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svenr avatar image
svenr asked

DC current or energy measurement with Venus GX

In an upcoming project there will be a need to measure DC current up to about 90 A also from sources that are not controlled with Victron equipment and/or to loads. Does anyone know how to use a DC current sensor or DC energy meter with Venus GX/VRM? I would like the system owner to be able to monitor at least the DC current (A), but power (W) and/or energy (kWh) would be even better.

I have seen that some AC energy meters are supported by Victron (https://www.victronenergy.com/live/energy-meters:start), but I can presently not find any DC energy meter listed there.

Example of DC energy meter, which seems to be available e.g. with Modbus TCP communication: https://www.measurlogic.com/product/dts-dc/

Example of USB current sensor: https://calibike.com/product/calisense-usb-acdc-current-sensor/

Example of current transducer that I have good experience of from other applications: https://www.seneca.it/en/linee-di-prodotto/energia-e-misure-elettriche/trasformatori-di-corrente-serie-t201/t201dc/

Or could anyone consider to add such functionality to Venus OS, e.g. an an open source project (https://www.victronenergy.com/live/open_source:start)?

Venus OSVenus GX - VGXdc system
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1 Answer
Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager) avatar image
Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager) answered ·

The BMV and SmartShunt not perfect for an individual DC load or charge measurement tool, as it is a battery monitor and expects to be installed in a very specific, system level way.

But if you understand those nuances, and can ignore the state of charge information, it will probably more or less do what you want out of the box.


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svenr avatar image svenr commented ·

Thank you for the answer. We are planning to use one BMV for the battery. Would be interesting if we could use another one for DC load or charge measurements and e.g. display only the current. Could the display from Venus GX / VRM be tweaked in such a way?

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bathnm avatar image bathnm svenr commented ·

I have done something similar, and have a smart shunt monitoring some loads. This doesn't show up on the main Dashboard screen, but can be seen in the advanced section.


This is how I configured the Smart Shunt


This is what I see on my Cerbo

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svenr avatar image svenr bathnm commented ·

Great explanation - thank you! I suppose it makes sense to wire the shunt so negative current corresponds to a load

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bathnm avatar image bathnm svenr commented ·

@svenr the Victron shunts only go in the negative side. They are not designed to go on the positive side, but yes it does show the load as negative which is good.

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Related Resources

Victron Venus OS Open Source intro page

Venus OS GitHub (please do not post to this)

Venus GX manual

Venus GX product page

Additional resources still need to be added for this topic