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hubertmerkle avatar image
hubertmerkle asked

Adding support for a new CANbus Battery to Victron Venus OS

Hi,

we (SSL Energy GmbH from Germany) are producer of new battery storage system, called eSafe with LiFePo cells.

We want to add communication between our BMS and Victron Multigrid or Venus to make our battery compatible to Victron Inverters.

We have possibility to create a CAN-Bus communication between our BMS and Inverter. Can someone provide us with information, how we have to go on with this?

Thanks in advance

Hubert Merkle
SSL Energie GmbH

BMS
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owen avatar image owen commented ·

I have exactly the same question, We (Engineering Centre from Namibia) also have LifePO4 Batteries that we would like to incorporate with victron CCGX display. How does the communication protocol work. Any help would be highly appreciated.

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fred0 avatar image fred0 commented ·

Any luck with this effort? I have hooked up my CAN stuff to the CAN port of the CCGX and I do see a heartbeat message (0x305?) comming out of the CCGX. I send the exact messages that are documented in the REC-BMS doc and the CCGX is not detecting a bms. Anyone has been successful at this?

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5 Answers
mvader (Victron Energy) avatar image
mvader (Victron Energy) answered ·

Hi SSL, thank you for reaching out. I'm afraid we can't help you from within Victron; right now there is a stop on supporting more types of batteries.


Left and right on the internet (REC-BMS docs for example) you might find information on how to do it; but to officially support it we need to test it; and discuss things; which is -at the moment- not possible.


From Victron, we recommend our distributors, users and installers to use one of the already supported brands of batteries. And advice to not under estimate the amount of work involved in making a new BMS work reliably.

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owen avatar image owen commented ·

Hi mvader,


Just out of curiosity, why have you guys halted support on new types of batteries?

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martinsauter avatar image martinsauter commented ·

Hello,

I was working some time in the field of monitoring of large PV power plants.

We (that time skytron energy) were member of the working group 437 within the CiA - CAN in Automation - https://can-cia.org/can-knowledge/canopen/cia437/

On this fieldbus system and CANopen protocol, up to date, about 8.000 MWp have been installed; originally developed for the SOLON Mover.

CiA, at least was hosting also a working group for Off-Grid / Hybrid systems, in which the Fraunhofer ISE was also engaged, on my level of knowledge.

The question is, why it is not possible for the renewable industry to agree on one industrial standard protocol and fieldbus to avoid this interface/protocol desaster?

CiA - CAN in Automation

https://can-cia.org/; https://www.can-cia.org/canopen


Martin Sauter, Nanak Consult GmbH, Vaihingen/Enz


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boekel avatar image
boekel answered ·
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Rune Eilertsen avatar image
Rune Eilertsen answered ·

To understand Victron answere. I would like to know..

Would we not be able to present 3.part bms / cell info in example extra pages on a Venus, without Victron official support on the other side?

I have a software specialist want to do the job for me, and we want to do it for the bms we use, as well as from a few other units with can bus that we want to present information from.

Is the only solution to make my own hmi solution to pull data from Venus and my other controllers present in our machine?

The bms can-bus for allow/disallow charge integration is not mandatory for our implementation.

We have other solution on that. But would possible be nice to have for simplified setup/cabling, as well as source for SOC. (Eliminate some overlapping hardware in the setup)

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

Hi Rune, yes; showing battery/bms data on the Venus OS (so on ccgx or Venus GX or similar products) is perfectly possible indeed.


Most of it you can do yourself. Depending on used protocol and such; and prevent double work; you might need access to some source on our side which can be discussed.

Pls start reading here:

https://github.com/victronenergy/venus/wiki/howto-add-a-driver-to-Venus

And then contact me to obtain access.

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fred0 avatar image
fred0 answered ·

A ha! I have just done it! I strongly suggest you look at this arduino project, it contains all CAN info needed to make it work! Good luck!

https://github.com/tomdebree/VEcan

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markus avatar image markus ♦♦ commented ·

Hi @fred0 this sounds great and might be of good use for the community. We are actually preparing a new community space here, for software modifications and useful tweaks. It would be great, to have a posting about this and a few explaining words. Would you mind, writing a community post regarding your work? If yes, I would arrange access to this new space for you. Thank you!

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boekel avatar image boekel ♦ commented ·

Yes this is Tom de Bree 's work, he also has SimpBMS, he develops it (and I test it)


https://www.diyelectriccar.com/forums/showthread.php/fs-tesla-vw-outlander-bms-master-198263.html

currently it supports OEM bms slaves:

-tesla Model X/S

-Mercedes B-class (Tesla made) 7s modules

-Outlander

-I-Miev

-some others, not all have balancing working yet. (VW, BMW)


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gimx avatar image
gimx answered ·

Hi Hubert,


you might find some inspiration from my approach of writing a Pyhton canbus driver for the Valence U-BMS here: https://github.com/gimx/dbus_ubms

It does not "pretend" to be a Victron (supported) BMS, but decodes canbus messages and announces to the values as a battery device on dbus.

Torsten

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