis Van Der Walt wrote a driver that allows communication from the Venus Pi to a BMS using a VE.Direct USB to Serial cable. Multiple kinds of BMS's are supported, including the Overkill Solar BMS I have.
https://community.victronenergy.com/questions/76159/victron-venusos-driver-for-serial-connected-bms-av.html

Same author, different forum & different conversation in the comments for more reading:
https://diysolarforum.com/threads/victron-venusos-driver-for-serial-connected-bms-llt-jbd-daly-smart-ant-jkbms-heltec-renogy.17847/

And the source code of the driver and its written description that lives on Github:
https://github.com/Louisvdw/dbus-serialbattery

I'm going to need to install this! I will have to order another expensive VE.Direct cable, but it would be worth doing. The cable would plug into my BMS in the same slot that the Bluetooth dongle currently uses. Thus, I would be giving up Bluetooth to have the Venus GX know the individual cell-level voltages. These voltages could be shared with the charge controllers and potentially be more accurate than the voltage that is measured by the BMV (or smart shunt). I would not remove my shunt/BMV because I want to keep the battery monitor display on the wall and the VRM is ok having more than one battery monitor connected (the other is the BMS itself). You can set the VRM to prioritize either the BMV or BMS voltage and temperature readings for battery charging and discharging decisions.

[bdosborn]

That's the beauty of open source software, it's so much more robust than proprietary stuff. I know that the Venus software is compatible with canbus and NMEA 2000 as well. We'll probably see Venus drivers for Tesla packs since its canbus. I can't afford NMEA 2000 but it's nice to know it will work on my Yacht when I win the lottery.
Bruce