Using EG4 Communications Hub with Victron

[lmpsr]

I have a EG4 Communications Hub that I'm trying to get to communicate with Victron can bus. The hub is talking to the LiFePower4 battery just fine using RS485, but I can't get the battery/hub to show up in the Cerbo GX device list. The hub is set to Victron CAN protocol, and the hub is connected from the CAN1 INV port to the VE.Can on the Cerbo, using a cable that I made based on the diagram in the Victron cable manual... https://www.victronenergy.com/live/battery_compatibility:can-bus_bms-cable. I'm using the standard wiring convention for the RJ45 based on a number of diagrams on the Internet. The other VE.Can port is terminated.

Unless the convention that I'm using is backward, this should work unless I'm missing some setting. The manual is not much help, and what I can find on the Internet is about connecting the Cerbo to an EG4 LL battery.

 

[Samsonite801]

Did you try experiment with Type A, Type B pinouts as well?

Based on EG4 hub manual, Pins 4 and 5 look like CAN pins, so I would think you need to use the Type A or Type B pinout (depending on grounds), but what I'm seeing is that a standard straight cable doesn't look like it should work:

EG4 hub manual:



From your Victron link:

 

[lmpsr]

I used the Type A pinout. That's the one that EG4 sells for Victron. I'm too impatient to wait for a custom cable ;-)

 

[Samsonite801]

I used the Type A pinout. That's the one that EG4 sells for Victron. I'm too impatient to wait for a custom cable ;-)

Cool. So yeah, I might try a Type B in case the ground is different. It won't hurt anything to try. These are all low voltage (current-limiting) wires, if some pin voltage shorts to ground it just pulls the volts to zero, won't damage the driver circuit.

 

[lmpsr]

I'll try tying pin 2 to pin 6 on the battery side. That would cover both cases. Do you know what the baud rate is for the Cerbo? The hub is set to 9600, but there are other options.

 

[Samsonite801]

I'll try tying pin 2 to pin 6 on the battery side. That would cover both cases. Do you know what the baud rate is for the Cerbo? The hub is set to 9600, but there are other options.

I wouldn't necessarily assume that it doesn't matter if both pins 2 and 6 should be bridged and still be able to work though... One might think it should work fine, but....

 

[cdsolar]

I'll try tying pin 2 to pin 6 on the battery side. That would cover both cases. Do you know what the baud rate is for the Cerbo? The hub is set to 9600, but there are other options.

The Cerbo has options for baud rate in the gui:

Settings->Devices->can0->

If you don't find what you need for baud in the gui, you can set it via ssh, for example:

can-set-rate can0 500000

 

[lmpsr]

Thanks for the idea. I'm running the release candidate GUI, so it's a little different path. I found the setting under Services>VE.Can Port>CAN-bus profile. It was set to VE.Can & CAN-bus BMS (250 kbit/s). I changed it to CAN-bus BMS (500kbit/s) and it sprang to life.

 

[cdsolar]

Thanks for the idea. I'm running the release candidate GUI, so it's a little different path. I found the setting under Services>VE.Can Port>CAN-bus profile. It was set to VE.Can & CAN-bus BMS (250 kbit/s). I changed it to CAN-bus BMS (500kbit/s) and it sprang to life.

Can you tell us what cable type and pinouts you used? Thanks

 

[lmpsr]

Sure. I made my own cable by cutting open a standard CAT5 UTP cable and rerouting the wires to match the table in the

VE.Can to CAN-bus BMS cables manual​

VE.Can to CAN-bus BMS cables manual [Victron Energy]

www.victronenergy.com

I will make a new cable at some point to clean it up, but it works fine now. The link lists compatibility of a variety of batteries, and which cable is needed (Type A, Type B or standard UTP cable). The ready made Victron cable is available at Signature Solar, although it is listed as EG4 LL battery to Cerbo GX . Current Connected tells me that their Victron to SOK cable is the same, but SOK is not referenced directly in the Victron manual above.

 

[Jimi A]

Does anyone have, and are not using the signature solar comms hub? I'm looking to buy one but being in Australia they only ship via sea. So it'll take 3 months and 100 bucks. A functional second hand one via air freight would be much better. Any help would be much appreciated.
Cheers

 

[ho1]

Is there any benefit of using the EG4 Comms Hub, instead of just a SmartShunt - when using EG4 batteries with a Victron equipment? I'm thinking the SmartShunt will provide SoC details?

 

[Samsonite801]

Is there any benefit of using the EG4 Comms Hub, instead of just a SmartShunt - when using EG4 batteries with a Victron equipment? I'm thinking the SmartShunt will provide SoC details?

If I had the opportunity (perhaps moneywise or whatever), I might look into putting both..

EG4 comm hub and Cerbo Gx or something would give one number, and the Smart Shunt can provide a confirming value..

The EG4 hub will give the BMC perspective of SoC and aggregate all the individual pack SoC's into one average number value (math). The Victron shunt is like a main power meter on the gateway to the entire parallel bus of the bank and give a single number (math) based on amps and volts and a coulomb counter concept (recalibrates at 100%, counts down to empty based on Ah).

I primarily go by my Victron shunt for SoC, but sometimes I log into the batteries just to see how close they are on SoC to the main shunt.

Having more than one meter can help to give more peace of mind on accuracy since you have each of them to sanity-check the other if you ever think something is off.

 

[ho1]

Thanks! So there is no benefit in how the EG4 batteries are charged or their "health"/"balance" based on the EG4 hub?

Like the MPPT/MultiPlus won't do anything different whether the SoC comes from EG4 Comms Hub or SmartShunt.

In that case, for the same cost, I feel like the SmartShunt might be the more robust long-term option (if picking between the two).

 

[Samsonite801]

Thanks! So there is no benefit in how the EG4 batteries are charged or their "health"/"balance" based on the EG4 hub?

Like the MPPT/MultiPlus won't do anything different whether the SoC comes from EG4 Comms Hub or SmartShunt.

In that case, for the same cost, I feel like the SmartShunt might be the more robust long-term option (if picking between the two).

Well, it depends on what your needs are. If you can get comms going with a MPPT charger, it can then it could maybe do SoC based charging instead of voltage based charging, so if you had some special requirement like not always charging batteries to like 98-100% (well into the knee of the curve), then you can do a middle of the charge curve profile like only charge up to 80% or something.

Same goes for inverter, can set inverter shutdown based on low SoC trigger instead of low voltage trigger, which on LFP, it is harder to determine until you get into the lower knee of the curve, so if you have special requirements like shutdown at 40%, it's harder to be accurate with a voltage trigger point.

One other advantage to the EG4 hub is you can read cell voltages and error logs from a single point, so that is useful for troubleshooting when you get a battery alarm (not sure if you have the LL batteries with LED displays or the Lifepower4 without the display), but for me, being able to read BMS info is good to have. Shunt only can read gateway data, not pack level or cell level data or alerts/alarms.

If you have the Lifepower4 packs, then you may find it annoying when one battery gets a red LED alarm light and you have to plug a laptop into it in order to figure out what of the many alarms it could be that tripped it.


What kind of MPPT chargers you have? Victron? You have to check and see if your chargers would even be capable of charging based on SoC via comms..