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Greg Ireland avatar image
Greg Ireland asked

Venus GX 2.42 CAN Bus Connection - What can we see?

Hi, today I connected my Venus GX V2.42 to my NMEA2000 network by terminating an n2k cable to the CAN2 screw terminals and into the network backbone. I now have three devices vsible on the network from N2K Analyzer and also my Simrad MFD's.

Device 1 is Quattro - Shorepower data displaying AC Voltage, Freq, Current and Power etc
Device 2 is Quattro - Inverter data displaying AC Voltage, Freq, Current, Power & Battery V and I
Device 3 is the Venus GX - Displaying product data but not much else

I was hoping that I would also be able to access the following;

BVM7XX Battery Voltage, Current, SOC, Temp, Aux Voltage for each BVM on the system (I will have 2 or more)

Tank data / Digital Inputs

MPPT Controller Data (I have 2 on my system)

Lastly, my Quattro unit is Version 1.0 - does this need an update? I have experienced problems lately where the inverter output drops off for a period of time before coming back on. When disconnected from the Venus the unit seems to be stable.

Thanks for any assistance / advice you can provide.


Greg

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Greg Ireland avatar image
Greg Ireland answered ·

Hi all, I can advise that the Venus OS upgrade to V2.51 has allowed me to view and display the data of the BVM712 via N2K. In addition it has also rectified the sonar integration issue to Simrad - nice and stable now.

Items that are still an issue seem to be:

Unable to see Smart Solar MPPT Controllers on N2K
Tank Input on Venus - flashing between N2K tank data (I have 4 tanks)

Great to see progress being made, I look forward to the next update.

Greg

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jurjenhoekstra avatar image jurjenhoekstra commented ·

@Greg Ireland, hi Greg. I do not think that the MPPT Controllers will show up on N2K, as far as I know they are not N2K devices. They will show up on your Venus GX if they are connect with a VE-direct cable to the GX, as a device in the device list and the amount of charge current on the Remote console. On VRM they should also be visible by showing you the solar charge.

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jurjenhoekstra answered ·

@Greg Ireland Tanks should be visible. I also have 4 tanks, 3 x Maretron TLM100 sensors and 1 other N2K sensor. Information is displayed on VRM app through Remote console and Device list. In the settings you have to tick under Display and language: Show boat & motorhome view. If you now go to Remote Console on a smartphone and swipe to the left or right, the information changes to a screen with the tanks visible, see screenshot. In Advanced you can also select under Widgets the tanks and they will show up in the graphs.


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Kevin Windrem avatar image Kevin Windrem commented ·

The issue with one NMEA2000 tank system reporting multiple tanks is known and being worked on by Victron. Until then, I have a program that creates multiple tank objects from a single multi-tank system, then changes to the GUI hides the original tank tile (the one with the changing type/value). In my case it's a SeeLevel system but the program (and GUI changes) should work with any N2K tank system.

You can get to it here:

https://github.com/kwindrem/TankRepeater-for-VenusOs

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Greg Ireland answered ·

Hi Jurjen, thank you for your answer, I have similar outcomes but my system is only listing one tank in my device list even though there are 4 on line. You can see from the image below that it is switch between tank data, I am unsure how to add more tanks.

@jurjenhoekstra


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jurjenhoekstra avatar image jurjenhoekstra commented ·

@Greg Ireland, hi Greg, can you see your tank levels for each tank at a different (NMEA2000) screen, as to establish there is nothing wrong with the NMEA2000 side of things? You mentioned in your initial post that in N2KAnalyser you only saw 3 devices, but you should also see each tank sensor, if they are NMEA2000 tank sensors. If you can see all 4, make sure the device instances of the tank sensors are all different. You should be able to change them in N2KAnalyser. Once the device instances are different, they should be recognisable by the Venus GX and they should show up on the Remote console in Device list and on VRM. You might have to reboot the Venus GX every once in while to make sure it re-reads all values from the NMEA2000 network. Give it a try and let me know if it helped.

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jurjenhoekstra avatar image
jurjenhoekstra answered ·

@Greg Ireland, hi Greg, I answered your other post on the Change data instance for BMV712, but will continue the tank issue over here. You wrote in that post: I have added an image for the tanks/pressure sensors, as you will see they are all Device Instance 0 but Tank Instance 0, 1, 2, 5 respectively.

I am not an expert on N2K, but by trial and error I figured several things out. What I think happens with your tank levels is this: I understand that you have just one N2K tank measuring module, the Maretron FPM100, with 6 inputs for tank pressure sensors. The FPM100 has a unique ID on the N2K network. It transmits 125705 (fluid level) PGN with a value for the fluid level and sends this message 4 times for each tank pressure sensor/value, but each message has the same unique ID of the FPM100. My impression is that VRM does not distinguish between the tank instances, but only sees the unique ID, posts the level and then does it again with the next message and the next. That's why the level keeps fluctuating.

I have a similar issue with a remote monitoring module of a different brand. This manufacturers module and software reads the PGN 65014 (utility phase A AC basic quantities) which is send out by the Victron Quattro for the input (shore power) and the output/inverter side of the Victron. It sees the 65014, sees the values, but cannot distinguish between the two as the PGN does not contain sufficient data to make a distinction. Therefore on screen, it keeps fluctuating between the 2 values. I think in your case, it is an issue on the VRM side, which might need a slight update to be able to work with the Maretron FPM100 and distinguish between the tank instances.

In my case with 4 separate tank level sensors that each transmit several PGNs, there seems to be sufficient data in the PGNs to distinguish between the 4 tanks. I checked again in N2KAnalyser and saw that in case of the 3 Maretron TLM100s, the device instance is not different, but the system instance is different. See below screenshot. Also included a screenshot of the individual PGNs they each transmit.

Hope somehow that it helps.



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Greg Ireland avatar image
Greg Ireland answered ·

@jurjenhoekstra Thanks Jurjen, I will have a play with the system instance and see if that create additional flexibility.

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Related Resources

Victron Venus OS Open Source intro page

Venus OS GitHub (please do not post to this)