New monitoring application for SBMS

[Dacian Todea (electrodacus)]

Here is a short preview of a new app I was working for the past two months (should have been two weeks :) ).

When I started working on the app I was thinking I will be using X11 only but as I progressed in to that I realized that it will be a bit to slow so decided to look in to using OpenGL in order to take advantage of the Intel integrated GPU in the Atom X5.

OpenGL was not as simple as I was thinking so even with the help of multiple LLM's it took quite some time before I build this app but now that is basically done I'm fairly happy with the decision as it has way better performance with the app using just around 1% of the CPU compute.

I will sell this DELL mini computers with preinstalled Linux (did not decided what Linux version likely Porteux or MiniOS) and of course the app and will be sold for 79CAD (it is a refurbished used item that is why the price is low).

I have about 100 of this (I will keep a few for my own use) but there are plenty so should be available the entire year or even more.

I will only provide the mini computer and a power cable 4x1.7mm (need to get this in a week or two). but you will need a 12V DC-DC converter at least 1.5A rated. Here is a photo of the one I'm using. And you also maybe need a DP (Display Port) to HDMI adapter cable unless your monitor has Display Port input. The mini computer has two DP connections so you can connect two monitors if you want. The adapter cable is less than $5 on Amazon and plenty of version (all will work as they are just a cable adapter just connectors and wires).

The monitor I'm using is this https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0CP3NTK2T?ref_=ppx_hzod_title_dt_b_fed_asin_title_0_1  fairly decent 14" but you can get the 15.6" variants if you prefer a larger one. Above that the monitors will likely use to much energy but any size will work ideally 1080p as the app was designed to work best on 1920x1080

What is nice is that with a single USB cable (white one in the photo) I can power the monitor (just around 3W) and it has touch screen so you do not even need a keyboard and mouse most of the time as you can use the app buttons and cursors with the touchscreen.

The black USB cable is going to the SBMS0

The computer is very small it looks larger in the photo than it actually is

 

Just connected the computer yesterday to the SBMS0 so less than 24h will try to take a screenshot by the end of the day. It is cloudy today and snowing see the photo below that I took around the same time 

 

 And here are some screenshots and will try to explain the functionality.

The app working in a window mode but likely you will want to use it full screen by pushing the button just under the close button (assuming symbol is evident). Under that there is the signal button that selects between 3 types of graphs (you will see in the other screenshots) then the yellow button is to change the units in A/Ah or W/Wh and last button the purple one is to select if E_day (energy for the day) or E_usr (energy that is user resealable by holding down the button for 5 seconds).

The rest of the screenshots are with the app in full screen mode. This is taken around 10:30 this morning you can see date and time (from SBMS0) in the top left corner the rest of the data on that top bar are just debug and performance data and can be disabled so you will not need to see those. This screenshot shows live data. There is electron flow in wires represented by the small squares you see in below screenshot that changes depending on charge source and what supplies the Load.

The below screenshot shows the two cursors that you can control with a mouse or touchscreen. The graph on the left shows the last 24h with a 1 minute resolution so 1440minute in 24h thus 1440 pixels (the reason why 1920x1080p is a great resolution for the app) and the graph on the right is a zoom around that minute you selected with the yellow cursor a total of 8 minute (480seconds so 480pixels + 1440 = 1920).

The cyan cursor can select at a resolution of 1 second in the zoom window so you basically have access to all data for last 24h at 1 second resolution a total of 86400 data points times almost 40 different signals so a lot of data.

Here is the second type of signal you can display by pushing the green signal button and this shows all cell voltages graphed over time at 1 second resolution. You can observe the cell voltage variation due to cell balancing and the one minute cell voltage averages are displayed above the 24h graph.

Pushing the green signal button one more time shows the third type of graph that contains the SOC, total battery voltage, ADC2, ADC3 and internal and external temperature graph again all can be zoomed in to a 1 second resolution and one minute average at yellow cursor position is displayed above the 24h graph.  The cyan cursor data is displayed in the top half where normally it will be live data thus the warning !Log Data.

Pushing green signal button one more time brings you back to energy graph.

Other functionality that is not seen in the screenshot is that the app logs all data to files one file per day about 5.2MB in size compressed data and I will have a separate terminal only app that can convert those files to .csv

Also there is a settings file called SBMS.cfg that you can open with a text editor and make a lot of settings including being able to change all the colors if you do not like the ones I selected.

Below I pasted the content of that file and what you can change. DVI resistance allows you to use the ADC2 and ADC3 to measure the power and current for diversion heating just need to provide the heating element resistance.

All you need to setup this is to set the SBMS UART to 1 to enable it set the baud rate to 115200 and log interval to 1 second and connect the USB cable from computer to SBMS0 (it should handle a 20ft 6m cable with no issues but I only tested with a 10ft 3m cable as that is all I have).

// User settings for the electrodacus application.

DIV1_RESISTANCE=1000000           //Heating element Div1 resistance in microOhms 50000uOhms to 10000000uOhms
DIV2_RESISTANCE=500000            //Heating element Div1 resistance in microOhms 50000uOhms to 10000000uOhms
DEBUG_ENABLE=2                    //Debug 1=raw data printed on top bar  2=raw data but also frame timing in us 3=raw data and just the total framing time in ms 4=only total framing in ms 5=no debug data.
FONT_TYPE=5                       //Font types 1=Regular RobotMono 2=Bold RobotMono 3=Bolder RobotMono 4=Thin RobotMono 5=UbuntuMono Regular(set FONT_SIZE at 90 for this one).
FONT_SIZE=90                     // Font Size keep it at 100 except for Font Type 5 where 90 is recomended
// Set ttyUSB port maybe to /dev/ttyUSB1 if the ttyUSB0 is used by something else or maybe you want to monitor two SBMS at the same time in that case you can have one app monitor on USB0 and the other USB1
SERIAL_PORT=/dev/ttyUSB0
// Make sure you set the same baud rate on the SBMS in Device Settings / UART menu and also set UART Data Log to 1 and Log interval to 1s      
BAUD_RATE=B115200
// R,G,B,Alpha 0.0 .. 1.0 this is valid for all color settings you can have two or even 3 digits for precision say 0.653                
COLOR_BACKGROUND=0.0,0.0,0.0,1.0  // Background collor
COLOR_UNITS=0.0,0.0,0.0,0.9       // Units and Labels color
COLOR_BACKGROUND_REC=0.0,0.0,0.0,1.0 //If you need a diffrent background while plaing with graph recorded data but looks best if you leave it as COLOR_BACKROUND
COLOR_MENU1=1.0,1.0,0.7,0.9       //cursor 1 color
COLOR_MENU2=0.7,1.0,1.0,0.9       //cursor 2 color
COLOR_MENU3=0.0,0.0,0.0,1.0       //24h graph background
COLOR_MENU4=0.0,0.0,0.0,1.0       //8 minute graph background
COLOR_MENU5=0.60,0.60,0.60,0.5    //24h graph grid lines
COLOR_MENU6=0.60,0.60,0.60,0.5    //8 minute graph grid lines
COLOR_MENU7=0.30,0.30,0.30,1.0    //24h and 8 minute graph axis line
COLOR_MENU8=0.0,0.8,0.8,0.6       //8 minute graph x axis value
COLOR_MENU9=0.84,0.84,0.0,0.55    //24h graph x axis values
COLOR_MENU10=0.5,0.6,0.5,0.7      //8 minute graph y axis values
COLOR_MENU11=0.5,0.6,0.5,0.7      //24h graph y axis values
COLOR_MENU12=0.18,0.20,0.18,1.0   //cell bargraph background
COLOR_MENU13=0.95,0.95,0.95,1.0   //wires color
COLOR_MENU14=1.0,1.0,1.0,0.9      //values color
COLOR_MENU15=0.6,0.7,0.6,1.0      //Date color
COLOR_MENU16=0.85,0.9,0.85,1.0    //Time color
COLOR_MENU17=0.72,0.82,0.72,1.0   //raw data color
COLOR_MENU18=0.18,0.20,0.18,0.9   //Flag background color
COLOR_MENU19=0.64,0.92,0.42,0.8   //non error flags collor
COLOR_MENU20=0.9,0.4,0.1,0.8      //error flag collor
COLOR_MENU21=0.6,0.6,0.6,0.7      //flag text color inactive
COLOR_MENU22=0.1,0.1,0.1,0.9      //flag text color active
COLOR_MENU23=0.14,0.12,0.72,1.0   //Buttons background collor
COLOR_MENU24=0.4,0.525,0.212,1.0  //Electrodacus logo color dark
COLOR_MENU25=0.741,0.933,0.6,1.0  //Electrodacus logo color light
COLOR_MENU26=0.18,0.20,0.18,1.0   //Top header collor
SIGNAL_COLOR_DIV_LINE=0.9,0.0,0.0,0.7    //Signal colors from this point should be self evident for waht signal each line is.
SIGNAL_COLOR_BATT_LINE=0.4,0.75,0.0,0.7
SIGNAL_COLOR_LOAD_LINE=0.5,0.0,0.9,0.7
SIGNAL_COLOR_PV_LINE=0.9,0.75,0.0,0.7
SIGNAL_COLOR_DIV_FILL=0.9,0.0,0.0,0.3
SIGNAL_COLOR_BATT_FILL=0.4,0.75,0.0,0.3
SIGNAL_COLOR_LOAD_FILL=0.5,0.0,0.9,0.3
SIGNAL_COLOR_PV_FILL=0.9,0.75,0.0,0.3
SIGNAL_COLOR_C1=0.8,0.0,0.0,0.9
SIGNAL_COLOR_C2=1.0,0.5,0.5,0.9
SIGNAL_COLOR_C3=0.0,0.8,0.0,0.9
SIGNAL_COLOR_C4=0.5,1.0,0.5,0.9
SIGNAL_COLOR_C5=0.0,0.4,0.8,0.9
SIGNAL_COLOR_C6=0.4,0.6,1.0,0.9
SIGNAL_COLOR_C7=0.6,0.2,0.9,0.9
SIGNAL_COLOR_C8=1.0,0.5,1.0,0.9
SIGNAL_COLOR_SOC=0.7,0.7,0.7,0.8
SIGNAL_COLOR_VBATT=0.4,0.9,0.0,0.8
SIGNAL_COLOR_ADC3=1.0,0.0,0.5,0.8
SIGNAL_COLOR_ADC2=0.9,0.4,0.8,0.8
SIGNAL_COLOR_IT=1.0,0.9,0.5,0.8
SIGNAL_COLOR_ET=0.2,0.35,0.75,0.8

[Dacian Todea (electrodacus)]

Someone asked about using two SBMS0 on the same mini PC and the short answer is that yes it is possible but you can only view one of them in full screen at a time or you can see both full screen if you install two monitors 

You just have two copies of the app in different folders and then for one of them you change this line in the SBMS.conf file SERIAL_PORT=/dev/ttyUSB0 to  SERIAL_PORT=/dev/ttyUSB1 and so the SBMS you connect to USB second will be assigned by Linux the USB1 label.

He also mentioned the link for the monitor did not worked so here is one that should work. But any monitor should be fine and there are tones of options to chose from if you do not already have one that you can use.

https://www.amazon.ca/Portable-Touchscreen-Kickstand-Speakers-External/dp/B0CP3NTK2T

Here is the link for the DC-DC converter I was using it is 90% efficient and can deliver 30W 12V 2.5A so way more than needed. This is an isolated DC-DC converter thus the reason is a bit more expensive but you do not necessarily need an isolated one

Also this one I have and linked is for 24V battery only as it works from 18V to 75Vdc so very large range.

https://www.mouser.ca/ProductDetail/MEAN-WELL/DDR-30L-12?qs=r5DSvlrkXmJqcstCbAnIwg%3D%3D

But here is the link for the variant that works on 12V battery and will also work on 24V battery as it has a range of 9V to 36V

https://www.mouser.ca/ProductDetail/MEAN-WELL/DDR-30G-12?qs=r5DSvlrkXmKcXd%252BKo9F6oQ%3D%3D

The minicomputer uses around 3W while idle or using the app and will not exceed 8W or so under heavy load but when you start connecting thing like USB stick or USB WiFi modules the consumption may increase and then the monitor is about 3W at 20 to 30% brightness so in total the setup you seen uses around 6.6W about 3W for computer 3W for monitor and the 90% efficiency of the DC-DC converter included.

But if you set the brightness to max and stresses the computer with some other apps  and maybe connect some other USB devices the power consumption may get to around 15W so I will say a minimum 12V 1.5A DC-DC converter is needed.

The computer is fan-less so there will be no fan noise for those that are worried about that.

And here is a link to one of those DisplayPort to HDMI cable adapters  https://www.amazon.ca/BENFEI-DisplayPort-Enabled-Computer-Laptops/dp/B017Q8ZVWK they are all the same and you can find it even cheaper there are also version to DVI if you have an older monitor you want to use I got one of those adapter also and it also works same just connectors and wires. I think I seen even DP to VGA but that will probably be to old of a monitor to use.

Ideal monitor resolution is 1920x1080 and if you go for some other resolution is best to be 16:9 aspect ratio. Also max resolution supported by this mini computer is 2560 x 1600 so do not try to use one with higher resolution.

The 16:10 aspect ratio will also work I tested on a 1280x800 laptop but you have a part of unused screen at the bottom so it will not look as nice.

[Dacian Todea (electrodacus)]

A few more screenshots of the app from today.

I have a dual PV array setup on this battery and it was sunny today in contrast with yesterday. You can see around 9:20 in the morning when it dropped from level 3 to level 2 meaning it disconnected the small array and left just the large array and then soon after by around 9:40 you can even better see dropping to level 1 meaning only leaving the small PV array connected. If it was cold I will had the large array being diverted to heating but is not the case now as it is fairly worm in the house. I need to connect wires to ADC2 and ADC3 to test the diversion heating display probably will do that some time this week.

Here are two photos taken a bit earlier where I switched from W/Wh to A/Ah 

And this is the graph with temperature and SOC. I do not have an external temperature sensor installed so it shows -45C but you can see the internal temperature of the SBMS (yellow trace) started to increase as soon as charging started about 6h earlier and there is a more prominent increase in temperature just before charging ended so from 99% to 100%. You can also see the total battery voltage (green trace) is super flat and that is from 61% SOC in the morning up to 100% SOC around noon and the voltage barely changed thus impossible to guess the SOC without energy counting that is fairly accurate if setup correctly.

And here you can see the cell voltages zoomed at the end of charge with cell1 (red trace) that triggered end of charge and cells 3 and 5 being the lowest at 13:00:02 (cyan cursor). This is also under load as there is a 1624W load at this point.

I will probably also do a capacity test sometime in the next few days to see how this EVE cells are doing as they where only tested after initial install. Will need to check how I did the test to make it fairly similar in order to be able to compare as I do not expect much degradation.

[Dustin Dudley]

WOW!! That looks great. I will have to start reading it in detail and learn how to separate my system where I can run all banks of PV until just the right conditions and then AUTOMATICALLY toggle to just those that I want to engage. Right now I am over-paneled and have to shut down various arrays using the circuit breaker to those arrays to avoid perfect sun conditions causing VLOK. Amazing interface you are working on for sure! Thank you.

[Dacian Todea (electrodacus)]

In this particular installation I have  36 panels 255W each and they are connected in two separate arrays the small one 12 panels and the large one is 24 panels.

The small array is controlled by EXT IO4 set as type 1 and the large array by the EXT IO5 set as type 6 (that type 6 is how the SBMS0 knows I use a dual PV array setup) and then I have set a limit in the DMPPT settings Max PVOUT Current of 80A

This way the SBMS0 will have all 36 panels charging the battery until limit is exceeded with some tolerance to prevent switching to often so if limit is exceeded it will reduce the panels charging the battery to 24 that what happened first and then if the limit is exceeded again it will reduce the number of panels to 12 and that is the final level as those will usually not put out more than 100A maybe 110A if panels are very cold so it is below the 120A circuit breaker limit and not a problem for the 14kWh battery.

[Dan Karau]

I already run an old mini PC similar to yours as my home server with Promox on it.   I also have Linux running on it and can install another version if necessary on a separate Virtual Machine within Proxmox.   Will we be able to download the new app without needing to buy the computer?

[Dacian Todea (electrodacus)]

As soon as I sell this batch of mini computers I will make the app available for download. In the meantime I need to test the app on other machines and different Linux distros to see what needs to be improved and what libraries may be missing in other Linux distros.  I will make sure to also test it on a virtual machine before making it available. Also it uses GPU for OpenGL and it was just tested on intel integrated graphic and some of the latest mesa drivers. I will need to test on more GPUs to see that it works as expected. 

[Dan Karau]

Perfect, thank you.  

Will you also have an app for Android and iOS phones?   Ya, I know...lots of extra work for that.   

Not sure which Ai you are using to assist with programming.  I find using Perplexity and Grok in concert is really powerful.   If one gets stuck I just feed the code and error/issue into the other one and it will solve the issue 9 out of 10 times.   The new version of Grok is very good and getting better all the time with so many users on X using it for free.

[wmckeenster]

Hi Dacian,

Thanks for the update, super excited! I will need a few of these so sign me up when they are available. Need some other gear too so will wait so you can ship all.

Are you still not considering Victron integration? Most of the work is done for you on git hub and maybe this hardware could be the interface?? All other BMS's now have Victron integration and I believe you would hit a broader market and sell more SBMS's.

Thanks,

Wayne

[Dacian Todea (electrodacus)]

I used a lot of AI's all of them the free version available. To mention the main few will be google Gemini (unlimited use and largest context), Sonnet 3.7 (very good but free version super limited almost unusable), DeepSeek R1 and V3 and in the beginning I used quite a lot Qwen specifically 32B parameter version that was specific to coding. I do not think I tested Grok (maybe once on poe.com) and also did not use Perplexity.

My coding is also just done in a simple text editor (Xed) and compile in command line using gcc.

Any guess as to how large this app is (size on disk) ?

Wayne,

The SBMS supports most Victron equipment but using the hardware remote ON/OFF and not serial communication that is a bad idea in my opinion.

There is no extra info that Victron equipment can provide as SBMS provides statistics about charge, Load and battery power and energy + diversion with this app now.

SBMS should have proper hardware remote ON/OFF control not only because it is much more reliable but also that is true OFF  no need for the device to stay in some standby state to be able to communicate and use energy when it is not desirable especially bad for fully offgrid applications.

Victron has their own app if you want to set the devices or monitor their reported current/power.  

My goal with this app was to keep it clean and simple. It provides all the info that SBMS0 can provide in a clean interface with not that many buttons or settings and with a clean look.  Adding on top of this say the current/power measurement provided by say Victron MPPT or inverter/charger  will be redundant as SBMS already provides this with higher accuracy and having a bunch of extra redundant info will make the interface less readable and intuitive.

For example the energy graph in this app shows 4 signals.

Battery

PV

Load

Diversion

So say I integrate info from a Victron MPPT. How do you think I could integrate that info ?

The Victron MPPT will be connected to PV shunt so SBMS already know the current/power that the MPPT delivers. The MPPT can also provide that but it will not match exactly and be less accurate.

I can see maybe the point where you have two MPPT's and maybe you want to see how much each of them produces separately but again it is a lot off extra info and redundant as the total PV is more relevant than each individual MPPT.

I'm fairly certain that over 95% of SBMS users find the amount of data already overwhelming and there is nothing redundant in the data.

Maybe I'm missing something but I do not see what will be the advantage to add Victron integration in this app. As for the SBMS0 that will always control equipment trough ON/OFF hardware remote and not serial communication that is more complex, less reliable and  has big disadvantages including not being able to fully turn off equipment as it needs to maintain communication.

[sailingharry]

There is one, admittedly weak, benefit of integration, and that is "information" -- NOT CONTROL!  The SBMS0 provides wonderful, direct control of all existing Victron equipment, so nothing needs to change there.  And the SMBS0 screen provides pretty solid information.

On my installation, I even have LED's and switches that enhance it more.

*  There is a master switch that turns off the battery contactors, and it is self-illuminated when the contactor is closed.

*  There is a charge switch that turns off all charge sources.  It's lit when charging, unlit if the switch or the SBMS0 disables charging.

*  There is a discharge switch that is used to turn on/off the inverter, it is lit if inverting, unlit if the switch or SBMS0 disables inverting.

*  And I have a dedicated ammeter that displays total Solar amps (and another that displays total Towed Generator amps).

What more could you ask?  For management of the batteries, nothing.

BUT, for those that have bought into the Victron ecosystem and have a Cerbo, there are benefits.

*  Remote access to information, that includes

 - temperature(S) around the boat

 - bilge pump operations

 - ability to remotely start/stop air conditioning

 - ability to remotely turn on/off inverter

 And, if the SMBS0 easily shared data (it can be done, some on this list have done it),  you would have

 - charge rate

 - SOC

 - battery volts

The Cerbo also allows for easily relocating a control panel for the inverter.  My switch is super easy, but that's just because it is.

I don't have a Cerbo.  I have no interest in having one.  I don't even intend to do the Raspberry version of it.  For me, the logistics of installing it outweigh the limited benefits.  But for those that have one installed, adding a data stream from the SBMS0 sort of completes the picture.

[Dacian Todea (electrodacus)]

Harry,

That is not something that depends on me or this particular app.

You can have the Victron app that allows you do do all that and can be installed and used alongside this app.

The SBMS provides data that is how this app works by getting the SBMS data and displaying them in a graphical form.

I can not modify whatever the Victron app is to read and interpret the SBMS data. The data is readily available over WiFi or USB from SBMS0 not sure what else I can do about that.

Some people that like high degree of automation have integrated multiple devices from multiple vendors in things like Home Assistant including the SBMS0 and Victron Equipment.

Most request over the time where for displaying the SBMS0 info on a larger screen. There was the WiFi (only about 40% of people even order the WiFi/USB module).

For those that had the WiFi/USB module they complained about the difficulty to set up in different operating systems then new WiFi standards where combined 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz WiFi did not quite worked correctly or reliably.

The USB being a wired connection will be way more reliable and it can work for moths / years with no issues.

So the scope of this app is to allow those people that have the SBMS0 installed in a not so accessible location and or find the SBMS0 screen to small and either dislike WiFi for some reason or find it complex or unreliable.

This mini computer with the app already installed will be a simple very few step install by the user that just need to set the SBMS0 UART settings to "1" enabled set the baud rate to 115.2k and log interval to 1 second then power the mini computer connect to a monitor and connect the USB cable.

So it should be easy to use for most people (If they managed to install the SBMS0 setting up this mini computer and app will be way simpler).

Then they can connect one or two monitors as large as they want in the location/locations they want.

Displaying info in this app about  bilge pump operation, or water levels .... while possible will change the scope of this app and make it look way more busy and complex.

Controlling equipment from this app will also be outside the scope of this app and will only be possible if the equipment is connected in some way to the mini computer or whatever computer this app works on.

Anyone that gets the mini computer in the next few months will also receive the source code that will be free to use and modify as they want with no software license or restriction in using the code. After this batch of mini computers is sold out I will link the app on my website including the source code so anyone can do whatever they want with. If I do not get more of this minicomputers to offer those that do not know how to install linux or do not want to waste time I will probably offer a boot able USB flash drive that has the app ready to use but will need to test that on multiple computer in the meantime for now is tested only on this mini computers and it works great on them with just 1% CPU utilization.

I just tested the EVE battery capacity last night and will publish the results soon on the forum.

[wmckeenster]

Hi Dacian,

Thanks for your explanation and I agree with all of it, yes it provides all the data you could ever want (if you could self parse and display it) and yes, it is more accurate and yes, it is best to stop charging/loads via SBMS directly etc etc. 

My simple answer is, SBMS does not have ANY online logging, statistics and/or front end nor any form of reliable remote monitoring (i.e phones or whatever). Forget it if you need a remote solution to monitor the SBMS. Wifi is absolutely unreliable and unusable imo and I understand this is a function of the ESP32. I have several systems installed and am tired of resetting every few days/weeks and will not continue to do this for much longer and my clients hate it. 

Im your biggest fan and believe the SMBS is the absolute best of the best AND the only viable solution made in North America. Its sad imo, there is no solution or roadmap outside of wifi and port forwarding/MQTT for a remote solution.

I have offered several times to "fund" the development of this and no one yet has stepped up so wondering if you have any plans to do it so we can have reliable remote monitoring and logging via Victron or like Victron has. Dustin's (joint project) buddy used git hub and had a remote solution working with Victron in a day...but it is using wifi but posts to Victrons VRM and works awesome.

Sorry for the rant but I'm frustrated that we are still dealing with the useless ESP 32 Wifi for our critical systems when you have a hardware solution now to do it easily. 

My offer is still open if someone wants to step up and develop the software bridge now that you have the "hardware interface".

Thanks for all you do Dacian, keep up the great work!

Wayne

[Dan Karau]

Perplexity is around 100mb of disk space.   Grok is part of X.com and can be run remotely so doesn't take any disk space. 

Both will provide code that you can copy into whatever text/code editor you want.   Most of the time I use Visual Code Studio and I specify that.   I have had it provide coding for creating a vector drawing from an image.  I uploaded the image and Grok gave me the code that I put into notepad and saved it with the appropriate file type, in my case a ".pes" file type and then loaded it into Inkscape.  Crazy powerful and done in minutes not hours of playing in Inkscape like I used to have to do.

[Dan Karau]

Wayne/Dacian

Can the data stream you are looking for be accessed through the USB Cable connection on the Wifi board?  If so, can I assume there is a computer close by all of these remote installs.   Could the data be live streamed into NodeRed to format the data and then broadcasted remotely via MPPT to a router and thus the world?

[Dacian Todea (electrodacus)]

Wayne,

When you say remote monitoring you are referring outside the range of the WiFi or USB cable ? 

This mini computers have a 1GB lan port so they can be connected to internet that way or trough WiFi (but again not sure the level or reversibility even if is not about ESP32 in this case).

The since this is linux there are multiple ways to get this data outside of the local area network if that is desired.

Maybe the simplest solution will be VNC or similar remote desktop tool and then you should be able to view and control the desktop from any device anywhere in the world. You can see this app that I provide and you can even add say a USB camera that you will also be able to see trough remote desktop.

I will look in to having the VNC installed or some other remote desktop before shipping this mini computers if you think that is usable solution.  I'm not thinking much about this as I do not monitor my system from outside with 99% of the time being here so I had no use for that.

As for data log this app will data log automatically to a file at 1 second resolution. The log data is still the same compressed data that SBMS0 sends but I will provide a tool that converts those files to csv tho they will be quite large a modern computer should handle them so you can open those in Excel or Open Office Calc and plot that logged data in any way you want. It could be useful if you need to diagnose some fault as it will log each second until the computer is powered off  so you may be able to see the reason why it was powered off.

djkarau,

I was asking you to guess how much disk space the app I wrote takes. Not quite sure what Perplexity is but it just seems like an LLM with web search capability so it is unlikely it is part of that 100MB of disk space (likely just the graphical interface) with the LLM hosted somewhere else.

I'm just not ready to go with any of the LLM's available thus I prefer to use most of them directly on the web with nothing installed and no paid option. Closest solution to this will be POE.com that gives you 3000 points to use for free each 24h and you can pay to have more access but I feel the versions available there are not quite the full version of LLM's.

I do not use X but I could test it some time to see how it compares. I remember it was not spectacular a few months ago when I asked it some physicists questions but things change very fast.

There is no doubt that in a year max two an LLM could fully write this app that took me about two months including their help.    

Data stream consists of 60 bytes sent every second over USB or WiFi that is how this app works is connected trough USB to SBMS0 and reads those 60 bytes sent automatically every second then decompress that data converts it in readable form and displays all that in a graphical format. It also logs all that to a file (new file each day about 5.2MB per day).

From there of course data can be access in multiple ways but maybe Remote Desktop will be the simplest way to see live data remotely so I will try to have VNC or something similar installed in this mini Linux distros. Still need to decide if I will use MiniOS or Porteux.  MiniOS is nice as it is based on Debian 12 but Porteux while based on Slackware is more up to date and boots faster. 

[Dan Karau]

Not sure how big your app would be, but shouldn't be anything too large as it isn't storing any of the data, just displaying it.   The data will obviously grow each day and consume much more storage depending on how much history one wants to have access to.

Have you looked into installing Ollama locally.  They have several different models available that can be installed locally depending on your needs and hardware resources available.   https://ollama.com/library

As for Grok, yes they just released Grok 3 about a month ago and it was a huge improvement to the old one.   Best part about Grok is that it is "live" so can tell you about events that just happened last hour unlike so many models that are weeks or even months old data.  This therefore gives you access to the very fast changing programming models/methods/code.

[Dacian Todea (electrodacus)]

Only the data for graphs is stored so 24h at 1 second interval and that is stored in ram thus ram usage will not increase over time. The data is also log to file that is 5.2MB / day separate file for each day.

The app (executable file) I think is fairly small at just  171kB

My computer is not capable of running any usable local model is an old i7-3770 with an Nvidia GT 730M so (an All in One Asus P1801) about 12 years old. I recently upgraded from 8GB of ram to 16GB while waiting for a new computer.  Plan is to upgrade when AMD Strix Halo becomes available in a mini PC form factor with 128GB of RAM (unified) and that should handle some decent local LLM's.  I needed a low power under 120W total mini computer that has a decent GPU and plenty of fast ram and the Strix Point was not quite there so decided to wait for the Halo version that has significantly better performance as it will need to last for another 10 years probably.

But since I'm not worried about privacy when writing code (all my code is fully open source) I'm OK with using cloud based services.  I'm not a software engineer I just on occasion write code so it is no priority for me especially since this app is basically done just needs a bit more testing.

[Dan Karau]

I just bought one of these recently as a barebone machine  and added 64gb ram and 2 x 2tb ssds.   With Ubuntu loaded it is amazingly fast. 

https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-um890pro

I see they now have their Ai machine on sale too which was just released this spring which is supposed to be nutz fast as the ram in on the board...good part is stupid fast, bad part is you can't upgrade the memory in the future.

https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-ai-x1

They just released his baby with up to 96bg of ram it is a beast.

https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-ai-x1-pro?variant=46442478502133

You can get these on Amazon.ca too.  When I bought mine it was cheaper to buy it from Amazon.com then directly from them or from Amazon.ca.

All these machines have the ability to use Oculink and therefore have an external GPU if you want to get stupid with AI development or are playing really high-end games.

[Dacian Todea (electrodacus)]

For AI the memory bandwidth is even more important than compute capability.

The one you got has two channel DDR5 5600 so just 69.2 GB/s

The X1 has the HX 370 (Strix Point) and it was what I was planing but is about half the capabilities of the upcoming Strix Halo .

I'm waiting for the AI Max+ 395 main point is the 40CU GPU and the massive 256bit DDR5 interface that should offer up to around 256 GB/s

External GPU's are super expensive and limited to max 32GB or memory where the AI Max+ 395 can allocate up to 96GB to the GPU and it is integrated.

[Tony Doust]

Hi all

I don't want to hijack this thread but if you want to interface the SBMS to Victron & be able to access via there portal as well as Home assistant i  have  found a hardware solution that is easy to setup 1 small board that James has modified his program that interfaces with most of the BMSes on the market & now the SBMS0 & SBMS120 & SBMS40. Have a look

https://shop.jamestronics.com

Tony

[Dan Karau]

Chips are coming out so fast now...when I bought mine in the fall there wasn't a deliver date available for the HX 370 model.   LOL  the day after you buy your Strix Halo an new model will be announced to be released with a a couple of months!

I'm not a gamer so crazy high-end just doesn't matter for me.

[Dacian Todea (electrodacus)]

Here is the user manual for the mini computer and app   https://electrodacus.com/APP/ElectroDacus-Wyse3040.pdf

Will be available soon just waiting for the DC connectors/cables to arrive. Price will be 79CAD and there are a few that have build in WiFi module those will be 20CAD extra they also come with 16GB eMMC vs 8GB but not much is needed even the 8GB can store about 3 years of data logging and you can always copy those files and make more space.

[Dacian Todea (electrodacus)]

I updated the manual https://electrodacus.com/APP/ElectroDacus-Wyse3040.pdf

See the last few pages that I added in v0.2 of the manual.

I talk about the BIOS battery (This used minicomputers are from around 2020 so BIOS battery starts to fail). Of 10 units I tested only 4 had a still functional BIOS battery.

I also got a USB WiFi that I tested and works great

I got a long 25ft (7.5m) USB extension cable to connect between SBMS0 and mini PC and I added another 6ft extension plus 3ft USB to mini USB and no issue it works great.

I expect even logger passive cables are possible maybe 50 to 60ft and of course with active cables 100 to 200ft should be no issue.

I found a BIOS settings that significantly improves the performance of the mini PC tho it may not be significant for the ElectroDacus app since it requires very little resources anyway.

But here is a test with C-States and TurboBoost disabled vs enabled in BIOS. With them disabled the X11 vs OpenGL benchmark scores 2x to even 3x better as it will prevent the CPU and iGPU to go in to powersave mode.

Results with default BIOS configuration.

And results with everything disabled in BIOS Performance menu. All OpenGL tests see a 2x up to 3x (for V-lines) score improvement.  The X11 scores are slightly lower in some case as those are more CPU intensive and there the TurboBoost helps a bit.

[wmckeenster]

Just got mine today, thanks Dacian!

Is there any way to "see" the exact displayed data via web page or IP address or is the only way by using an HDMI encoder or an IP camera?

[Dacian Todea (electrodacus)]

I guess the simplest way to see the data is to use remote desktop. Microsoft Teams is installed and I tested that for about 15 minutes not sure if there is any limitation.

That will be the simplest to use software solution as for hardware based solution you can probably use something like JetKVM.

[wmckeenster]

what about something like this?  Amazon.com: ORIVISION H.265/264/MJPEG Ultra Mini HDMI 1080P Video Encoder with HDMI loopout, HDMI to H.264 HTTP, RTSP, RTMP/RTMPS, SRT, GB28181, HLS, FLV Multicast IPTV Encoder for YouTube Facebook Twitch Live : Electronics

[Dacian Todea (electrodacus)]

Yes it should work. It seems it will use Facebook, Youtube or Twitch as the stream platform and not sure what is the limit there. It can probably work for 24h so one day but I do not think any of those allow unlimited streaming unless the software on that box reconnects with a different stream when one is done (timeout).

[wmckeenster]

I was more thinking of using the RTSP stream or something like that. Maybe importing into my blue iris NVR so easily viewable without port forwarding etc?

[Dacian Todea (electrodacus)]

The simple method's are streaming using an existing service like youtube, Microsoft teams as they take care of all the port forwarding no matter the connection complexity.

The other option requires a bit more knowledge about the connections and a fixed IP address plus port forwarding settings so router should be capable of that.  In that case you directly access the device without any intermediary but it is just more complex to setup.  About 15+ years ago I used to have an IP phone (a few of them) and used then to be able to talk to my parents and some friends around the world but have not used port forwarding since then.

Most of the time internet connections do not have a fixed IP arrests and you need to pay extra for that if it is even an option making things more complex.

[wmckeenster]

I agree but how does the teams or youtube work? seems just as complicated - maybe cause I have zero experience with that?

[Dacian Todea (electrodacus)]

Teams witch is installed on the Dell mini computer will require your to setup a Microsoft account (if you do not already have one). It is an app for video conference and collaborative work.

The only time I ever use Teams was a few weeks ago when I installed on that mini computer and tested to see how it works as remote desktop for about 15 to 20 minutes.

You just create a link that you provide to all those that want to be in conference with you so people just use any web-browser to connect and they do not need to have Teams installed. So I connected from my desktop computer to the mini computer and was able to remote access the desktop that was shared from the minicomputer.

Here is a screenshot taken from my desktop computer using Firefox web browser to connect to the Dell mini computer that was running Teams and was sharing the desktop.

You can see that Teams was working for almost 30 minutes and I was connected from Desktop for 22 minutes at the time I took the screenshot.

I selected high compression low bitrate and as you can see the minicomputer was sending around 36kB/s at that particular moment around 40MB in half an hour so it will use some data even with high compression about 80MB/hour (not insignificant).

You only see that I'm connected to teams.live but it was a longer link that was provided by Teams app when I created a new meeting and that was what I pasted in the browser to connect.

What I do not know is how long you can stay connected.

If I do a google search it say that limit seems to be 30 hour for a meeting so you will need to have access to mini computer every day to setup a new meeting so it may not be useful in all circumstances.  But it shows that you need an intermediary in this case Microsoft so both computers connect to Microsoft servers one trough Teams app and one trough the browser but is a simple setup and provides you with full access to to the remote desktop so not just view the screen but also have mouse and keyboard control.

[Chris R8]

Really really sad seeing Electrodacus going the complete wrong way and Isolating itself more and more…..

We don‘t need another Computer, I have already 4 Running and don’t need a 5th as non standing even close to Electrodacus (but the raspi with Home Assistant and cerbo are next to it). And we don‘t need the re-invention of the Wheel with another standalone application for a Platform that’s mainly dead in Home automation which you Chose.

What we finally need is the Integration into Home Assistant and /or Venus OS with a Standard Interface Plug and Play. Many here have Victron because of the remote functionality and use a raspi or the Cerbo already. And who is not going down the Victron Route uses Home Assistant mainly also on a raspi.

Darcian wake finally up, the cheapeest Chinese BMS offering now at least one way Communication into Venus or home assistant and it’s a Must Feature for a BMS as battery parameters are needed for further home automation.

It’s really sad you are so close minded and stuborn looking only on your own isolated Island….

The appearance of up to 700Ah cells for 100-150Euro market price enables to make safe and simple 1p8S Banks for the whole Systems where Electrodacus Philosophy would fit Perfect but Communication into min 1 Common home automation is crucial and a must.

I supported and installed meanwhile over 50 SBMS but will stop that know and will stop recommending SBMS as it’s a dead one way street.

Will soon go from 12V to 24V and had Planes to keep the SBMS but made the decision now I won‘t anymore because I 100% need one way Communication for proper Monitoring and System Integration. It will be a pain in the Butt to change the SBMS out but the workaround with a Victron BMv712 is not suitable and also Save anymore, I need the cell voltage Values.

It’s really sad as Electrodacus is unique but it entered a dead one way street and all changes that are planned to it go into the wrong direction deeper into that dead one way street.

Really really sad….

[Dacian Todea (electrodacus)]

Chris,

All my products including SBMS and the application's created for monitoring are Open Source.

There is no limitation on how you want to use them.

Some people complained about the fact that SBMS0 display is small and needs to be relatively close to battery so it may be in an inaccessible place and needed a larger monitor placed in a more convenient location to display the data.

There was already the ESP32 WiFi option but people found it a bit complex to use and it was not always reliable. Standards change all the time so new OS and browsers may consider the ESP32 standard insecure and stop supporting it.

My choice to build a monitoring system that will work for the next 20 to 30 years was to have a dedicated micro controller and larger LCD (sort of a larger version of SBMS0 maybe with a 5 or 7" LCD that will just connect to SBMS0 and display the same information at a different location) or this mini computer with the choice of monitor anyone wants to use.

Yes this app I created is not designed for home automation it is just for monitoring.

Since this app is written in C it is fast and it will work the same in 20 or 50 years.

Battery parameters are available both over WiFi (ESP32) and over serial wired connection (that is how this new application on mini computer works).

This used Dell mini computer was less expensive than a Pi 4 while having the same performance and using the same or less power and already having a nice case.

I do not see it as isolating myself from anything but my philosophy is that products or application that I spend my time to design need to work for at least 20 to 30 years (about how much a Lithium battery is expected to last).

Creating an app that works in iOS or Android will very fast be obsolete and same if creating a app that works in a web browser (already have one using JavaScrip) and due to new standards is less and less reliable and likely soon not even work due to constant changing web and security standards.

I did looked at Home Assistant but the minimum RAM requirement is higher than what is available on this mini computer and the same is true for the storage space.  I spent about a month in total testing many types of Linux distros as the base for this mini computer and the one I selected is significantly lighter and more performant that HAOS.

The Porteux (linux distro selected) is running for around a month now with the app I wrote and there is no increase in ram usage or any other problem so it can work for years with no reset needed. The app also uses well below 1% of CPU meaning that power consumption if fairly low.  It also data logs at 1 second interval requiring just 5MB per day for that so around 2GB / year to have 1 second resolution log.

System is a simple to use as it gets. Just set SBMS0 to UART at 1 second interval, connect the USB cable between SBMS0 and mini computer and power the mini computer (about 30 seconds to boot) then click on the Electrodacus icon on desktop. System can also monitor two SBMS0 by just having a second instance of the app running.

I'm fairly certain Home Assistant will require much more involved setup but it works with SBMS.

I have not build anything proprietary. The app I created is not only open source but the source code is available on the mini computer and gcc is already installed and setup so you can modify and compile the app as you wish directly on the mini computer. The app source is to large for current AI's but in a few months max a year you will be able to take the source code paste in an AI and ask him to create you any app you want.

[Tony Doust]

  Hi all

I don't want to hijack this thread but if you want to interface the SBMS to Home Assistant, Victron Cerbo or Raspi Venus OS via a simple hardware installation & be able to access via the Victron portal as well as Home assistant i  have  found a hardware solution that is easy to setup 1 small board IBMS & James has modified his program that interfaces with the majority of the BMSes on the market & now the SBMS0 & SBMS120 & SBMS40. Have a look all you need to do to connect to the SBMS is connect the Ibms to the battery voltage & then connect the serial TTL RX of the Ibms to the Serial TTL TX of the SBMS & turn the serial logging on & set to 1 Second & save the parameters in the SBMS, Set a few parameters by Logging into the Ibms over the wifi interface. Once the parameters are set connect the Ibms via Can using an ethernet cable to either the Cerbo GX via the type A Ethernet cable or to the Rpi via a Can hat. when ordering the Ibms from James you just need to tell him the battery capacity which he preconfigures in the Ibms. James also provides via email how to setup the Ibms & Can Hat. after this Ibms data is available in Home assistant as well as Venus OS or Cerbo GX

Check the link out below & send James a Email

Regards Tony

https://shop.jamestronics.com

[Chris R8]

Thanks for answering.

You don‘t need to program any App or use any raspi or seperate Computer.

The simple answer to this is make the SBMS put out via serial and esp 32 Wifi the Data in the pylontech Format (or any other widely used Format but pylontech is Most Common), you can use any of their Interface as they are made backwards compatible. Use the actual one and this will also last 20 years as Victron as well as HA makes sure to Support this Interface because a big mass out there communicates via pylontech protocol.

This is what all These Chinese BMS are doing now. You take an USB C to USB A cable, Plug the USB C into SBMS and USB A into Cerbo/raspi Running Venus OS and the SBMS will Show up as pylontech and you simply can rename it to SBMS. Job done. Same works with home Assistant. No need for any App or additional Hardware other then the USB cable.

But this you as creator need to do inside the SBMS. I just need to buy the SBMS, Plug that into one of the 2 Ha or Venus OS and it must work. No 2 way Communication, just one way delivering what the pylontech Protocol Supports.

[Chris R8]

Thank you Toni,

That’s the first Solution I See for the SBMS but 200$ for getting that Data into HA or Venus OS and is good that you posted that. But 200$ is a super hefty Price for that bit of Communication. 

For 130Euro I can get one 300A JK BMS that does that all out of the Box just plug&play plus 200 for the SBMS = 400Euro total which is the 2nd and 3rd 300A JK. Each jk BMS is 130Euro and then I have 3x 300A=900A BMS for the Same Mount of Money that are Talking to each other in Master and Slave, have for each cell the cell voltage (means no parallel cells anymore that Cover up inbalances/badly matched cells…) and can activly balance each cell with 2A (means I can use cheap grade b or C cells as the active Balancer will take Care) plus I Plug in a Standard rj45 and all 3 BMS Show up in Venus OS and HA. No fidling around with custom integrations, no Special Setting, nothing….plug in one rj 45 and it works. And with 600 or 900A continious I don‘t have to worry about any surge loads of Motors which is the big advantage of the SBMS not being in the current flow. 

This is what you get today for 130 Euro and SBMS is competing with. 

The SBMS is just super complicated because of the Uart Output not fitting with any of the Interface and protocol that Venus OS or HA or any other automation is using. Darcian need to change that Output in the SBMS Firmware to be in pylontech protocol and Format.

Or I use for all VE-direct the Duppa Uart 4 in 1 to USB means SBMS just need to deliver the Uart Output in VE-direct Format then this Adapter will deliver the SBMS data into Venus OS. Again Darcian need to change the Output in the SBMS Firmware to be in the Victron Ve-direct Format.

https://www.duppa.net/product/isolated-4-port-usb/

[Dacian Todea (electrodacus)]

Never heard of polyontech is this best source for it https://github.com/Frankkkkk/python-pylontech

Just from the quick look at it seems to be using RS485 interface and communication is bidirectional so you need to ask for the data.

Since for SBMS (all models) will only transmit data either UART / USB or WiFi and never accepts any requests this will not work without constructing a separate hardware or a software on say the mini computer.

Not sure why you say that no two way communication is needed as from my quick look at the protocol it looks like the data is two way with the Venus OS asking for details and then getting the response.

Also the commands are specific to that battery and simple BMS so there is no separate command for many of the extra SBMS functionality like no PV and Load current just battery current and no secondary level protection.

I will not modify the SBMS firmware to have bidirectional communication as that requires using an interrupt and timers to set limits and there is a good chance to mess things up as the software I wrote over years form scratch was designed to be real time with no interrupts. Even the capacitive buttons are not making an interrupt they are just checked at regular intervals

So to summarize :

I can output in a different format (additional option on top of the current format) but it needs to be one way only and I do not see that is the case for polyontech. From the document in that github link I can see that inverter or computer is master and the battery is slave so it will not output anything until asked to and then it can be asked multiple things likely in a minimum specified amount of time.

The concept is that polyontech battery + BMS is the slave and it is controlled by the inverter or computer running some dedicated software.

The SBMS is designed as master and it controls all loads and charge sources not the other way around. So what you are asking is not an option for me.

[Tony Doust]

Hi Chris

You may have missed my point

The Only way currently & i don't see that ever changing, to get the SBMS0 or SBMS120 information into a Victron system & be a part of the accumulated charging & discharging displayed & control data is to use the the interface board from Jamestronics as this uses the one way communications only sending blindly from the SBMS at 1 second minimum intervals from the SBMS & then formats/packages the SBMS data to be sent to the Victron Cerbo GX or Raspi running Venus OS Using Victrons Can bus interface & protocols.

Note the iBMS talks all protocols Victron, Deye, Pylon, Byd & many more to many to list here..

James has already done the hard work so that his iBMS  board can talk to all commercially available BMS via Can RS485 & TTL & yes the JK BMSes via its TTL interface & most other BMSes & through my enquiry & encouragement James has now made his iBMS also Listen to Dacians SBMS & now be part of a Victron system or Home assistant system

.

I emphasise that this is the simplest hardware way that i know of to have Dacians SBMS to be part of both systems (Victron or HS). 

Yes it is a little pricy but if you want to get Dacians SBMS or other BMSes into Victron using the Victron Can interface this is pretty much the only way you can.

The iBMS is very easy to connect 3 Wires 1 battery positive (Don't forget to fuse), 1 battery negative, 1 SBMS0 TTL signal & then plug & Play after plugging the Can Cable to Cerbo GX. Its that simple

When ordering you just need to tell james your battery capacity & its Dacians SBMS

Yes iam well aware of the JK BMS & others & the attractive pricing & they each have there merits

Very much aware of the DUPPA 4xTTL to USB & am currently using this for other system but to get the SBMS0 TTL into Venus would require Dacian to Modify the 1 way TTL comms to be Victron compatible. (Not going to Happen)

Anyway Enough said. Stay Charged

Cheers Tony

Tony

[Chris R8]

The pylontech Interface works one way or both ways. Yes that’s the pylontech docu.

And you can configure Venus OS as well as home assistant so It’s just Reading the Values from the BMS via the Interface, the so called Battery Monitor Modus which also the Debus-serialdriver uses to integrate different BMS into cerbo functioning as Battery Monitor one way.

I absolutely agree the SBMS must stay one way Communication and the Master, that’s how I have set it up with the BMV 712 delivering SOC and total battery voltage plus current into Venus OS as a backup to SBMS.

The danger with Venus OS is exactly that the Venus is The Master and this is to complicated with so many undocumented dependancies and not robust at all. I just had a connector on one of the Solar Panels failing giving sometimes contact and sometimes not. One Panel per one MPPT but that causes that regularly the complete VE-direct Communication failed and no VE-direct Devices where suddenly connected to cerbo. Only rebooting it solved this issue. Would I have 2 way Communication Venus OS couldn‘t shut off the MPPTs when battery is Full because Connection lost to VE-direct Devices but the SBMS didn‘t Care at all and cut them off via the Remote.

[Chris R8]

Hi Toni,

Thanks for the Feedback on the iBMS.

Is that also working with the new Victron gui means getting the Data here too? 

That’s the Problem of the Integration of other BMS via the Dbus-serialdriver that they need the Old Victron GUI as you cannot modify the new.

Yes modifying the 1-way TTL com to Victron compatible is exactly what Darcian need to do. that seems the easiest way and it’s also the way the BMV712 Delivers the Data as Battery Monitor. Darcian need to realize that this integration 1 way is a must and he need to deliver that as Part of a Firmware Update for SBMS0.

The New 300A JK BMS is a Beast and has no merrits then it’s SOC is not the Most precise, it has so much current capability you can start 2000W Starter which you can find on Diesel engine up to 150hp which is necessary in boats as you need to be able to emergency start from the House Bank when Starter battery is defect or empty . That you couldn‘t do with the 200A Version reliably but the 300A one can.

[Chris R8]

Toni, forget to ask what happens with IBMS if I change the capacity of my Bank or eg reconfigure from 12 to 24V. Do I need to send him the iBMS to Adaption of that?

[Dacian Todea (electrodacus)]

Chris,

Do you have a link to spec for that one way protocol ?

I think the BMV712 uses VE.direct and if I ask google about it the AI answer at the top is that is two way

"No, Victron VE.Direct communication is not one-way. It's a two-way, bi-directional communication bus used for data exchange between Victron Energy devices. VE.Direct cables connect devices like inverters, solar charge controllers, and energy meters to allow them to communicate and share data, according to Inverters R US. "

[Tony Doust]

Hi Chris

The iBMS is true Plug & Play

The IBMs displays correctly to the OLD & the NEW Gui inteface seamlessly.

The iBMS configures to Home Assistant seamlessly via Wifi over the local network 100% stable assuming good to fair signal strength

I have asked James a couple of times during our conversations while he was fine tuning the SBMS120/SBMS0 interface & his reply was that he would have to add to the web page configuration screen specially for the SBMS120/SBMS0. Apparently a time consuming exercise. If there is enough interest in his product this may be the long term way to go but i think that if one changes battery capacity james may be able send a reconfigured firmware with your new capacity changed. 

This would need to be confirmed by James.

But i ask you how many times do we change battery capacity.

Note all other BMSes that the iBMS supports provide the battery capacity to the iBMS but the SBMS120/SBMS0 does not. if this was available in the data sent from the SBMS120/SBMS0 then this could be reconfigured in the iBMS firmware & then this would be a no brainer if changing battery capacity or even Battery BMS. But probably not likely going to happen

Stay Charged

Regards Tony

[Robert Tagscherer]

Hi Guys,

The ESP32 firmware is already sending out all the data once per second via MQTT, which home assistant is perfectly capable of understanding. There is just no auto-discovery. Since Dacian said he wanted to discontinue the ESP32 and develop something new, I did not put any more effort into that firmware. However, if there is interest, I can create and provide a template for home assistant that integrates the MQTT data from the ESP32 natively.

Greetings,

Robert

[Robert Tagscherer]

I think I got it already.

[Chris R8]

Hi Robert, that’s awesome solution for myself. I tried the MQTT with Venus OS and failed, i couldn‘t get the MQTT Broker talking to SBMS.

I have not really any know how with home assistant yet, just following Rob from www.smartboatinnovations.com and copy what he is doing.

Could I ask you please a favor and make a Little Tutorial how to incl. The MQTT Workflow. Assume I am not the only one that would appriciate that avoiding spending 200$ for the IBMS and for myself tweak it bit.

Hi Tony,

Thanks for Clearing all the Details. Yes I do change the capacity frequently. I do approx every 6 month a Full cycle Full-empty-full to calibrate but also See the degregation and change then 100% SOC capacity I have avaliable.

But I do support several SBMS installs and for that IBMS seems could be a good Addition. Don‘t wanna get into Supporting MQTT and Software here.

But for new installs both is too complicated plus expensive and the JK BMS is a much better fit now.

See you.#dhtzz

[Soggy Paws]

We have been using MQTT successfully for several years to monitor our SBMS0.  Though I originally started with a Raspberry Pi, I eventually set it all up on a Windows computer, because I am so much more familiar with Windows than Linux.  On our website I describe our setup, and even put together a "getting started" guide, which might help you make that last connection on the MQTT broker.

While the Electrodacus provides all the information needed, it has such a tiny screen, which we unhelpfully mounted in a place that's not easy to view.  With the Windows monitoring, I've got a 20" screen, which I love.  Picture of our monitoring setup here, as well as our Getting Started writeup.

https://svsoggypaws.com/electrodacus.htm
Sherry

[Chris R8]

Sherry, i support informally around 40 SBMS installs and any Programming is a no go. All 40 are mainly Victron gear because of their remote steering and most want automation or Connection to cerbo…well for 140Euro I get a 300A JK BMS with out of the box plug and Play Victron OS Integration and Home Assistent. Means if I need to do any Maintenance or the owner I recommend now to swap to JK-BMS or if 12V the REC ABMS, have no other opportunity for them. A Victron BMV712 as workaround is too unpractical as you have to make sure BMV712 and SBMS stay close in SOC which is quite difficult especially if you Hit 100% SOC only all between 30 and 90 days. With today cell prices the buffer Concept to have one week more capacity in the bank then you needmakes sense and it’s actually favourable for cell life. Good quality cells if properly top Balanced basically need no balancing unless you Drive them very Hard. And balancing is the only reason you need to go into the knee with lifepo4 as there is the only Spot where you can balance.

Every cheap BMS comes today with Communication at least one way. And Darcian has to finally understand that’s what the SBMS needs to have a Future and he needs to find a solution. Obviously the Interface now Delivers even not all Information needed like capacity so he need to enable that too and go over the Books and make sure all is broadcasted. With the new >600AH cells coming up 1p8S will be more Common and a contactor BMS superior to a mosfet BMS but that must have out of the Box at least one way Communication to enable home automation. A 200 Euro device to eneable that Communication from a source exactly on the other side of the globe is not really a solution, especially if that needs hardcoding of the capacity and for 140Euro I get a proven 300A BMS that can do that out of the box. It’s Riding a dead horse to invest in the SBMS another 200Euro. Beside that hard coding in an Interface is a noGo, it would cost each time 80Euro if wanna change capacity. Yes I upgraded my capacity 3 times in Last 5 years and also every 6 month run a capacity test and change the 100%SOC capacity I have avaliable. Instead of spending money and time that is totally wasted on a standalone Solution with Old PCs, Darcian should have invested that that the SBMS has one way Communication out of the Box. Also his plan to delete the esp32 makes it even worse.

Sherry I tried and cannot get the MQTT Broker to run on the original cerbo in my Installation but failed several times and the wlan is not stable enough of the SBMS, mine is disconnecting min once in 2 weeks even the Router is 1m away and it has a fixed IP. Means a wire solution is a must. I have other ESP32 onboard which work absolutly flawlessly via wifi and partly 8m away with 2 watertight bulkheads inbetween.

[Dacian Todea (electrodacus)]

Chris,

"Every cheap BMS comes today with Communication at least one way. And Darcian has to finally understand that’s what the SBMS needs to have a Future and he needs to find a solution. Obviously the Interface now Delivers even not all Information needed like capacity so he need to enable that too and go over the Books and make sure all is broadcasted"

SBMS has communication both wired (UART and USB) and wireless WiFi

There is a simplified data stream when you select UART that contains all data that SBMS measures but not the data that user inputs so battery capacity. And there is what WiFi module receives and is also available on UART / USB  contains way more info on top of measured data including the battery capacity.

What you seem to want is that SBMS implements one of the multiple proprietary communication standards in particular the Victron one.

The SBMS can not work as a "slave" so in order to provide what you want I will need to produce a separate device. The device could be fairly inexpensive 20 to 40USD depending but it will require about the same level of software work I put in to the monitoring application (the one I just made for Dell minicomputers).  So I will need about 3 to 4 months of hardware and software work to deliver something like that. 

Say I pay myself 10K for those 4 months and say the hardware cost is 30USD to witch I can maybe ad 20USD so sell it for 50USD.

I will need to sell 500 of those devices at 50USD each in order to get the 10K from my 4 moths of work.

From the start of the year until now I sold 18   SBMS0 and based on how many use Victron Equipment and will also want that communication device I will have maybe sold 2 or 3 of those devices. Being generous maybe I could sell 10 of those per year so I will need 50 years to sell all of them.

Even if I build just 100 and they will be slightly more expensive due to lower volume I still need maybe 10 years to sell them but could never justify working 4 months for 2000USD and waiting maybe 10 years to even get them.

I did not planed spending 2 months to write the application for the mini computer (plan was two weeks) and I did that as I enjoyed it. I sold 8 of the 100 mini computers for the past month or so maybe I will sell 30 to 40 per year so they will all be gone is about 3 years and worst case they are mini computers so I can still sell them as they are since they are not a specific type of hardware.

I'm glad I decided to only build 100pcs of the new DEXT that much more people requested and this year I also sold 18 (but not all people that get the SBMS get a DEXT is just that some buy them separately for an already existing SBMS).

I hope you understand why what you are asking is just not an option for me.

Also the ESP32 will still be available with the SBMS0 for as long as SBMS0 is available (I have parts for about 250 to 300 SBMS0 and at current rate that could last for the next 3 to 5 years).

The SBMS2 is just a plan and maybe I will have a prototype next year but will not be able to volume produce SBMS2 until most of the SBMS0 is sold out.

The SBMS2 will not be that different form SBMS0 is mostly adding the second PV shunt so it can measure two separate charge sources and the ESP32 can still be connected externally trough USB cable it will just no longer be build in as it is on SBMS0. The UART/I2C/USB and isolation will be moved to the main board of SBMS2 instead of a separate board and ESP32 or whatever WiFi module will be available at that time can be connected externally if needed.

[sailingharry]

The challenge Dacian faces as a small builder of a quality system is "quantity."  While there are enthusiasts who want all the bells and whistles, there are many who want it to "just work."  As the price of the gear comes down, the number of "less enthusiast" grows (the early apopters are willing to spend time, money, and effort -- as the price comes down, those that want it to "just work" grow).

On my boat, the system as installed (but not yet really tested) is, well, installed.  The whole mess sits in a corner and is mostly "set and forget."  I have a legacy battery monitor (LINK2000) that is and remains my primary monitor.  It tells me Amps and AmpHours.  I can't imagine what else I'd ever need.  Sure, I'm sure that several times a week I'll take a peek at the screen to see mV delta, and I'll certainly look at the LED that shows "charging enabled."  In 5 decades of boating, I've never had a wireless connection to my boat -- and never missed it.  When I'm on the boat, I need (and have) details -- when I'm off the boat, the power demands (the fridge, nothing else) are way less than the solar, and so doesn't need monitoring.  And there is nothing I need when on the boat, if I choose to, that doesn't show on my cell phone when I connect to the SBMS0 WiFi.

My house is similar.  I have an Alexa, it allows me to turn lights on and such.  But I walk out the door, and I have no idea what I'd ever need a "system" for.

I don't think that that demand for the highly complex control system you envision is as broad based as you think it is.  I couldn't even bring myself to see the cost/benefit of the DEXT, let alone the Dell system -- once I had it installed, I can't see anything else I need.

Even updating capacity is far more than most need.  I have 628Ah.  If that degrades to 550Ah, I sincerely doubt I'd bother to change it.  Why?  I can't imagine allowing my system to even get to 500Ah down, so the difference between 50 and 128 left in the bank is far more detail that I need.   The SMBS0 shuts off the inverter at about 500Ah down (20%SOC), so after that additional drawdown becomes insignificant.

[T McNamara]

The reason I decided to move to the Mini solution was the certainty of a direct connection over the unstable wifi connection.  Will test shortly. 

[Habana7]

I use a TP-range extender, which is placed at a height of two meters near the SBMS0, range is fine up to 15 meters, rarely have to reset the wifi of the SBMS0, maybe once or twice a year, use a laptop wired to the mobile router for internet and the Wifi connected to the TP-extender, suits me fine.

Op zondag 1 juni 2025 om 14:06:54 UTC+2 schreef T McNamara: