question

@wasn

Hi wasn.
I have an image from Raytec which shows the BT chip. That image is from the test board from Raytec. I hope it helps out. BTW: Seeedstudio is using the same chip for there DiY users.

There is a serial interface at:
- P0.22 = RX
- P0.21 = TX

And here is the layout for that test board.

@mike4nl

Thank you.

I know these shematics and will try to measure

just connected it with a 3.3V ttl to usb to my venus os on raspberry and i can see my charger

here are the screenshots of my venusOs

now i have to find out how to control the charger.

specially adopting the charging current to the power getting injected back in the grid

using victron connect on my windows system i can see the charger and control it.

I am right now sniffing data between charger and victron connect on Windows to find out the commands to change the charging current

Just bought an isolated USB-C to 3.3V TTL adapter on aliexpress. This little pcb will be build in the charger.

Link to Aliexpress

Can anybody lead me in the direction how to adjust charging current over the ve.direct protocol?

just created a little pcb with level shifters.

now you can use the normal ve.direct cable and connect the pcb with a 6pin to 6pin flat ribbon cable.

2 chargers connected to Duppa's 4 portrt usb to TTL isolated hub

This works well for reading the status, and as you request, some information is needed on how to send commands to the chargers.

I myself am looking to turn them off or on.

Any pictures or video how to do the setup

in the charger?

You can find the pinout in the first post.

Just connect a 3.3v ttl to usb adapter to the pins

if you use a 3.3V adapter (for example duppa) you have to connect the GND Pin to GND and cross TX and RX. If you use an isolating type of adapter (like duppa) you have to connect 3.3V too.

HI,

thanks for sharing this information. I looking since month for a way to control the current over bluetooth (esp32-ble) - your way is the best solution up to now

just updated the github page:

github://wasn-eu/Victron_BlueSmart_IP22

tried to set the on/off state and max power over the modbus tcp registers.

but these registers are always 0. they are not populated by the system with the real values of the charger.

  int numP1 = (int)(chargeCurrent*10.0);
  int numP2 = (0x70 - numP1) & 0xFF;
  char hexP1[2];
  char hexP2[2];
  sprintf(hexP1, "%02X", numP1);
  sprintf(hexP2, "%02X", numP2);
  
  // Write to serial port
  unsigned char msg[] = { ':', '8', 'F', '0', 'E', 'D' , '0', '0', (unsigned char)hexP1[0], (unsigned char)hexP1[1] , '0', '0' ,(unsigned char)hexP2[0] , (unsigned char)hexP2[1], '\n'};
  write(serial_port, msg, sizeof(msg));

thank you for that code, now i try to use it inside of venus os

just wrote it for pyhton to use the script directly on the venus os raspberry:

name it charge_current.py

import sys
import serial
ser = serial.Serial("/dev/ttyUSB1", 19200)
chargeCurrent = int(sys.argv[1])

def sprintf(buf, fmt, *args):
   buf.write(fmt % args)

numP1 = (int)(chargeCurrent * 10)
numP2 = (0x70 - numP1) & 0xFF
hexP1 = "%X" % (numP1)
hexP2 = "%X" % (numP2)

# Write to serial port
msg =  ':8F0ED00' + hexP1[0] + hexP1[1] + '00' + hexP2[0] + hexP2[1] + '\n'
print(msg)
ser.write(msg.encode())

you have to change the serial device for your setup.

just run it with:

python charge_current.py X

where X is the needed charging current in A

thank you @sean56688 for the script.

i have added the python version to github:

github://wasn-eu/Victron_BlueSmart_IP22

Automatic Change Charge Current

This Script will read the Grid Power with modbus from your venus device.
When the read power is negativ (feeding to grid) it calculates the needed charge current to compensate and send it to your charger.
If you are not feeding to grid it will send a charging current of 0A.

The script will read the Grid Power and sent the charge current every 10 seconds. If you would like another interval change the sleep value in seconds in the last line of the script.

just create the file change_charge_current.py in /home/root

#!/usr/bin/python
import serial
import time
from pymodbus.constants import Defaults
from pymodbus.constants import Endian
from pymodbus.client.sync import ModbusTcpClient as ModbusClient
from pymodbus.payload import BinaryPayloadDecoder

ser = serial.Serial("/dev/ttyUSB1", 19200)

while(True):
  current = 0.0
  Defaults.Timeout = 5
  Defaults.Retries = 5

  client = ModbusClient('192.168.88.173', port=502, timeout=3, unit_id=100)
  result = client.read_input_registers(822, 1)
  if not result.isError():
    decoder = BinaryPayloadDecoder.fromRegisters(result.registers, byteorder=Endian.Big)
    power=decoder.decode_16bit_int()
    if power < 0:
      current = power / 24 * (-1)
    print("Grid Power:    {0:.0f}W".format(power))
    print("Grid Current:  {0:.2f}A".format(current))

    numP1 = (int)(current * 10)
    numP2 = (0x70 - numP1) & 0xFF
    hexP1 = "%X" % (numP1)
    hexP2 = "%X" % (numP2)
    if len(hexP1) < 2:
      hexP1 += "0"
    msg =  ':8F0ED00' + hexP1[0] + hexP1[1] + '00' + hexP2[0] + hexP2[1] + '\n'
    print("VE.direct out: " + msg)
    ser.write(msg.encode())
  else:
    print("Error:", result)

  time.sleep(10)

You need to to adjust the line:

result = client.read_input_registers(822, 1)
                                     ---

to fit your system.

Here it a little list what to write for the value 822 in your setup:

L1  820
L2  821
L3  822

Now you need to run this script on startup of venus os.

Make the script executable:

chmod a+x change_charge_current.py

Add the script to crontab.
Executes this command:

crontab -e

Add this:

@reboot python /home/root/change_charge_current.py > /var/log/change_charge_current.log

just added the automatic version to github:

github://wasn-eu/Victron_BlueSmart_IP22

just found a problem that the charger does not accept a current value of 0.

the minimum value is 3A

Now i need to find out how to turn the charging on and off.

changed the script that the charging current is only set when the grid power is negative (feed in to grid) and set the repeat time to 30 seconds, because i read that this value is non-volatile memory that can wear out if continuosly written.

#!/usr/bin/python
import serial
import time
from pymodbus.constants import Defaults
from pymodbus.constants import Endian
from pymodbus.client.sync import ModbusTcpClient as ModbusClient
from pymodbus.payload import BinaryPayloadDecoder

ser = serial.Serial("/dev/ttyUSB1", 19200)

while(True):
  current = 0.0
  Defaults.Timeout = 5
  Defaults.Retries = 5

  client = ModbusClient('192.168.88.173', port=502, timeout=3, unit_id=100)
  result = client.read_input_registers(822, 1)
  if not result.isError():
    decoder = BinaryPayloadDecoder.fromRegisters(result.registers, byteorder=Endian.Big)
    power=decoder.decode_16bit_int()
    if power < 0:
      current = power / 24 * (-1)
      print("Grid Power:    {0:.0f}W".format(power))
      print("Grid Current:  {0:.2f}A".format(current))

      numP1 = (int)(current * 10)
      numP2 = (0x70 - numP1) & 0xFF
      hexP1 = "%X" % (numP1)
      hexP2 = "%X" % (numP2)
      if len(hexP1) < 2:
        hexP1 += "0"
      msg =  ':8F0ED00' + hexP1[0] + hexP1[1] + '00' + hexP2[0] + hexP2[1] + '\n'
      print("VE.direct out: " + msg)
      ser.write(msg.encode())
    else:
      print("Charging off")
  else:
    print("Error:", result)

  time.sleep(30)

i tried this script for first utrning the remote control on and than send the command to power on/off the charger.

But the charger does not turn on or off.

#!/usr/bin/python
import serial
import time
from pymodbus.constants import Defaults
from pymodbus.constants import Endian
from pymodbus.client.sync import ModbusTcpClient as ModbusClient
from pymodbus.payload import BinaryPayloadDecoder

ser = serial.Serial("/dev/ttyUSB1", 19200)

# Set Remote control used bit-mask (register 0x0202) to 1 (Enable remote ON/OFF control)
numP1 = int(1)
numP2 = (0x70 - numP1) & 0xFF
hexP1 = "%X" % (numP1)
hexP2 = "%X" % (numP2)
if len(hexP1) < 2:
  hexP1 += "0"
msg =  ':8020200' + hexP1[0] + hexP1[1] + '00' + hexP2[0] + hexP2[1] + '\n'
print("VE.direct out: " + msg)
ser.write(msg.encode())

# Set Device mode values (register 0x0200)
#OFF
numP1 = int(0)
#ON
#numP1 = int(1)

numP2 = (0x70 - numP1) & 0xFF
hexP1 = "%X" % (numP1)
hexP2 = "%X" % (numP2)
if len(hexP1) < 2:
  hexP1 += "0"
msg =  ':8000200' + hexP1[0] + hexP1[1] + '00' + hexP2[0] + hexP2[1] + '\n'
print("VE.direct out: " + msg)
ser.write(msg.encode())

can anyone see my failure?

just added all files with install script to run the automatic charging current adjustment as a service in venus os.

github://wasn-eu/Victron_BlueSmart_IP22

all updates are now in an other github account:

github://pvtex/Victron_BlueSmart_IP22

I opened my charger and it doesn't seem to have the pin header available. There is a ribbon cable connected in the same place. Also my charger looks different. It has a fuse next to the battery connection terminals. Also the case seems to be in a single piece. It's not possible to slide the cover off without major disassembly. Maybe it's a newer ( or older ) model?

can you post a photo of the connector place and your charger?

you need v2 that is ve.smart ready

@PVTex Thanks for the pinout description, as the device also follows also the VE.Direct protocol contract, it also works nicely with my ve-direct-reader-service (https://github.com/logreposit/ve-direct-reader-service).

Does anybody know what the "HC#" field means? I cannot find a description regarding this field in the protocol documentation ...

@PVTex I've seen you're getting back a bigger number (1105659) there ...

PID     0xA32C
FWE     0342FF
SER#    HQ2308......
V       13860
I       0
T       ---
ERR     0
CS      5
HC#     9232
Checksum   ......

Kind regards from Austria :)

@Dominic Miglar i think it is the Hardware revision

Hi @PVTex, thank you very much for this description and also your public repository. Do you know, if it is possible, to connect the BlueSmart Charger to the Cerbo GX like connecting with RaspberryPi?

That should be no problem.

The charger is seen as a normal ve.direct device

For Blue Smart Charger IP22 12 | 15 with serial number HQ1849*** (no rev number printed on label) or HQ1921*** (hw rev 01) the layout looks different. There are only 4 pins. So it would be interesting, which revision does have the 5 pin connector.

4 pins are ok because you need 4 signals.

Just measure connection from a ground point to the connector

and than measure where the 3.3V pin is.

the other two are RX and TX

Would be great if you could post your findings.

Hi, I Have a ip22 30A, 3 outputs, , series hq19 (can't check now exact number), and my installation is very complicated as it's in a smallest boat with very limited space, so uninstall the charger in order to make the trial it's a real challenge!

So I have bought the adapter in AliExpress to usb C, the USB cable, and have a Raspi running Venus Os with connected devices Mppt 100/30 and Bmv712, so close to heaven! :)

I am eager and brave to open the charger, but before taking the challenge to uninstall it, I just want to be clear on how to do it and if it'll be feasible.

In our old chargers with versions hq18/19, with 4 pins, you say we have to check ground (what can be ground?) with the pins to find the 3,3 volts. Is there any risk to shortcircuit the charger doing this? My electronic knowledge is very limited, so sorry if it sounds as a silly question, hehe.

And how we identify the other 3 pins? I guess we miss the 0 V with spikes, and will have GND, TX, rx. But how to know which is which?

The other question is if the adapter referred from AliExpress is isolated to all the known issues affecting DIY ve direct to usb ttl cables, any idea?

Thanks for the patience and support! I'll post my findings with your kind help for the good sake of the Community.

I'm interested in getting the data from my Blue Smart IP22 12/20 via my VRM.

Mine is a 4 pin and these are the voltage reading I got. #

PVTex, what are your opinions on the voltages as there appears not to be a 0v pin?

Would I just pickup a ground from the output neg?

Well, no joy, tried what I hoped where the data pins both ways around and got no response in the device list on my Pi.

As a note, I connect my Victron devices via a couple of Isolated 4 port USB to TTL UART boards.