Good evening!
A new version available to test, v2.70~18. It has one change, a bugfix, reported by @Roman Dvorak: thank you!
What is this about?
This post is intended for all people participating in the Venus OS Beta test program. Read that link for more information about the program.
What to test?
For those having tank levels on their GX device, the new tank overview. Screenshot below. Though be aware that we know something is still amiss with tanks, and we're looking into that.
Other than that, same as last time: basically everything. In v2.70 we have made multiple low level changes. The OE version has been updated from Rocko to Zeus and the Linux kernel has been updated from 4.19 to 5.10. And as a result, bugs and regression may hide in the most unexpected of corners.
Sofar, the status is that its all proving to be quite stable.
The plan with v2.70
There is still one more open issue, which proves hard to fix. Its that the tanks can go missing sometimes, ie. hidden on the mobile overview as well as the tank overview page, while still visible on the Device list page. It could be that we have it fixed tomorrow, but can also take another week. So, no more official release this week.
How to report?
For new issues, add a new answer below. If you see the same as someone else, or know more or an answer for him / her, use the comment feature. Careful: adding a new comment versus adding a new answer are really different things, and you need to look closely to know which button to use for what.
Change log
Note: Below is a condensed changelog with everything in it from the start of v2.70 development.
New in ~18:
- Fix transmission of data to VRM not working in a specific situation, which was that a BMV or other VE.Direct product had to be configured with a custom name having non-ASCII characters. And besides data transmission to the VRM portal, also other places were checked and where necessary fixed to cater for that. This used to work fine in v2.66, and was a regression introduced during v2.70 development. Thank you @Roman Dvorak for reporting this!
Tanks:
- Added the new tank overview page. Screenshot below.
- Increase the margin above the full tank level to 20%. An example to explain this: instead of showing an error in case the measured current is above 20.5mA, show an error when its over 24mA. In that margin, ie. between the configured full level (20mA in my example) and the error level, it will just clip to 100%. Thank you John M. for reporting this improvement; and in general for your push an getting the tanks full featured such as having configurable alarms and having a good overview for them.
- Use the same tank name in the alarm notifications, the Device list, the mobile overview as well as the new tank overview page.
- Add tank level alarms. High level alarm and low level alarm. Note that this is only for tank levels measured via the Venus GX, Cerbo GX or GX Tank analog inputs. No alarm levels are supported for tank levels that come in via NMEA2000.
- Add fluid type 6, gasoline. To fully match the NMEA2000 supported set of fluid types.
- Support tank senders that send out levels for multiple tanks using different data instances, such as the Garnet Seelevel N2K product, and the Maretron FPM100. Details also here: https://github.com/victronenergy/venus/issues/551.
User interface & various:
- Change the name of the battery measurements menu to "Battery Measurements" and add a help text indicating that it is (also) for the MFD HTML5 app. This same info is also used for the VRM Dashboard.
- Better handle AC-Coupled PV on the output of an Inverter RS by adding AC Frequency item, and by showing negative current and power instead of clipping that to zero.
- Add the firmware version of a Fronius datamanager on the Device subpage. This is added next to the (already shown) firmware version for the PV Inverter itself.
- Add EM24 Ethernet meter phase configuration setting
- Improve the CAN-bus statistics page so it all fits on one screen.
- Fix issue related to Garmin MFDs and the Victron App, because of which the App wouldn't work on the Garmin when doing a certain sequence of power-ups or reboots (ie Garmin first, or GX device first or other way around).
- NMEA2000-out: include SOH in the NMEA2000-out function. Note that Victron battery monitors such as the BMV series don't have SOH; this applies only when using a lithium battery with integrated CAN-bus *and* that has SOH.
DVCC / ESS / Mode 3 (External control)
- Hide the Grid feed-in menu when ESS is set to External control, since they are not relevant in that mode.
- Disable the PV-limiter when ESS mode is set to External Control. This avoids problems where the PV-limiter aims for a different grid setpoint than that set with ESS mode 3. Instead, the customer is responsible for doing his/her own control.
- Improvements related to Inverter RS Smart Solar. But not fully finished yet.
Managed (CAN-Bus) batteries & PV Inverters:
- Recognise REC BMS, and show only supported alarms, ie hide all alarm types for which the REC does not send any status, rather than saying "OK" for those. This (showing only the supported alarms) is a nice feature; for which REC is now the only one that supports it; we're looking forward to seeing the same from other battery manufacturers.
- Fronius PV monitoring: further improve support for large systems by more intelligently quering the Fronius datamanger. Eliminated unnecessary reconnects, and because of that also reduces CPU load on the GX device. Tested at a site with 6 Fronius ECP PV-inverters, and works well: never disconnects now.
- Can-bus BMS: support CCL & DCL current limits above 3276A.
Connection to VRM:
- log a warning to VRM in case one or more modules in a managed (CAN-bus) battery is blocking charge.
- Add various data for the Inverter RS Smart Solar (AC-out power, energy values, some history data for solar)
- Show VRM down in case the VRM-data-receival system is down; instead of a vague error that might make people think there is an issue on their side.
- Change the logging frequency of min/max cell voltage/temperature to fix the gaps in the graphs on VRM.
Modbus-TCP
- Add registers for total power, power capacity, and power limiting. The power limit register is for external control in ESS mode 3. This is an easier method than controlling the PV-inverter directly through SunSpec. https://github.com/victronenergy/venus/issues/821.
- Add registers for /Hub4/TargetPowerIsMaxFeedIn and for /Hub4/FixSolarOffsetTo100mV
- Add registers for Inverter RS Smart
Networking / modem
- Allow using a GSM modem while connected to a local-only network by not setting a default route if there is no default gateway received from DHCP and/or configured manually.
RaspberryPis
- Note that installing v2.70 on a rpi can only be done by re-installing. Meaning: burn a v2.70 image to an sdcard, overwriting anything on there. Detailed instructions here. And more details in the discussion going on in the comments.
- Restored the packages (but to anyone using those, be aware that they are really not maintained, and if there in the way again for us we'll just as lightly as previously decide to take them out again. I'm sorry but that's what it is).
- Support (some of the) RaspberryPi4s. Some of the means that only some older versions work. Newer do not.
- Make the Bluetooth work on RaspberryPi3 and RaspberryPi4. The functionality is same as other GX Devices: to setup the network. Which means also that there is nothing else: no monitoring of your Victron system, use Remote Console on LAN, or http://venus.local/app/ instead.
- Use the complete SD-Card size, rather than a fixed size rootfs, by resizing on boot.
- Enable the radio on by default, instead of blocking it until unblocked by navigating to the wifi menu page in the gui. This fixes it being impossible to configure the wifi on a raspberrypi via VictronConnect/BLE without first going to said menu via Remote Console. Thank you @Stefanie for reporting - quite some time ago.
More developer / hobbyist:
- Switch from version Rocko to version Zeus of Open Embedded. A (perhaps too) simplified explanation for this is that its like going from Windows 7 to Windows 8, and then not in what you see, but just in what's running in the background. For those interested, more info [here](https://wiki.yoctoproject.org/wiki/Releases). And yes, Zeus is EOL as well. We'll soon switch over to Dunfell.
- Linux kernel updated from 4.19 to 5.10 for CCGX, Cerbo GX, GX-Card in MP-II and ES-II products as well as the CANvu GX. And updated from 4.9 to 5.10 for the Venus GX. No change for the raspberrypi, that is still on 4.19.
- Venus GX: Resize partitions on boot to the "new" large style partitioning. Background: up until the end of 2018, we produced our Venus GX-es with a file system partitioning similar to the CCGX. But the Venus GX has much more flash memory inside. So end of 2018 we changed the production methods. And now with this change, any unit produced before then will also automatically be upgraded to the new (larger) size. This change allows us to add more standard functionality in those older Venus GX-es. And also it makes it easier to install Venus OS Large on a Venus GX produced before end of 2018: its no longer necessary to manually do the repartitioning. Just run v2.70 once, and presto.
- Fix some management dbus-paths in dbus-pump & dbus-generator-starter, no user visible changes.
- Update Qt5 to 5.13.
- Mark menu items that are only visible in debug or other special modes with a color; so thats its clear that its not visible in normal usage.
Known issues:
- In some cases, one or more tanks don't show when selecting the tank type filter button on the bottom. Tanks can also go missing in the mobile overview, aka the "Boat & motorhome overview", enabled in the Settings -> Display & language menu . This missing tanks issue is being looked into.
- There seems to be an issue with the RaspberryPi3 WiFi, more details here.
Previous v2.70 beta posts
- v2.70~5 announcement
- v2.70~6 announcement
- v2.70~8 to ~11 announcement
- v2.70~12 to ~15 announcement
- v2.70~16 announcement
- v2.70~17 announcement
Looking forward to your reactions, and have a good weekend,
Matthijs
Ps. the screenshots, first one more Marine oriented, second one more off-grid oriented.
Ps 2. Screenshot of the new low level alarm for a tank. There is a similar page to configure a high level alarm:
