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mgoldbach avatar image
mgoldbach asked

Is it possible to set generator run time via API or MQTT?

I know it is possible to turn the generator ON / OFF via the API. The documentation does not show how to set the run time. Is there are a parameter or D-bus path for that?

GeneratorMQTTapi dc system
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mvader (Victron Energy) avatar image mvader (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented ·

Hi! I’d like to help and give you the answer, but don’t know by heart and I’m not near a computer either.


However, I can help a bit in the right direction: to find out if there is such path (on dbus, and then automatically also on mqtt), configure your relay for generator start/stop and then login to ssh and run dbus-spy. You’ll see all available paths.


Alternatively; read through the source code of generator start/stop:

https://github.com/victronenergy/dbus_generator


If you do find such path; please help me and add it to the dbus wiki page:

https://github.com/victronenergy/venus/wiki/dbus#generator


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mgoldbach avatar image mgoldbach mvader (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented ·

Thanks for the guidance @mvader. Ben seems to have discovered the path we need. Now looking for the REST API equivalent.

BTW looking at dbus_generator.py we noticed that "batterymeasurement" is defined twice under "settingsbase", which could be a bug (or a bug waiting to happen).

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mvader (Victron Energy) avatar image mvader (Victron Energy) ♦♦ mgoldbach commented ·

Hi, with Rest API you are refering to MQTT; right? I dont think that qualifies as REST.


For MQTT: anything on dbus is also on MQTT. See dbus-mqtt readme for how to translate the dbus service, instance and path to a mqtt topic.


Bug: thanks! We’ll look into that one; I see what you mean.

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mgoldbach avatar image mgoldbach mvader (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented ·

Thanks @mvader (Victron Energy Staff) and @ben. What I meant was - is there a way to set startTimer and start as POSTs or PUTs to vrmapi.victronenergy.com (as opposed to communicating with the MQTT server at mqtt.victronenergy.com)

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ben avatar image
ben answered ·

The D-Bus path you want is com.victronenergy.generator.startstop0/Generator0/ManualStartTimer. The unit is seconds. Write this value first, and then write ManualStart to 1.

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mgoldbach avatar image mgoldbach commented ·

Thank you Ben!

Do you know if that is also accessible via the REST API? I know the gen start is available.

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ben avatar image ben ♦ mgoldbach commented ·

I'm not aware of any REST APIs, so I'm afraid I can't help there.

You could, of course, make your own REST wrapper around MQTT or D-Bus. Or maybe someone has already created a library to do just that.

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Related Resources

Additional resources still need to be added for this topic

MultiPlus Generator FAQ

GX - Generator auto start/stop

Automatic Generator start/stop

 Hybrid Generators

Virtual switch - Generator start/stop

Additional resources still need to be added for this topic

Victron MQTT readme