Anyone else running Victron Cerbo GX with non-Victron inverters — how are you handling the monitoring gaps?

Just finished wiring up my shed system — 400Ah of lithium (16 x 100Ah EVE cells in a 24V arrangement), a Victron SmartSolar 100/30 MPPT, and a Solis 1.5kW pure sine inverter I picked up secondhand. The Cerbo GX talks to the MPPT beautifully over VE.Direct, and my Victron BMV-712 shunt gives me decent battery state, but the inverter is basically invisible to the whole setup. No comms, no load reading, nothing showing on VRM.

I've been poking around and it seems like the "proper" fix is a USB to RS485 adapter and some custom driver faff, which honestly sounds like a weekend I don't have spare. The other option I keep seeing mentioned is just sticking a CT clamp energy meter on the AC output — something like a Eastron SDM230 — and feeding that into the Cerbo via its AC input/output monitoring. Has anyone actually done this with a Solis or similar non-Victron inverter and got it reading cleanly in VRM?

Also wondering whether it's even worth the bother for a shed setup where I'm mostly just running power tools and a chest freezer. The freezer pulls about 80W steady state with 300W startup spikes, tools are obviously all over the place. Main thing I want is to catch any patterns where I'm hammering the battery harder than I think.

Glen1961 | Posts: 847

@Chunk85 Nice setup! I'm running a similar hybrid situation — Cerbo GX with a Growatt inverter that obviously doesn't talk natively to Victron's ecosystem.

What I've done is grab a cheap CT clamp energy meter (I'm using a Eastron SDM120) on the inverter's AC output, wired back to the Cerbo via a USB-RS485 adaptor. Victron's Venus OS supports Modbus TCP energy meters natively, so it pulls that data straight into the dashboard and VRM portal.

Not perfect — you lose the deep integration you'd get with a Quattro — but load consumption shows up properly and your SOC calculations stay accurate.

Alternatively if you're not fussed about live data, a standalone Shelly EM is dead simple to set up and at least gives you something to cross-reference against.

What firmware version is your Cerbo running?

ShaunJohnson | Posts: 312

@Chunk85 Good shout on the Solis — decent inverters for the money. The monitoring gap is a real frustration though. What I've done with my non-Victron inverter is run a cheap CT clamp energy monitor (I'm using a Shelly EM) on the AC output and feed that data into Home Assistant, then use the MQTT integration to push it back into the Cerbo as a "grid meter." Takes a bit of fiddling but suddenly your VRM dashboard actually makes sense again.

The Cerbo will never talk directly to the Solis obviously, but treating it as a measured AC load works well enough for practical purposes. Battery SOC and solar side will still be spot-on since those are native Victron anyway.

Happy to share my HA configuration if useful — it's not as complicated as it sounds once you've got the basic MQTT bridge set up.

PanelDai | Posts: 1,203

@Chunk85 Worth looking into a Victron Battery Monitor (BMV-712 or similar) if you haven't already — it won't talk to the Solis directly, but you'll at least get solid SOC, current in/out, and consumed Ah all visible in VRM. Fills a decent chunk of that gap.

Also, if your Solis has a RS485 port, there are community-built Node-RED flows and some MQTT integrations that people have used to pull inverter data across to the Cerbo via a Raspberry Pi. Not plug-and-play, but it works well once set up.

The honest truth is Victron's ecosystem really wants you all-in on their hardware — the moment you mix brands you're doing a bit of DIY detective work. But it's manageable. What communication ports does your Solis model have on the back?

CotswoldCamper | Posts: 491

@Chunk85 Nice one — EVE cells are cracking value. One thing nobody's mentioned yet: have a look at using a CT clamp on the AC output of the Solis feeding into the Cerbo via a compatible energy meter (Victron make the ET112/ET340). It won't give you full inverter-side diagnostics, but it does pull AC consumption data properly into VRM so your energy dashboard actually makes sense. I've got a similar bodge running here with a non-Victron inverter and it transformed how readable the whole system became. The gaps in inverter telemetry are still there, but at least your load picture is accurate. Worth the £50-odd for the meter honestly.