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eathan-northwood avatar image
eathan-northwood asked

How do I use the VE.Direct pins with a raspberry pi(running pi os) and read the data using python?

i was wondering if it is possible to read data from the VE.Direct pins with my raspberry pi pins, and python. I want to use raspberry pi OS, and not the Victron OS. is this possible?

VE.Direct Bluetooth Smart Donglepython
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kevgermany avatar image kevgermany ♦♦ commented ·
@eathan northwood

Moved to modifications space.

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von-baron avatar image
von-baron answered ·

Simple answer is yes, this is not uncommon.

But, care needs to be taken around any common mode voltages that differ between your VE.Direct device and the RPi.

What you should do, is to place an isolator in between the two, so that there can not be any voltage differences, say between the zero volt lines.

As I understand it, most if not all VE.Direct ports do not have any or very much in the way of protection before the CPU.

So, now it depends if you are thinking of using serial over USB or plain async TTL between the two ?

There can be issues with USB, in that if at any time a serial connection becomes broken, say some data corruption, then generally, a serial over USB connection will remain disconnected. You don't get this with async TTL.

With USB, make sure you have the correct USB interface voltage on the TTL side. Often they provide a jumper for selecting 3.3V or 5.0V.

I have on a plane somewhere from Italy a nice little board that has 4 isolated TTL ports into a single USB port on its way. It even can come with the same JST connectors used for VE.Direct.

This allows you to then use a single USB port to then communicate with up to 4 async TTL devices, and in my case these will be SmartShunt, MPPT controller and RS 48| 6000 inverter. The 4th port will go to my own design BMS.

Like you, I do not use VenusOS and also do use RPi, but use Python to create a full SCADA application which does the lot. It's a lot of fun, so go for it :)

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eathan-northwood avatar image eathan-northwood commented ·
Thanks that board should be very useful. Would I be able to connect the VE.Direct straight up to my gpio pins? If I can how would I read the async ttl data, and read imput voltage?
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Michelle Konzack avatar image Michelle Konzack commented ·
I am interested in this board.

Please can you brovide more Infos?

Especially where you have bought it?

Thankyou


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