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How to load historical local data from Victron MPPT solar charge controller into VRM

tomashubelbauer

New Member
Joined
Nov 12, 2022
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26
Location
Prague
Hi! I have a hobbyist solar system with just a few panels powering just DC loads for now (lights in my shop). I want to build a bigger system in the future but I want to learn first to make sure I get it right.

My system started off with a 12 V SOK LFP battery, a Victron MPPT BT solar charge controller and a few Victron panels. I used the VictronConnect app to check on the stats of the system over Bluetooth whenever I was around at my shop. The problem is I'm not always there and I would like to monitor the system every day to see the solar yield and the load draw and figure out if I even manage to cycle the battery or if I should add panels, add batteries etc. according to my usage.

I found that for remote monitoring, Victron make a Cerbo GX remote controller and an online app named VRM. I bought the Cerbo GX and installed it to my existing system and I set up VRM with it. I connected it to the MPPT SCC using the VE.direct cable/protocol.

When I go to VRM, I can see the SCC in my system's dash and I can add its widgets in the Advanced tab. That's all good. But it seems that VRM has only started collecting data from the SCC after I've connected it. I can go to the Remote Console and use the Cerbo GX OS to navigate to the SCC settings and find Daily History there. But this view is not great, it is purely textual, awkwardly organized etc. In comparison with the Victron Connect mobile app with nice graphs and all that, it is super unimpressive. Not to mention that the Remote Console is slow to navigate.

I wonder if I can upload the historical data off the SCC onto VRM so that they show up in my system's dash? That section has a Historical Data chart but it only has today's values since I have only connected the Cerbo GX today.

Thanks!
 
Yes, I am aware the internal memory on the device is limited. I don't care much for keeping the data on the device for longer, but question is more towards how and whether I can take the locally saved data off the Cerbo GX and backfill them into the VRM history. From what I can see, VRM kicks in and starts collection data only after you've connected devices to it, but it seems to totally ignore any data that may have been on the device's local memory at the time it was connected. I think this is probably just a limitation of VRM that I can't do anything about, but maybe there is a way to import historical data that I am not aware of?
 
I've accidentally found an answer to my question, it seems. I was looking for an unrelated thing, a way to enable or disable the streetlight feature of the solar charge controller through VRM and I found that VRM two-way communication needs to be enabled for this. Once it is, the devices connected to the Cerbo GX, such as the solar charge controller and the battery monitor, will appear in the VictronConnect app in the VRM tab and then the Devices tab. This is the same UI as is available when monitoring over Bluetooth. When accessing these devices through the app through VRM two-way comms, the historical data do get automatically pulled into the app. This is not exactly same as having them in the VRM web app, but this is actually even better from my POV so I sort of consider it to be the answer. I was looking for something that I did not realize was not the intended way and I happened to find the intended way by accident while looking for something else. This works for the mobile and desktop app. Hope this helps someone else as well.
 
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