Anyone else using a Raspberry Pi to log their battery data long-term?

Been doing exactly this for about 18 months now in the van build. Running a Pi 4 with a VE.Direct cable straight into my Victron SmartShunt, feeding data into InfluxDB and pulling it all up through Grafana. Honestly transformed how I understand my system.

The long-term logging is where it gets interesting. Over winter I could clearly see my Fogstar Drift 100Ah cells losing maybe 8-10% effective capacity in sustained cold — something I'd never have spotted just glancing at the Victron app. Now I actually have evidence rather than just gut feeling when something shifts.

A few things worth mentioning if you're going down this route:

• SD card wear is a real concern with constant writes. I moved the database to a USB SSD pretty early on and haven't looked back
• Power consumption matters when you're off-grid. A Pi 4 pulls more than you'd think. I'm now on a Pi Zero 2 W and it's transformed my standby draw
• The VE.Direct to USB cable from Victron is plug-and-play with their Venus OS stuff, but raw serial into a custom setup takes a bit of fiddling — worth it though

What I'd love to know is whether anyone's managed to pull data from non-Victron kit into the same pipeline. I've got a Renogy MPPT on a secondary panel and getting that talking to the Pi cleanly has been a bit of a saga.

Anyone running multiple data sources into one dashboard? Would be dead useful to see how others have structured it.

@Davo51 interesting setup. Few questions before I go down this rabbit hole for the narrowboat:

What's your Pi's power draw averaging? I'm on a fairly tight 12V system over winter and spinning up a Pi 4 full-time feels like it might bite me.

Also — are you running the Pi off a separate small battery or straight from your main bank? Worried about corrupting the SD card if the Victron drops to LVD and just cuts everything.

I've seen people mention using a Pi Zero 2 W instead to cut consumption. Is the processing headroom on InfluxDB + Grafana acceptable on that, or does it chug?

Currently just using the Victron app and a Fogstar battery with its own BMS display, but 18 months of trend data sounds genuinely useful for spotting capacity fade.

@ExFirefighter the narrowboat angle is worth thinking about carefully — damp and vibration are proper Pi killers. I ran a Pi 3B+ on my boat for eight months before condensation got into the USB ports and turned it into a very expensive drinks coaster.

Lessons learned the hard way:

• Encase it properly — I use a metal DIN-rail enclosure now
• Power draw matters on a boat; Pi 4 is thirstier than a 3B+, worth factoring in
• SD card corruption is a genuine nightmare — boot from USB SSD instead, thank me later
• Victron's VRM portal is honestly decent if you want cloud logging without the faff, though you lose the local control

The real joy of DIY logging is spotting patterns — my data caught a duff Fogstar cell months before it caused grief.

@ExFirefighter on the narrowboat, I'd seriously consider running the Pi off a dedicated 5V DC-DC converter rather than any USB supply — something like a Victron Orion or even a cheap Meanwell will keep voltage rock-solid when your alternator's charging and causing ripple.

Also worth knowing: InfluxDB on a Pi will eat SD cards alive within 6-12 months from constant writes. Either move your data directory to a proper SSD via USB3, or configure InfluxDB's write interval to batch less frequently.

My own motorhome setup has been running 14 months on an SSD with zero drama — same Grafana/InfluxDB stack @Davo51 mentions. The dashboards are genuinely addictive once you start seeing your actual consumption patterns rather than guessing.

One thing I'd question though: do you actually need a full Pi, or would a Victron Cerbo GX do the job more elegantly without the faff?

@ExFirefighter the narrowboat angle genuinely fascinates me — I've done similar monitoring across a van and a small powerboat, and the marine environment teaches you things fast.

One thing nobody's mentioned yet: log your data locally first, don't rely on a cloud push. I've had 3G drop out mid-crossing and lost weeks of Grafana data because I'd not set up proper local InfluxDB retention.

Also worth looking at a Victron Cerbo GX if budget allows — it handles the VE.Direct comms natively and survives environments that murder bare Pi boards. I ran a Pi for two years in my van, but the moment it went on the water I switched to Cerbo and never looked back.

For the Pi route specifically, conformal coat your GPIO headers and store the SD card image regularly. Corruption is when, not if.