question

Paul avatar image
Paul asked

Batrium and Smartsolar on the same Cerbo

Hi Victron skilled enthusiasts and professionals!

For a year now, I have a Cerbo GX, a MP II 5000/48 and a SmartSolar over VE.CAN combined with a LiFePO4 battery (controlled by a Batrium BMS).

I want to replace the 11 years old 8kWh European battery LiFePO4 battery with 16pcs Winston 400Ah LiFePO4 cells and in order to preserve my investent I want to connect The Victron and Batrim over CANbus.

Batrim, in their manual however states: "it is not possible to connect both VE.Can products and a BMS battery together on a Color Control GX".

Does this apply for the Cerbo as well and what could be the reason/shortcoming of the Batrium/CG GX?

The Cerbo has an additional BMS.CAN bus so at this one, the Batrium could reside in my opinion.

Anyone?


Besides the above, I also consider switching to BMS of REC or 123smartBMS.

REC has an extended manual for adding drivers to the Cerbo in order to be found over the VE.CAN? bus and the separate cellmonitors (like the longmons of Batrium) have an integrated temperature sensor on each cell too.

CANbus comms however I haven't dug into yet.


Any suggestions here (specially for my first question)?


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3 Answers
Alexandra avatar image
Alexandra answered ·

@Paul

The restriction was that the Batrium was 500kb/s and the mppt can is 250kbs/s. On the CCGX you can only set one speed.

The cerbo can set 2 different ones. You could have also used the ve direct connection anyway that way the CAN conflict is not an issue.

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Paul avatar image
Paul answered ·

Thank you Andrea for your swift answer and explaination, highly appreciated!


How will be the pin-layout from VE.direct to the Batrium?

Same RX-TX as the CANbus cabling?

Is there a difference in protocol between VE.direct and BMS.CAN (i guess)?

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Alexandra avatar image Alexandra ♦ commented ·

@Paul

You can connect the mppt to the CCGX with the ve direct, and the bms via the CAN to get around the 2 different speed requirements.

The only direct connection from bms to mppt is the remote l/h. Or possibly with this cable

I have not used batrium personally with the victron, but there are a few threads on the forum exploring them in particular. And they seem to have decent articles on it.

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Paul avatar image
Paul answered ·

@Alexandra thanks for your effort. I connected the Ethernet BMS.CAN L+H + Ground wires from the Cerbo straight to the corresponding outputs of the Batrium Core and activated transmission of signals to the Cerbo. As simple as that. Now the values are shown in the portal and on my phone.

Trying to find a way of backing up the Core settings and data failed and reading about some CANbus issues with ESS systems in combination with Batrium, I decided to keep it simple and reliable.

The Batrium will send the critical data to the Cerbo but won't communicate on a higher level about stuff like charging speeds with the Cerbo.

I have a nice ABB safety trip with activation coil that will disconnect the batteries from the system when one of the critical values of the Batrium Core is reached.

By just setting up the values for bulk, float etc in the Victrons, this will be sufficiënt for me.


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Related Resources

Cerbo GX product page

GX family product range

Cerbo GX & GX Touch datasheet

Cerbo GX Manual

Venus root access document

Additional resources still need to be added for this topic