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Victron Venus GX or Color control GX


Dr Bob

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3 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

Bob. We cruised for a couple of hours yesterday and ran the engine till the nasa voltage read 14.4 and 2.6 amps as it happens. That was 3 pm. We watched telly for a change all day and fridge on pooters and General boaty life. Got up this morning and nasa showing 12. 4 volts whilst a draw of 7 amps from batteries. No need for gadgets or smartphones my cheapos still running the boat without a problem. Oh .....sorry, hang on I thought the thread was about some gadget to make your life easier ?

Yea, we do that now. All very simple. But when the duck goes to sleep and Mrs Bob nowhere to be seen, I've got nothing to fire the infrequent red thermometer at. I get bored. Need something to stimulate the brain and I've nearly finished my sudoku book.

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9 minutes ago, Dr Bob said:

Yea, we do that now. All very simple. But when the duck goes to sleep and Mrs Bob nowhere to be seen, I've got nothing to fire the infrequent red thermometer at. I get bored. Need something to stimulate the brain and I've nearly finished my sudoku book.

Red tube?

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9 hours ago, jan-kees said:

I have 2 Venus.  after I had first a CCGX for 3 years

 

 

Victron is the only marine electronics manufacturer who is doing the software as open source, so if you don't want to buy the Venus, you can download the software and put it on a raspberry.

 

I started with the Color CCGX and was one of the first ones.  Since my one boat is 1 hr away and winters can be very hard It was a blessing to see if shore power was on, to see how much my solar panels provided.

 

I have no clue how much data it uses, but if it was more than 50 - 100 MB/mo I am willing to give you a case of whiskey

 

Then the Venus CCGX came out...the next gen of the color CCGX.  and cheaper and more functionality.  BUT no little display.  But since I always have my 'smart' phone or tablet handy it acts as a display.  That was also the principle behind the decision of Viltron to produce without a display.  They always would have to buy a display OEM, and pretty much everybody has smart phones/tables with a much better screen, why bother and lower the price of the control unit.

 

The good thing with the Venus is...more functionality....I can turn generator , or inverter on /off remotely.  Handy for when friends come and stay a weekend on thereat when I am an ocean away. They don't need to worry .

The Venus CCGX also had digital inputs, so it can alert me when a bilge pump goes on, a burger alarm gets triggered,  the temperature gets low or high.  pretty much anything is possible.

 

Do I want to spend the time putting the software on a Raspberry.....NO....the 200 E / $ savings is not worth it for me.  since all the parts are integrated in the Venus.

 

Victron has a lot more features coming for the unit.

 

another nice feat with VRM is with a Venus or color cccx you can update firmware in the MPPT, BMV etc

Jan-Kees, welcome to the forum and thanks for the input on the Venus GX.

Good to hear it doesnt use much data! Will that be a case of Malt whiskey if you are wrong!!!

Also good to hear what you connect it to. Thanks again for your very useful info.

 

Now, my VE direct cables arrived at the weekend, but 'shock horror' both ends of the cable are terminated with VE direct plugs. I was expecting it to be able to plug into the Pi! Looks like it doesnt. Robbo, any ideas on how to connect it to the Pi?

I am very much leaning towards buying the Venus as the Pi is going to cost over £50 anyway......as my current Pi is for the TV.

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1 hour ago, mrsmelly said:

Bob. We cruised for a couple of hours yesterday and ran the engine till the nasa voltage read 14.4 and 2.6 amps as it happens. That was 3 pm. We watched telly for a change all day and fridge on pooters and General boaty life. Got up this morning and nasa showing 12. 4 volts whilst a draw of 7 amps from batteries. No need for gadgets or smartphones my cheapos still running the boat without a problem. Oh .....sorry, hang on I thought the thread was about some gadget to make your life easier ?

I think your missing the point of why we want these, it’s because we can.   It’s like having a boat it doesn’t make life easier (far from it), it’s not because you need one, it’s because you enjoy it.

3 minutes ago, Dr Bob said:

Jan-Kees, welcome to the forum and thanks for the input on the Venus GX.

Good to hear it doesnt use much data! Will that be a case of Malt whiskey if you are wrong!!!

Also good to hear what you connect it to. Thanks again for your very useful info.

 

Now, my VE direct cables arrived at the weekend, but 'shock horror' both ends of the cable are terminated with VE direct plugs. I was expecting it to be able to plug into the Pi! Looks like it doesnt. Robbo, any ideas on how to connect it to the Pi?

I am very much leaning towards buying the Venus as the Pi is going to cost over £50 anyway......as my current Pi is for the TV.

They should have been vedirect to usb cables to connect to a pi

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34 minutes ago, Robbo said:

.

They should have been vedirect to usb cables to connect to a pi

Yea, that's what I figured. At £40 for the two cables I am leaning now to getting the Venus rather than send them back for usb ones...which I dont think I can use on the venus. Any idea if I can wire these up to usb? There are only 4 wires on them.

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6 minutes ago, Dr Bob said:

Yea, that's what I figured. At £40 for the two cables I am leaning now to getting the Venus rather than send them back for usb ones...which I dont think I can use on the venus. Any idea if I can wire these up to usb? There are only 4 wires on them.

I think you can still use the usb cables on the Venus GX as that’s the way to expand the number of vedirect devices the GX can handle.

 

The GX has a number of inputs for things such as bilge alarm, tank levels if your looking to take advantage of these then it looks good.   However if your only going to use two vedirect devices then it’s still quite expensive.   You can still play with Venus on the pi in demo mode and connect to VRM to see if it’s for you, I would at least do that to see if the software is for you.

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3 hours ago, Sea Dog said:

Thanks for your input jan-kees, welcome to the forum. 

 

Where are you and what sort of boat do you have? 

I have a 57 ft glass fiber one in the USA and a 61 ft, 1930 s steel barge in Holland

So being in either location provides me with rest full nights knowing the Venus cgx will warn me  in case of possible problems

plus the VRM was quite helpful showing the marina, that their electric billing was not correct :)

 

And now with the marina going to a system where they get re-imbursed for solar electric delivered to the net, the ESSsystem of Viltron is really paying off

 

 

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2 hours ago, Dr Bob said:

Jan-Kees, welcome to the forum and thanks for the input on the Venus GX.

Good to hear it doesnt use much data! Will that be a case of Malt whiskey if you are wrong!!!

Also good to hear what you connect it to. Thanks again for your very useful info.

 

Now, my VE direct cables arrived at the weekend, but 'shock horror' both ends of the cable are terminated with VE direct plugs. I was expecting it to be able to plug into the Pi! Looks like it doesnt. Robbo, any ideas on how to connect it to the Pi?

I am very much leaning towards buying the Venus as the Pi is going to cost over £50 anyway......as my current Pi is for the TV.

well dr. bob.   not sure who came to the conclusion to get these cables,   since you should have bought the ve.direct to USB cables,  plugging directly into a USB hub or Pi.    I have a GPS, 3 MPPT's and the BMV connected with the Ve -> USB cables to a USB hub to the Venus 

 

Yes the Pi's are a savings of about 200 or so, but they lack the built in power adapter and a few more pre defined inputs.

I have subscribed to the development list, mainly so I see all kind of fun things being developed

 

I am tinkering with the idea of getting a Pi just to play with the software and to add some intelligent programming for a bilge pump, to have the pump work without a float switch.   Having a flat bottom in one of the boats, there will be hardly any 'height' of eater to activate a float, while the amount can be quite high.

Edited by jan-kees
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1 minute ago, jan-kees said:

 

I am tinkering with the idea of getting a Pi just to play with the software and to add some intelligent programming for a bilge pump, to have the pump work without a float switch.   Having a flat bottom in one of the boats, there will be hardly any 'height' of eater to activate a float, while the amount can be quite high.

If you haven’t already seen, take a look at the thread I started for messing with the pi.   However the bilge pump I have (https://www.asap-supplies.com/rule-lopro-lp900s-submersible-bilge-pump) doesn’t have a float and if the water detector thingy gets oiled up it goes into a mode that switches on every so often, and no water is pumped it switches off.

 

 

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7 minutes ago, Robbo said:

If you haven’t already seen, take a look at the thread I started for messing with the pi.   However the bilge pump I have (https://www.asap-supplies.com/rule-lopro-lp900s-submersible-bilge-pump) doesn’t have a float and if the water detector thingy gets oiled up it goes into a mode that switches on every so often, and no water is pumped it switches off.

 

 

Robbo   Thanks, but I have used these pumps for a few years already ...Whale came out with these a few years before Ruhle.

Problem with these pumps is , they still need 1/2 to 3/4  inch or so of water before they turn on.

now 1/2 inch in a flat bottom boat means about  150 - 200 liter water before it turns on.

which can easily be done with just condensation in the winter, or some small leak in the windows during the 'rainy' season

So I am needing to program an Arduino or Pi to do some logic to never get it that far

 

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45 minutes ago, jan-kees said:

Robbo   Thanks, but I have used these pumps for a few years already ...Whale came out with these a few years before Ruhle.

Problem with these pumps is , they still need 1/2 to 3/4  inch or so of water before they turn on.

now 1/2 inch in a flat bottom boat means about  150 - 200 liter water before it turns on.

which can easily be done with just condensation in the winter, or some small leak in the windows during the 'rainy' season

So I am needing to program an Arduino or Pi to do some logic to never get it that far

 

I have the whale one as well, the rule has the additional mode of running every now and again, if it detects it’s pumping it will continue.  The whale doesn’t have that.   However even tho these are low profile pumps they won’t start to pump below a certain level even when manually started (even tho they can pump at that level) as the pump won’t be primed.  You need something like the whale gulper that can suck air as well if you want to start pumping at a low level.   Whale do provide a pickup for the gulper to make it a bilge pump.

Edited by Robbo
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14 hours ago, Robbo said:

I have the whale one as well, the rule has the additional mode of running every now and again, if it detects it’s pumping it will continue.  The whale doesn’t have that.   However even tho these are low profile pumps they won’t start to pump below a certain level even when manually started (even tho they can pump at that level) as the pump won’t be primed.  You need something like the whale gulper that can suck air as well if you want to start pumping at a low level.   Whale do provide a pickup for the gulper to make it a bilge pump.

yes..but it still leaves the point where the float or switch needs to reach a certain level before it turns on...thus I am working on the system where the pump turns on, checks if it pumps  and if not it stops and waits till the next time, where the interval is varies depending if there was water pumped.

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  • 4 months later...
On 08/09/2018 at 10:16, Robbo said:

Okay that was fairly easy, although I have nothing to connect it too tho.   I think Dr Bob you will find it a straight foreward and defo worth playing with.  It should be as simple as adding  USB->VEDirect cables for the devices to your Pi and....

 

I just downloaded the firmware from here; http://updates.victronenergy.com/feeds/venus/candidate/images/raspberrypi2/  any of the zip files will do as they are the same.

Unzip the image.

Used Etcher to flash it to a SD card.  I used a 8Gb card, the image is around 2Gb.

Inserted into the Pi, and switched on - it's connected via Ethernet to the router.

I don't have a monitor or keyboard for the pi, so I used Zenmap to find the IP address.

Used a browser to go to the IP address.

I see the "screen" and can setup, etc (as I have nothing to connect to it, I put in demo mode to emulate some connected devices)

 

Adding to VRM was as simply as registering on https://vrm.victronenergy.com and entering the code under the VRM menu (from the "screen")  

 

It looks like if your want to monitor the AC side, you can purchase Energy Meter like the EM111 (modbus) and connect it to the Pi using a RS485 to USB lead as well.

 

 

Ok, only 5 months later.....I did have an excuse, the boat went off to be repainted. Then it was Christmas. Then it was.......er.......er.......

 

.....@robbo, What Pi do you have? I tried it on a Pi A+ (the first one) and it would not boot up. I suspected the sd card and the flashed image so I loaded Raspbian and that worked, so it wasnt Etcher or the card. I looked at the victron site and it said that the Pi A and Pi B are not supported. Maybe it was just a bad power supply.

Gave up and ordered a Pi 3plus and a decent power supply. I'll give it another go on Friday when it arrives.

@Robbo

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3 hours ago, rusty69 said:

Robbo is MIA see last post. 

It's funny, I was just thinking this, right before I read these posts. Sometimes we all need a break from the forum but I hope he's not away too long. :(

 

Perhaps I'll post an IT technical question in the virtual pub and see if that will temp him back. :D

13 minutes ago, Dr Bob said:

Oh, didn't know Robbo had done a runner. That's a shame. 

It is a real shame, innit

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