PvMonit - Project send data to emoncms (from Victron ve.direct dialogue)

Hello,

I developed PvMonit for my specific needs : so that my Raspberry sends (when it can) the data collected on my Victron devices (Ve.direct compatible) to EmonCMS (install in web). There is also a small web interface in PHP having the live information

Article and github (in Frensh)

Why did not I use emonPI ?

  • Because I wanted my raspberry to be read only in order to preserve the SD card (so the cache is done in RAM and is sent to my emonCMS server when the internet connection is there)
  • Because I already have a web server outside my house that could use for emonCMS
  • Because the emonHUB brick does not seem to know how to “cache” (because the WiFi of my internet connection is not always on (I am not connected to the electrical network)

I figured that some function might serve you for emonHub :

Sorry for my English, my french is better :-p

Have good day,

David

1 Like

Hi David, Thanks for sharing your solution, I’m personally not familiar with victron but I am aware that an interfacer has been added to the “emonpi” variant of emonhub a while back.

Is it along the same lines?

emonHub is also usually installed to a Read-only version of the Raspbian OS but unfortunately that particular variant of emonhub does not provide buffering of data like the original emonhub it is derived from. I agree it’s an essential requirement for forwarding data over any network that is not 100% reliable, I usually recommend using “original” emonhub for forwarding to a remote server, some of my own installs can buffer up to a weeks worth of data in RAM.

I have bookmarked this thread for ref and added the Victron tag hopefully it will prove useful to others and maybe sometime soon we can get the emonhub variants reunited to reduce duplicate work.

Hello David,

the other thread that Paul mentions is most probably this one where I asked help to correct the node-red part.

This is the other approach where you go read the data from multiplus units via the USBMK2 dongle. The script can be found on the gitbub from Liaan. Though your approach has one major advantage, it buffers where the is approach needs a constant link or you loose data.
Might be interesting to combine all this to monitor the full chain ?

(et si jamais tu veux un peu d’aide pour traduire tout ça dans la langue de shakespeare :wink: )

(et si jamais tu veux un peu d’aide pour traduire tout ça dans la langue de shakespeare :wink: , je suis également en France)

Hi Eric, I was actually referring to the “EmonHubVEDirectInterfacer” now part of emonHub. If you are running an emonPi it is (apparently) just a case of plugging in an “isolating USB lead” and adding the configurations to emonhub.conf.

https://github.com/openenergymonitor/emonhub/blob/emon-pi/conf/VEDirect.readme.md

This also runs on a read-only OS, but it unfortunately does not have the required buffering.

hi i am also in france, but english, my children are french but sadly i find learning the language very hard!
we live off grid with no edrf connection and have victron inverters in parralel and 3 x morningstar mppt inverters, i wish to read from my multiplus direct and retrive data from my controllers, i also am on 24v with two 1000amhr battery banks, how have you got on? i plane to read you github and try and install.

steve

Hi Steve

I think you could start with reading the multiplus data via the USBMK2 dongle since it is controlling most of the chain. This is what I do via this.
From there I send the data to a self hosted emoncms portal (you could easily use the free hosted version from emoncms). I use 1 raspi to get the data via the dongle and it’s sending the data to the emonbase. The emonbase is used in house to collect data from several other units like emonth and emontx, basically see it as a central hub gathering all the info. The emonbase can either be used as a local little server with the inbuild portal that allows you to make the graphs etc or use it to send the data to an online emoncms portal (self hosted or not)

Next to that it seems to be possible to read directly from the mptt but since I don’t have these, didn’t test it and again send it to either self hosted emoncms either the online version. (not sure the same raspi could be used to collect the multiplus and the mppt flows … to be tested)

Try to go step by step and not all at once. It sounds complicated at start but take it step by step and once you see the logic it is really kids play.

many thanks, iam an electronics engineer but so much in to coding but this looks good, company i work for has a good software engineer, he has offered to help me, the mppts use modbus which i see the emon works with, my goal is to allow the family to see how much we have made, how much we have used and how much we have used from the generator in the winter.
we have just increased the pv by x3 total now 5.5kw.
i have built the solar arrays to tilt through the year to get input in the winter!

i will find a pi and get going, will keep you updated if that is ok?

steve

for sure keep us posted :wink:
It is always nice to see how people progress and each time someone can learn from it.
I just saw there is now a USBMK3 dongle on the victron site … you can’t stop progress