victron-data-adapter

.NET Core Adapter to forward the streaming data from a Victron solar charge controller to a InfluxDB. You can use this directly if you want to write to InfluxDB, else you can view this as an example project on how to use the VeDirectCommunication Library.

VeDirectCommunication

.NET Standard implementation of the protocols (Text and Hex) used by Victron Solar Charge Controllers (BlueSolar/SmartSolar) and other Victron Energy products (mainly tested with a "SmartSolar MPPT 100/15").

Communication with the device

There is an abstraction for the communication with the device called IVictronStream. This allows the communication with the device to happen without the need of a direct serial connection to the device.

There is a sample implementation NetworkVictronStream for doing the VE.Direct communication over an Ethernet to TTL Serial adapter (there are <20$ clones from eBay/AliExpress, be aware you'll usually also need a 5V/3.3V level converter).

The protocol implementation on the Victron device is very robust, it worked fine even with an Ethernet-To-Serial adapter through a VPN over a 4G mobile network (this (+ some TCP virtual serial port software) is also, how you can use the Victron software (and even do firmware upgrades) remotely).

You could easily write an implementation of IVictronStream to use a directly hooked up serial port with System.IO.Ports.SerialPort, likely it would also be possible to connect to the device via bluetooth.

Initialization, Basic Usage

To read and write the data stream sent by the charge controller the VeDirectDevice needs a IVictronStream, like a NetworkVictronStream. The NetworkVictronStream takes an IOptions<IpDataSourceConfig> and an ILogger<VeDirectDevice> as arguments. Consult the Microsoft manual for Microsoft.Extensions.Options and Microsoft.Extensions.Logging if you don't know how to get those.

You also need a RegisterParser to interpret the raw bytes the Victron device returns.

Complete example: Getting a single register (run this in an async method)

var networkConfig = new IpDataSourceConfig
{
	Hostname = "192.168.178.123",
	Port = 12345
};
IVictronStream stream = new NetworkVictronStream(new OptionsWrapper<IpDataSourceConfig>(networkConfig));
var device = new VeDirectDevice(stream, NullLogger<VeDirectDevice>.Instance);
await device.Start();

var registerParser = new RegisterParser();

var modelNameBytes = await device.GetRegister(VictronRegister.ModelName);
var modelName = registerParser.ParseString(modelNameBytes);
Console.WriteLine(modelName); // prints e.g. "SmartSolar Charger MPPT 100/15"

await device.Stop();

Getting data without polling

Instead of polling all registers constantly, you have two ways of letting the charge controller send you the values by itself:

Simple way (Text mode)

If there are no hex messages for a certain time (the Victron datasheet is very vague on this by saying "several seconds") the charge controller sends a defined list of fields in ASCII (see the datasheet for which fields there are).

public void Start() {
	// initialization here

	device.TextMessageReceived += TextReceived;
}

private void TextReceived(object sender, TextMessageReceivedEventArgs e)
{
	foreach (var field in e.Data.Fields)
	{
		Console.WriteLine($"{field.Key}: {field.Value}");
	}
}

Advanced way (Hex Async mode)

If there are have been hex messages in the last two minutes (you can use the Ping() method to force this) the charge controller sends some registers by itself. You can get a list of supported registers by calling SupportedAsyncRegisters.Get(VictronVersion) with the charge controller firmware version.

Getting the supported registers (run this in an async method)

var pingResponse = await _device.Ping();
var version = _registerParser.ParsePingResponse(pingResponse);
var asyncRegisters = SupportedAsyncRegisters.Get(version).ToList();

Handling the async messages

public void Start() {
	// initialization here

	device.AsyncMessageReceived += AsyncReceived;
}

private void AsyncReceived(object sender, AsyncMessageReceivedEventArgs e)
{
	Console.WriteLine($"{e.Data.Register}: {e.Data.RegisterValue}");
}

Unimplemented features:

• hex mode:
  • add SetRegister support
  • version release candidate
  • capabilities enum