Anyone else running Victron Cerbo GX with a non-Victron inverter? How are you handling monitoring?

Finally got my off-grid cabin system sorted — 4x 200W panels, a Pylontech US3000C battery stack, and a Cerbo GX for monitoring. The problem is I went with a Growatt inverter/charger rather than a Multiplus (saved myself about £600 which felt significant at the time), and the Cerbo obviously doesn't talk to it natively over VE.Bus.

I've bodged together a partial solution using a Victron SmartShunt on the DC side, so I can at least see state of charge, voltage, and current in VRM. But I'm completely blind on the AC output side — no wattage, no load monitoring, nothing. I've been looking at adding a Carlo Gavazzi ET112 energy meter on the AC output to plug that gap, but not sure if that's the cleanest approach or if there's something better suited.

Has anyone cracked this with a similar mixed setup? Particularly interested in whether the ET112 actually shows up cleanly in VRM as load data, or whether it just confuses the Cerbo because it's not seeing a Victron inverter on the other end. Any experience with other third-party meters or workarounds would be brilliant.

ExFirefighter59 | Posts: 847 | Location: Northumberland

@TomButler good setup mate, similar situation here. The Growatt won't talk directly to the Cerbo obviously, but I've had decent results using a Raspberry Pi running Node-RED to pull data from the Growatt via its RS485 port and push it into VRM through MQTT. Bit of a faff to set up initially but once it's running it's solid.

Your Pylontechs will communicate natively with the Cerbo which is the important bit — battery state is what really matters for protection. The inverter monitoring is more "nice to have" in comparison.

Worth checking the Victron community forum as there are some ready-made integrations that others have shared. What firmware version is your Growatt running? That can affect which approach works best.

Harry1965 | Posts: 312 | Location: Array

Running a similar mixed setup in my motorhome — Cerbo GX paired with a non-Victron inverter. The VE.Can and VE.Direct ports are great for anything Victron but you're basically flying blind on the inverter side.

What I ended up doing was using a Modbus TCP connection where the Growatt supports it, then pulling that data into Node-RED running on a Raspberry Pi alongside VRM. Bit of a faff to set up but works reliably now.

If you want a simpler option, the Cerbo's GX display still gives you decent battery/solar overview via the Pylontech CAN connection — that part at least works natively dead easy.

Worth checking if your Growatt model has RS485 — opens up more integration options without much extra cost.

OddJobBob22 | Posts: 64 | Location: Array

Interesting thread — I've got a similar headache in my van conversion. Cerbo GX is brilliant for the Pylontech comms via CAN bus, but getting a non-Victron inverter to show properly in VRM is a real faff.

One thing worth looking into — if your Growatt supports Modbus TCP or RS485, there are some community-built drivers that can push data into Venus OS via a Raspberry Pi running as a secondary device. It's a bit of a rabbit hole though.

Has anyone actually got the Growatt talking to Venus OS natively, or are you all just running two separate monitoring dashboards and living with it? Wondering if it's worth the hassle or if I should just bite the bullet and switch to a Victron MultiPlus down the line.