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tomas-maldonis avatar image
tomas-maldonis asked

BMS Recommendation

Hi, I think about SmallBMS or VEBus BMS. I understand they work with Victron Lifepo4 batteries. Though I want to connect with DIY made batteries.

I plan to use JBD (chinese) bms then transfer information to Victron BMS named above. Would it work? My load and charge requirements are very low. Only 2x200 solar panels and charging tiller autopilot and old instruments. No inverter or fancy charge or high watt load. Max 5-15 ampere load/discharge. Ill run lifepo4 4x cells 12v.

I even consider Venus OS on Raspberry if I can find a good used GX device.


Thanks in advance!

Tomas

BMSdiy
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7 Answers
bathnm avatar image
bathnm answered ·

All the BMS which Victron sell are designed to work with their batteries. There are a number of 3rd party BMSs that will work with VenusOS. Do some searching for BMS and VenusOS and I am sure you will find a lot of information.

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Louis van der Walt avatar image
Louis van der Walt answered ·

You can use the JBD BMS directly to the GX device using my driver.
My driver handles a few different BMS systems (JBD, ANT, JKBMS, DALY).

https://github.com/Louisvdw/dbus-serialbattery

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Mike avatar image Mike commented ·

Hi Louis,

JBD make a number of adapters. A uart box, and a rs485 adapter. Which works best with your driver?

Also, I have a system with 5 batteries all are 4s with a separate JBD bms on each battery. The total storage is about 1200ah. Is it possible to connect the rs485 outputs and have all batteries displayed on the cerbo?


Thanks. You have done an awesome job on the driver.


These are the adapters I’m looking at…

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004715317036.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.19d77ebawgJpb7&algo_pvid=f34a5922-b30b-43bb-962d-7cd685d47a20&aem_p4p_detail=202210210452452486616196293870000337477&algo_exp_id=f34a5922-b30b-43bb-962d-7cd685d47a20-3&pdp_ext_f=%7B%22sku_id%22%3A%2212000030213803483%22%7D&pdp_npi=2%40dis%21AUD%2125.72%2117.23%21%21%21%21%21%402101e9d216663531654325722e24a6%2112000030213803483%21sea&curPageLogUid=HGD8KBtlW5Ri&ad_pvid=202210210452452486616196293870000337477_4

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Louis van der Walt avatar image Louis van der Walt Mike commented ·
Hi @Mike

Both the UART or RS485 works the same for the driver. But if your JBD only has one UART port then you you need to swop between the bluetooth module or the USB box as both will use the UART. So if your model has a RS485 port then that is the better option for flexibility. Feature wise there is no difference.

For multi bank you will see the details of each battery, but they are not summed as one large battery for the system. See #8 in the tickets for more details and updates.

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Mike avatar image Mike Louis van der Walt commented ·
Thank you!
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bathnm avatar image
bathnm answered ·

The M8 connectors supply do not charge, do not discharge and temp signals to the BMS. It makes no sense to have a the BMS you are using to manage the batteries feed a victron BMS. If for example you used a smallBMS, it provides a ATC and ATD signal, your other BMS will also supply these signals.

Re GX device, a GX device runs VenusOS so the answer is yes the RPI will support controlling the relay.

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tomas-maldonis avatar image
tomas-maldonis answered ·

I forgot to ask about m8 circular connections. Is it possible to configure raspberry/Jbd so my 3rd part battery works like Victron one? It would mean that the smallBMS receives correct info.

I will try use only Raspberry first. Speaking of BMS, JBD supports CAN, UART; 485. Which protocol would I use if I want some programming so it works together with other Victron products?

Maybe I should go with simple relays instead if all this is getting too complicated. At the moment, I have only MPPT as charger and Xantrex as shunt monitor. Then Im trying figure out another layer of bms similar to smartBMS which controls Victron batteries with its internal bms.

Does Venus OS do support temperature and relay control similar to a GX device? so I could use Raspberry GPIO pinout.

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Louis van der Walt avatar image Louis van der Walt commented ·

If you use the JBD bms with my driver your BMS will be just like an officially supported battery. The driver will enable your BMS to be selected as the Battery Monitor (by default it the GX will select this for you). On the JBD every battery feature supported on the GX is implemented. Just check out the wiki for the driver on the features if you want more info.

This also work on a Raspberry Pi if you run the VenusOS image on it. That is how I use it on my JBD.

You can use the RS485 or the UART. Normally on the JBD your bluetooth will be connected on the UART port. If that is the only port your model has you need to setup your BMS using the bluetooth and your phone app and then remove the bluetooth to use that port for the driver afterwards. If you also have RS485 (or some have a second UART port) then you can use that to connect. Just follow the wiki's How to install.

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tomas-maldonis avatar image
tomas-maldonis answered ·

Thanks for replies. Sounds promising!


Now i have to do an installation to understand the theory better.

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shaneyake avatar image
shaneyake answered ·

The best BMS to use is an Orion or REC bms, both have native CAN support for Victron but just like Victron products they are pricey.

https://www.orionbms.com/products/orion-jr2-bms/

https://www.rec-bms.com/rec-q-battery-management-system-16s/

But since your system is really small I would use Louis van der Walt module
https://github.com/Louisvdw/dbus-serialbattery
and use a supported BMS. There is a list on the github of supported BMS's

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petajoule avatar image
petajoule answered ·

For larger batteries (20kWh+)


We're using the ECS LiPro1-x (formerly V1, now V2) for larger LiFePO4 cells (Winston 400Ah). The advantage of these is that when they're balancing, they do not dissipate excess power of a cell in heat, but via DC/DC converter send it to the other cells in the battery.

Now these have a Modbus RTU RS485 interface and we use a USB<->RS485 cable (usually FTDI USB-RS485-WE-1800-BT, sometimes the 5000-BT, just length difference) for communication.

Integration with VenusOS should be pretty easy - if you are a Python guy. We're using Perl and C libraries on RaspPi so far.

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Related Resources

Victron VE.Bus BMS product page

Victron 3rd party BMS compatibility page

Additional resources still need to be added for this topic