DIY Victron VE Direkt Y-cable to switch on/off Victron MPPT and connect Cerbo GX

[CaptainRivet]

HI all,

i have Electrodacus BMS and 3x Victron MPPT 50/100. Electrodacus needs the one VE.direct port on the Victron MPPT 50/100 to shut charge on/off but I want to connect cerbo GX.
Did someone DIY a Y- VE direct cable to connect the non-inverting cable for remote on/off and communication to Cerbo GX/rasberry pi (Cerbo GX build on it) or alternativly the BT module, as one MPPT 50/100 is not smart. You get VE direct plug with cables, so get 3 connect yellow to yellow and Black to Black. The cable that goes into MPPT is send so you connect to the red cable the 2 white and to the white cable the 2 red. Red is send TX and white is receive RX.
Did somebody do this? Does it work?
Thank you
Christian

[CaptainRivet]

Nobody tried that??? Hard to believe with tons of these MPPTs out and lot of DIY tweaking their systems with raspberry pi installs…

[lmxr]

Doubt this works as the Cerbo has to (?) query information from the MPPT, and thus both RX and TX lines are used by the Cerbo?

[CaptainRivet]

Originally Posted by lmxr

Doubt this works as the Cerbo has to (?) query information from the MPPT, and thus both RX and TX lines are used by the Cerbo?

Therefor it’s a question how the remote functionality really is implemented. Only way try and see what happens. I wasted more then 10Euro on senseless stuff and I can reuse the cable to just make normal VE direct ones if it doesn‘t work.
Just really surprised no one tried so far.

[hjohnson]

Originally Posted by CaptainRivet

Therefor it’s a question how the remote functionality really is implemented. Only way try and see what happens. I wasted more then 10Euro on senseless stuff and I can reuse the cable to just make normal VE direct ones if it doesn‘t work.
Just really surprised no one tried so far.

I think it’s probably because most of us that are doing this kind of integration are using BMSs that will integrate into the victron ecosystem, either directly, or through the third party RS485 driver.

[CaptainRivet]

Originally Posted by hjohnson

I think it’s probably because most of us that are doing this kind of integration are using BMSs that will integrate into the victron ecosystem, either directly, or through the third party RS485 driver.

well there are several cases you need more then one VE direct port eg if you have non smart version and you need the BT to change settings.



Theoretically the Electrodacus could do that RS485 connection too and I am aware of 2 persons they are getting that sorted at the moment.

But still I have eg one non smart MPPT and don't want to change that just because of that.
While the RS485 bus makes install easier in case you loose the bus makes a fallback nearly impossible. My system works if BMS fails just with the parameters in each device as 2nd line of defense.

While this keeps everything up and running i can just hot swap a new BMS in. Already 2 BMS are running parallel (advantage if the BMS only costs 200Euro, used older version are 60-100$) so likelyhood that happens other then a lightening strike is very small and I have a spare wrapped in Alu-foil and vaccum bagged that can be swaped in under 1 min.

[CaptainRivet]

found several boards by 3rd party which goes in the VE direct an eg allow to use a BT dongle while they switch on/off another external source via optocoupler. the board attached can also be put in VE direct of MPPT.
so it's definitely possible to have a y cable turning MPPT on/off while using BT dongle or connect to cerbo GX/raspi Venus OS.
will produce such an y-cable, already know how.
if someone knows and could tell me the logic or how to that non or inverting remote cable actually works I could integrate that too.