Read data from Victron Solar Inverter into Node-Red

General
1

Hi all,
I am running a Victron Solar Inverter and really would like to get data from it into my Node-Red Setup.

There are several ways, but none of them worked for me so far :frowning:

  1. MQTT ... I activated the Victron Venus GX MQTT broker and connected to it with MQTT.fx
    Unfortunately all I get is a one-time serial number ... thats it ... no further updates

  2. Modbus ... I tried to use the Node-Red Modbus node to read data from the Inverter ... unfortunately something is goinf wrong:

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Although the reference guide tells me: Address 800 - length 6 --> Serial number

  1. Victron Node-Red Nodes
    there is already a set of node-red nodes, I installed them, but again - all I get is a set of empty nodes and error messages
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I would REALLY like to get some figures from my devices into Node-Red ... perhaps someone out there could help me :slight_smile:
BR
Gawander

2

Did you read/carry out the additional setup steps on the readme page for this node?

3

Hello!!!

The easiest route is to have Venus GX device that talks to the other Victron hardware.

Once you have that there is Victron nodes for node-red. node-red-contrib-victron

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The Venus GX device can be the color control computer CCGX or you can use a Raspberry PI to act as the hub. There is also a new headless device that has a ethernet and wifi interface.

All Venus GX devices are basically Linux computers and could run Node-Red as a native resource.

However the CCGX device is extremely limited and can not be dual purpose in this case.

Read the documentation in fine detail as you have to modify both the node-red and Venus GX devices configuration files before the nodes will intercommunicate. Also, you will want to turn off automatic firmware updates on the Venus GX device that you use, as a firmware update wipes out it's configure that enables remote node-red interactions.

PS. One of the other advantages of having a Venus GX device, is that you can use their VRM web interface to monitor your solar system from the public web if you configure it for that service.

4

I have victron MPPT solar controller and BMV battery meter integrated Into node red via MPPT.

I run two scripts from Systemd
One to print from VE-Direct usb serial lead to a local file.
Then parsed info is printed to MQTT broker.

The script is a bit shonky and the Systemd service reboots every so often to purge the print files.
But not near the script info ATM...

5

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