Anyone else using a Raspberry Pi to log their inverter data, or is there a simpler way?

Been running a Pi 4 for about two years now on the narrowboat, pulling data from my Victron Multiplus via VE.Direct and pushing it all into InfluxDB with Grafana dashboards. Genuinely love it — there's something deeply satisfying about watching your battery state of charge as a beautiful graph at 11pm while the rain hammers the roof.

That said, it's absolutely overkill for most people and I'll be honest about that.

The learning curve nearly broke me. YAML files, Python scripts, chasing dependencies... I lost a whole weekend before anything worked properly. If you're not already comfortable in a Linux terminal, it's a steep hill.

Simpler alternatives worth considering:

• Victron's own Venus OS on a Cerbo GX does 90% of what I do, out of the box, no fuss
• VRM portal (free from Victron) gives you cloud logging with decent graphs and alerts
• If you're not on Victron kit, some folk have good results with Solar Assistant — runs on a Pi but the hard work's already done for you

The Pi DIY route gives you complete control and costs very little if you've already got the hardware. But Solar Assistant at around £40 is probably the sweet spot for most off-gridders who just want it to work.

What's everyone else running? Curious whether anyone's managed to get Pylontech battery data integrated cleanly — that's my current rabbit hole and I'm not winning.

RussWilson | 847 posts | ⚡ Solar & Wind

@Midge that's a solid setup, very similar to what I've got running at my off-grid cabin in the Cairngorms. One thing worth mentioning if you haven't already — stick a decent quality SD card in there (Samsung Endurance Pro series is what I use) or better yet boot from a USB SSD. Standard SD cards absolutely hate the constant read/write cycles from InfluxDB and will fail on you eventually, usually at the worst possible moment mid-winter!

Also for anyone reading who wants something simpler than the full Pi/InfluxDB/Grafana stack, Victron's own VRM portal does a surprisingly decent job if you can get even occasional internet access. Not as customisable obviously, but zero maintenance headache.

ValleyWanderer | 312 posts | 🚐 Motorhome Solar

Running Victron's own VRM portal does 90% of what most people actually need without needing to explain to your partner why there's a tiny Linux computer velcroed under the dinette — though I'll admit @Midge's Grafana dashboards do look suspiciously impressive for someone who claims not to be a nerd.

For the truly faint-hearted, a Cerbo GX just handles the whole lot natively; shove it in, point it at VRM, done. My motorhome setup's been singing away for 18 months with zero faff.

That said, if you've already got a Pi gathering dust, the Victron VenusOS Large image runs on it and turns it into a proper Cerbo GX substitute for about £40 in hardware — peak tightwad energy.

George1975 | 203 posts | 🔌 EV & Off-Grid

Pi is brilliant but I'll be honest — when I was setting up the shepherd's hut I tried the full InfluxDB/Grafana stack and spent three weekends debugging instead of, y'know, actually using solar 😅

Ended up on Cerbo GX + VRM which @ValleyWanderer is right about covering most bases. But if you're already comfortable with the Pi route, worth looking at Node-RED as a middle ground — less faff than raw scripts, decent dashboards, and you can still push to InfluxDB if you want the fancy graphs eventually.

Now running both on the van conversion and the hut. Pi handles the EV charger monitoring, Cerbo handles Victron stuff. Horses for courses really.

HamishTaylor87 | 156 posts | ⚡ Solar & Wind

Been down this rabbit hole myself. One thing nobody's mentioned yet — if you're worried about SD card wear from constant InfluxDB writes, it's worth either moving the database to a proper USB SSD or at minimum setting your write intervals to something sensible like 60 seconds rather than every few seconds. Killed two cards before I figured that one out on my setup.

@Midge for the narrowboat angle specifically, have you looked at integrating engine runtime data alongside the solar? I've got mine pulling from a cheap OBD dongle as well, so I can see the full picture when shore power's not available. Took a weekend to bodge together but genuinely useful for trip planning now.

BevJackson64 | 89 posts | 🚐 Motorhome & EV

Useful thread. I've got a similar setup on the motorhome — Victron MPPT and a Fogstar 206Ah lithium — and I've been wondering whether the Pi route is worth the hassle specifically for EV charging session logging.

A few questions if anyone knows:

• Can you pull data from a third-party EV charger (non-Victron) into the same InfluxDB instance, or does it get messy?
• @HamishTaylor87 what protocol were you using — Modbus or VE.Direct?
• Is there any way to correlate solar input vs. charge session data so you can see what percentage of an EV charge was genuinely solar-sourced?

I'm fairly comfortable with command line but I'd rather not spend weeks debugging before I even get a single dashboard panel working. Wondering if there's a documented starting point specifically for Victron + EV monitoring combined.