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Kevin Knoop avatar image
Kevin Knoop asked

I made a little Victron Dashboard

I really love the Victron suite of software. The VRM portal really sold me on going for Victron for my home.

Not one to pass up the opportunity to fiddle with it I thought it would be nice to make a kind of "realtime" dashboard for display inside the house using an old phone/tablet. For me the requirements are:

  • Show the information I am interested in seeing at a glance (kitchen tablet).
  • Full screen optimised for landscape viewing.
  • Less data use than the VNC animation but more realtime than VRM (when out and about on mobile data).

Think of it as the Marine App https://github.com/victronenergy/venus-html5-app but for home use. I'm not a UI person so its not nearly as pretty as that but I'll improve it with time. I'll also add more information relevant for a home that makes sense for a dashboard type display.

I'd thought I'd share it for anyone who wants to give a go. DISCLAIMER - I've put it together for MY system (ESS) so your milage will vary. Only tested on Chrome. I know the Full Screen option will not necessarily work on other browsers.

Getting Started: Go to http://housealarm.io/victron. Click "Configure" and enter you Venus IP address. With a bit of luck it will work.

You will need to have MQTT Turned On at the Venus for this to work. For Relay 1 control you need to set Settings/Relay/Function (Relay 1) to Manual.

Change log:

v1.10

  1. Added some basic geyser control via the relay on the Venus GX. See Configure screen.

v1.11

  1. A real time prediction of what your expected solar output should be. This works best on a clear day. Fill in all the details under Configure for your installation. Code is based on https://github.com/jdefunes/node-red-contrib-solar-power-forecast-plus
  2. Max Battery Discharge. This is something I've see many people ask for on this forum. Pick a max discharge and the system will constantly adjust the Grid setpoint up and down to try and keep the battery discharge where you set it.

v1.12 Sun 26 April

  1. Removed logo and replaced with app version number.
  2. Expected solar gets replaced with sun rise time when the sun goes down.

software
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Kevin Knoop avatar image Kevin Knoop commented ·

I've added 2 new features:

1. A real time prediction of what your expected solar output should be. This works best on a clear day. Fill in all the details under Configure for your installation. Code is based on https://github.com/jdefunes/node-red-contrib-solar-power-forecast-plus

2. Max Battery Discharge. This is something I've see many people ask for on this forum. Pick a max discharge and the system will constantly adjust the Grid setpoint up and down to try and keep the battery discharge where you set it.

Enjoy

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Kevin Knoop avatar image Kevin Knoop Kevin Knoop commented ·

Settings explanation:

  • Lat & Lon is the location of the solar system.
  • Tilt is degrees from the horizontal.
  • Orientation is the bearing in degrees from North. I use 350 as my panels are aiming 10 degrees to the left of North.
  • Altitude is in metres above sea level.
  • Area is the surface of a single panel in m^2. I use 1.95 as my panels are 2m x 1m. I use a slightly smaller number to account for the border.
  • Number is the number of panels in the system. 10 in my case.
  • Efficiency is the conversion efficiency of the panel under ideal conditions. You can find this on your solar panel. Mine is set to 16.5.
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6 Answers
pau1phi11ips avatar image
pau1phi11ips answered ·

That's pretty cool.

Is the source code available for it? It didn't pick up my battery.

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Kevin Knoop avatar image Kevin Knoop commented ·

Not yet but if you send me the result of the MQTT topic "N/%s/system/0/Batteries" I can fix it for you. %s is your serial number.

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markus-001 avatar image
markus-001 answered ·

Well done Kevin, I see you also spotted the need for a load control on the Venus or in your case the geyser control. I use the generator function on relay one in reverse to control my pool pump, only problem is that it’s not very user friendly. I was playing with node red that’s built into a Venus developer release to use relay two for the under floor heating, also based on the generator start / stop function which has various user defined criteria to be met before switching the load on or off. I don’t have any developer experience so I’m finding it quite difficult.

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sean avatar image
sean answered ·

It's working for me, but only shows the DC coupled PV ?

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Kevin Knoop avatar image Kevin Knoop commented ·

I could add that. Reason its not there is simply cause my own system does not have AC coupled PV.

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sean avatar image sean Kevin Knoop commented ·

That's a good reason ;-)

I expect you'll be inundated with feature requests shortly - so here are mine for consideration.

1, separate panes for AC & DC coupled PV.

2, grid pane colour change from red while importing, to green when exporting.

Good work Kevin.

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Kevin Knoop avatar image Kevin Knoop sean commented ·

Thanks - 2. Grid panel colour was quick to do so thats done. Refresh.

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sean avatar image sean Kevin Knoop commented ·

Excellent - thanks Kevin, very much appreciated.

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bottemlesspits avatar image
bottemlesspits answered ·

This i quite a nifty little project :thumbsup:

Would be nice if you could add a toggles for features like

-grid meter installed

-PV inverter installed ect

An idea for the GUI is maybe make a clone of the old Venus GUi from like 2014 then you have 2 spots for PV grid inverters and it looks like victron UI we all know and love or maybe the new one just without the animations?

Will keep a eye on this for updates


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Kevin Knoop avatar image Kevin Knoop commented ·

If I understand correctly you would like to see your AC connected PV in a separate box and the boxes should look like the actual device - not just a rectangle?

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bottemlesspits avatar image bottemlesspits Kevin Knoop commented ·

@Kevin Knoop

They say a picture is worth a 1000 words

It would be nice if you could make your dashboard resemble the victron default layout.

Made a quick example in paint from a screenshot.






My requests is for other community members/end users that that have more complicated sites

Wishlist

- Make a Simplified copy of the Victron layout ( no VNC animation )

- Maybe make the text bigger? or just a option to scale the size.

- Gridmeter installed toggle (turn AC load dispay box on/off)

- Add optional PV inverter on output and or on input? (has been requested by other user)


Keep up the Good work so far this looks like a promising project.

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Paul B avatar image
Paul B answered ·

very nice.

is there anyway to get the BMV monitor thats connected to the venus via VE direct details showing as the battery monitor ???

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Kevin Knoop avatar image Kevin Knoop commented ·

What battery setup have you got? I have a friend with lead acids and the Victron BMV and the battery shows up fine as "BMV" (where mine says Pylontech).

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Paul B avatar image Paul B Kevin Knoop commented ·

Just a standard BMV 712 plugged into the Venus GX, the Batteries are Lipo4 20Kw bank using the VE-Bus BMS as the control


UPDATED after about 5 min the BMV battery has started to show for a short period then its stopped showing, it was saying bmv 7 00 when its a bmv712

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Kevin Knoop avatar image Kevin Knoop Paul B commented ·

Thanks - so you not seeing battery info (SOC, Power) in my dashboard with your setup?

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Paul B avatar image Paul B Kevin Knoop commented ·

correct but it did show tonight for about 30 sec using fire fox and chrome on the phone. it did show just after I installed chrome on the phone.


Another small note for you is that I am using a assiatant and a AC current sensor on the solar grid tie input and it also does not show the solar info.

Everything works on the venus GX. Fw 2.60~16

Currently have a grid failure so dont worry about the grid not showing

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captainpalapa avatar image
captainpalapa answered ·

This post was linked to from here: https://community.victronenergy.com/questions/53696/grafana-refresh-rate-10-seconds.html

That would imply this is a Grafana setup. Could you make the Dashboard JSON available?

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