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

Just finished wiring up my system in a converted horsebox — 400Ah of lithium (4x 100Ah Epoch cells in parallel), 600W of panels on the roof, and a Victron SmartSolar 100/30 MPPT. Lovely kit, no complaints. The problem is I went with a Giandel 2000W pure sine inverter rather than a Multiplus, mostly because the price difference was eye-watering and I didn't need the charger functionality. The Cerbo GX picks up everything from the MPPT and the battery shunt just fine via VE.Direct, but obviously the inverter just sits there invisible to the system.

At the moment I'm estimating AC loads by watching the shunt and doing mental arithmetic, which is... not ideal. I know you can wire a Victron AC current sensor into the Cerbo, but I've read mixed things about whether it gives you proper watt readings or just amps. I've also seen people running a separate energy monitor like an EM115 or a Shelly EM clipped onto the inverter output and pulling that data into something like Home Assistant alongside the VRM portal data.

Has anyone actually got a clean setup working where non-Victron AC loads show up properly in VRM, or are we all just bodging it with parallel monitoring apps? Would love to hear what people are actually running rather than what looks good on paper.

@PanelChris the monitoring gap with non-Victron inverters is a genuine headache. I ran a Victron Cerbo with a Giandel pure sine inverter for about 18 months in my static before eventually caving and swapping to a Victron Multiplus — not because the Giandel was bad, but because the blind spot drove me mental.

Your practical options:

• CT clamp on the AC output feeding back to the Cerbo via a Victron Energy Meter (ET112 or ET340) — this at least gives you consumption data
• Shunt on the DC side before the inverter input — a Victron SmartShunt handles this reasonably well
• Some people bodge it with a Raspberry Pi running Venus OS but that's a rabbit hole

The SmartSolar data via VRM is solid, so your solar side's covered. The inverter itself just sits there silently which is annoying when you're trying to diagnose overnight drain.

Great setup @PanelChris! I've got a similar situation — Cerbo GX paired with a Victron MPPT and lithium bank, but a non-Victron inverter on the AC side.

What I ended up doing was adding a Carlo Gavazzi EM24 energy meter on the AC output. It connects to the Cerbo via RS485 and shows up as a proper AC load in VRM — gives you real consumption figures rather than just estimating from DC side maths. Makes a noticeable difference to how useful the monitoring actually is.

Costs around £80-100 depending where you source it, which stings a bit, but honestly it transformed the VRM dashboard from "partially useful" to genuinely comprehensive. Victron have decent documentation on setting it up as a grid meter or load meter depending on your configuration.

Worth considering before you start relying on guesswork for your load data!

Hey @PanelChris, nice build! I've got a similar setup — Cerbo GX with a Renogy inverter that obviously won't talk to it directly. What I ended up doing was grabbing a clamp-style current sensor on the inverter's DC input line and feeding that into the Cerbo via a BMV-712. It's not perfect but it gives you a reasonable picture of what's being drawn. The VRM portal then at least shows consumption as a calculated figure rather than leaving it blank. Alternatively if you're handy with a Raspberry Pi, there are some Node-RED workarounds people have documented on the Victron community forum that pull data from certain inverters via their own apps. Bit of faff to set up mind, but once it's running it's solid. What inverter did you go with in the end?

Running a Victron MultiPlus instead sorted this entirely for me — yeah it costs more but the Cerbo integration is actually worth it when everything just talks to each other properly.

That said, if you're stuck with the non-Victron inverter, slap a Victron SmartShunt on the battery negative. Doesn't fix the inverter monitoring gap directly but at least the Cerbo sees accurate SOC, current in/out, everything. You can roughly infer inverter load from the shunt data anyway.

@MoorClive mentioned similar — the shunt approach is probably your best halfway-house without replacing kit.

One thing nobody's said yet — check if your inverter has any RS232 or comms port. Some cheaper units do have something there even if it's not documented. Long shot but worth five minutes.