Anyone else using a Raspberry Pi to log their Victron data locally?

Been running a Pi 4 (2GB) logging all my Victron kit via VE.Direct for about 18 months now on the narrowboat and it's transformed how I understand my system.

Using Venus OS Large flashed directly onto the Pi — turns it into essentially a GX device for pennies compared to buying a Cerbo. Pulls data from my MPPT, MultiPlus, and BMV-712 all in one place. Local MQTT broker means everything stays on-board even when I'm in a tunnel with no signal (which is... often 😅).

I've got Grafana + InfluxDB running alongside it and the historical graphs are genuinely brilliant. Found a pattern where my Fogstar 200Ah lithium wasn't quite balancing properly during absorption — only spotted it because I could overlay three weeks of data. Never would've caught that just glancing at the Victron app.

A few things worth knowing if you're setting this up:

• VE.Direct USB cables — don't cheap out, the genuine ones are worth it
• Give the Pi a decent 5V supply, not a random phone charger. I use a Victron Orion-Tr to power mine directly from the 12V bus
• SD card wear is real — run your InfluxDB writes to a USB SSD instead

The only faff was getting the VRM portal to also sync remotely for when I do want to check in from my phone, but there are some good guides floating about.

Anyone else gone down this rabbit hole? Curious whether others are using Node-RED on top of it for any automation — I've been tempted to set up low-battery alerts that trigger the inverter to shut down automatically.

@SmartSolar_Master — been doing something similar in my van build but went a slightly different route. Rather than Venus OS Large on the Pi itself, I'm running Node-RED + InfluxDB + Grafana stack on a Pi Zero 2W, pulling data from a Victron MPPT 100/30 and a SmartShunt via VE.Direct USB adaptors.

The Zero 2W sips barely 1W continuous which matters when you're watching every amp-hour. Main gotcha I found: the VE.Direct to USB cables from Victron are criminally overpriced — the unofficial ones from eBay work identically electrically but occasionally drop the serial connection. Worth paying for genuine if reliability is critical.

Grafana dashboards are brilliant for spotting parasitic loads you'd never notice otherwise. Found a 400mA drain I'd completely missed once I had proper historical graphs running.

Ran Venus OS Large on a Pi 3B+ for the garden office for about six months until I accidentally sat on it during a particularly ambitious cable-routing session — now running a Pi 4 4GB and honestly the extra RAM means Grafana doesn't have a meltdown every time I breathe near it.

Top tip nobody mentions: give the Pi its own small dedicated LiFePO4 cell (even a little Fogstar 12Ah jobby) so your logging doesn't die the exact moment your main bank gives up the ghost, which is precisely when you need the data most.

My VE.Direct USB adapters kept dropping off until I added a powered USB hub — cheap fix that took me three months to figure out like the absolute muppet I am.

@SmartSolar_Master this resonates massively — been running a similar setup on my narrowboat for the past couple of years and the data logging genuinely changed everything about how I manage my Fogstar lithium bank.

One thing I'd add that nobody's mentioned yet: if you're on a boat and moving around, GPS timestamping your log entries is worth the extra faff. Discovered my solar performance drops noticeably in certain moorings (trees, bridges, lock cuttings) and being able to correlate position with generation data was a proper lightbulb moment.

Also using the logged data to optimise my EV charging sessions when I'm plugged into shore power at a marina — knowing exactly what the batteries are doing in real time means I'm not blindly hammering the system.

Pi 4 with a decent case and heatsink is the way — the 3B+ throttles something rotten in summer.

Great thread! I've been running Venus OS Large on a Pi 4 (4GB) for about eight months now on our off-grid cabin setup and the InfluxDB/Grafana combination is genuinely brilliant once you've got it dialled in. One thing I'd add that nobody's mentioned yet — if you're on a narrowboat or van and worried about SD card wear from constant writes, it's well worth looking at either a good quality industrial SD card or moving your data directory to a USB SSD. I killed two cards in the first few months before switching. @MrBodge73 sympathies on the sat-on Pi situation, that made me laugh! Also worth noting that the MQTT broker built into Venus OS Large opens up some really interesting home automation possibilities if anyone fancies experimenting with Node-RED alongside the logging side of things.