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mike-6 avatar image
mike-6 asked

VE.Direct & USB-VE.Direct Inputs Mixed Up & Inoperative

I have four VE.Direct inputs to my Ekrano (three Smart Shunts and a solar charger). Of the three that plug directly into the VE.Direct ports, Ekrano says one of them is connected by USB (!), whereas Ekrano ignores the one that is actually plugged into its USB port via a VE.Direct-to-USB interface. No amount of unplugging and telling Ekrano to forget disconnected devices fixes this problem. Ekrano is convinced there are only three VE.Direct connections, one of which is via its USB port. Something, I presume, is stuck in Ekrano's memory. What about a firmware update that has two lines in the I/O settings screen for VE.Direct and for USB ports, with an option being to reset them?

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Matthias Lange - DE avatar image
Matthias Lange - DE answered ·

I guess you already tried to restart the Ekrano?!

You could also try to do a factory reset:
https://www.victronenergy.com/media/pg/Ekrano_GX/en/reset-to-factory-defaults-procedure.html

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mike-6 avatar image mike-6 commented ·

Yes, many restarts/reboots/head scratching, etc. But I have not yet resorted to resetting to factory defaults. Thanks for the link on how to do so, Matthias. If no one has any better ideas then I will attempt the reset. Incidentally, I was disappointed that Victron's VE.Direct-to-USB interface has a male plug, so it does not connect to the male VE.Direct cable coming from my auxiliary battery's Smart Shunt, necessitating a solder splice to mate the two together. (I scoured the internet for a female-female connector but none seems to have yet been manufactured.) Thanks for your help, Mike.

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Matthias Lange - DE avatar image Matthias Lange - DE ♦ mike-6 commented ·

I was disappointed that Victron's VE.Direct-to-USB interface has a male plug, so it does not connect to the male VE.Direct cable coming from my auxiliary battery's Smart Shunt, necessitating a solder splice to mate the two together.

Modifying VE.direct cables often causes problems.

Why should the VE.direct to USB cable have a female VE.direct port?
It's meant to be connected directly to the VE.direct port of the device. If the 1.8m of the cable are to short than you can just use a simple USB extension cable.

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mike-6 avatar image mike-6 Matthias Lange - DE ♦ commented ·
Ah, your assertion is, of course, fine. But after the fact. I dumped $18,000 at my Victron upgrade, going in blind. I, quite naturally. wouldn't you say?, connected all three Smart Shunts and the MPPT to the four VE.Direct cables I bought, and wired all four into the new wiring harnesses that I built into the boat, after gutting it. It was only then, toward the end of the mammoth project, that I took the VE.Direct-to-USB adapter out of its wrapper to discover it was male and not female. More fool me, you would say. But, however smart one might be, that is not the way life works. If I had a dollar for every little detail that my grandmother failed to drum into my head as a six year old, my Victron upgrade would be more than free today.
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Related Resources

VE.Direct protocol FAQ