An introduction to running Node Red on the Cerbo GX

[@wilkcm]

Thanks for this video! I'm that geek power user you mentioned at the end of the video. I have an off-grid bunkie at a marina where I keep my boat. This allows me to turn on my golf cart charger connected to a smart plug only when I have surplus energy (when the charger state = float), instead of a fixed schedule.

[@honumoorea873]

Nice video, thanks for the clear explanation..!

[@Paul_______]

This looks interesting. I wonder if it can change settings to devices attached to the cerbo like reducing the mppt amps if a temp sensor get too high

[@damianhla]

Excellent! Thank you so much for this exciting information. I have an ongoing issue with some of my Victron SmartSolar 100/50 controllers which I am hoping can be resolved with this solution. Of the six 100/50 they regularly randomly decided to NOT wake up in the morning. Despite having a solar panel voltage above 60v, they still not charnging. The workaround would be to go into the battery configuration, disable the controller, wait until the pop-up to enable the controller appears, then enable the controller. The controller will then immediate spring back into action and start charging. It apperas to be a firmware bug which Victron has with these contollers. The other two Victron 150/100 never experience this issue. Only happens to my 100/50 conrollers. Hopefully with Code Red, I can get them to perform a self check at 6am every morning on the solar panel voltage, if this exceeds a certain theshold and the controller is still not in the charging mode, to cycle to the disable/enable action to wake up the controller.

[@pkysinc]

You seem to have an issue with your controllers that could be resolved with more troubleshooting and without having to resort to Node Red. Unless you are a programmer familiar with the language Node Red is going to be a bit cumbersome for one off uses like this. We envisage it being used in industrial applications where there are multiple iterations of the same installation.

[@damianhla]

@@pkysinc This is the 3rd year these Victron SmartSolar 100/50 have been in service for my Offgrid solar. One of the six has already developed an issue with its current sensor and got sent back for warranty service. Of the other 5x, they are connected via Bluetooth plus the VE Direct connection. Whether this is running with the Smart BMS 712 or now the Lynx Shunt, the random inactive charging issue still persists. Sometimes it is one, other times two units, but i have not seen three. They don't have CAN bus communication to the Cerbo GX, like my other 150/100 do, that is one main difference. And the 150/100 never developed this issue, despite running on the same network and serving the same period of operation. I am not sure, but i think there may be a QC issue with these 100/50. They are not as robust as the 150/100. Obviously they run different firmware. As a software developer, i have the technical background to develop software solutions to address problems. I don't mind doing so. I tried pinging with others but few run as many controllers concurrently like my system, so they have not encountered this problem yet. I did encountered the random temp compensation issue that Andy ( from Offgrid garage) mentioned which stopped the controller from charging... this happened out of nowhere one morning. But overall, i am familiar with the type of tantrum these 100/50 can throw at me now, so if there is an easy way to develop counter measures against them, it would be the easiest approach i can take to ensure that the system continues to run 24x7 with minimal supervision. Unfortunately i do not have visibility to the firmware code for the 100/50. But it wouldn't be difficult to add a sanity check when the PV voltage is Not zero or a certain threshold, and the controller has NOT been disabled that the controller should NOT be in the OFF charging state. It should be reset to start the Bulk/Absorption charging state. The funny thing is, even if i go through the menu to disable the charger when i see this problem, if i don't wait until the pop up reminder to suggest enabling the changer, before re-enabling the charger again, it won't fix the problem. The re-enabling MUST be done AFTER the pop up reminder appears... so this is one observation i noted. It definitely looks to me like a software /firmware bug. And the problem can occur in any of my 6x 100/50 controllers, it is not localised. Compare this to the 150/100 that runs a different firmware and never experiences this issue, it further reinforces this speculation that it is firmware specific issue.

[@pkysinc]

This is not the correct place to be discussing this

[@eeobeeob]

This is great, thank you!

[@sjdtmv]

I was able to capture data on a Venus OS and send it to a MQTT Broker, Thanks greatly

[@ppi57]

17:00 how/where do you assign a group... mine comes up as unassigned

[@charlesrg]

Can you see the dashboard from cerbo screen ?

[@pkysinc]

No the dashboard is only available on a computer.

[@551moley]

It all sounds really interesting, unfortunately for me as a total non geek, I think I'm lacking the base knowledge to make use of it, 56 years old never did computers at school, never played computer games or really even used a computer for anything past basic form filling. Hopefully somebody will see a opportunity to offer support like website builders and set up node red functionality for reasonable cost.

[@Foxfried]

Learn to code this is crap.

[@fms4521]

Hi,this video was very clear and helpfull to get it to work.I have tried to communicate with the cerbo from my local PC via a paho.client. I got connection but not a response based on the Topics as described in some docs. I only could get the data if I used node red by forwarding the input data through mqtt out to my local mosquitto broker. Is there a way to receive the data directly without using inbuild broker in the cerbo? Thanks in advvance for your help