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

Been running a Pi 4 (2GB) connected to my Victron Cerbo GX via the VE.Can interface for about 18 months now on the boat, and it's been rock solid. Using VictronConnect data piped into InfluxDB with Grafana dashboards on top — the visualisation is genuinely excellent once you get the queries dialled in.

The main reason I went local rather than relying on VRM portal was purely about connectivity. Sitting in a marina with patchy 4G, I wanted historical data available regardless. Everything writes to a local InfluxDB instance, with a Python script handling the MQTT broker side of things.

A few things worth noting if anyone's considering this route:

• Storage matters — I run a proper SSD rather than an SD card. Had two SD cards fail silently before switching. The Pi 4's USB3 boot is straightforward enough to set up
• Power draw is surprisingly low, roughly 3–4W continuous, which adds up across a month but is manageable
• Cerbo GX makes this significantly easier than older CCGX units — the MQTT topics are well documented

The one area I'm still not satisfied with is battery state-of-charge accuracy feeding through into the dashboard. The Victron BMV-712 figures are fine, but I've noticed occasional drift when the Fogstar Drift 100Ah cells have been sitting at partial state of charge for extended periods.

Curious whether anyone else has implemented any temperature compensation logic on the SoC readings, or found a smarter way to handle that in the InfluxDB data pipeline. Also interested if anyone's running this on a Pi Zero 2W to reduce the power overhead further.

@Squib82 mine's been running so long the Pi probably qualifies for a pension by now — Cerbo → Pi → InfluxDB → Grafana on the static caravan, and I've not touched it since the last World Cup.

Ha, love it @DailyWanderer! Mine's a Pi 3B+ which I keep meaning to upgrade but frankly it just refuses to die.

@Squib82 - have you looked at using the MQTT broker on the Cerbo rather than VE.Can directly? I switched over to pulling data via MQTT about eight months ago and it simplified things massively. The Cerbo publishes everything to its local broker, so the Pi just subscribes and pipes it straight into InfluxDB using Telegraf. Means one less dependency on physical interface wiring too.

Only gotcha I hit was the Cerbo occasionally dropping the MQTT connection after a firmware update - worth adding a simple reconnect loop in your config if you haven't already. Nothing worse than coming back from shore leave thinking you've got 18 months of clean data and finding a gap!

@Brummie88 my Pi 3B+ is basically the Nokia 3310 of single-board computers — absolute unit, refuses to retire, somehow still outperforming my life choices.

Running mine in the van with a Victron MPPT and Fogstar cells, pulling data over VE.Direct into Node-RED before it hits InfluxDB — chucked in a few threshold alerts so the Pi texts me if the batteries tank overnight, which has saved my bacon more than I care to admit.

Top tip: a cheap 18650 UPS hat on the Pi means a dodgy 12V supply doesn't corrupt your SD card mid-write — learnt that one the expensive way.

@RiverFinn that Nokia comparison actually made me laugh out loud — spot on.

I went down a slightly different route on my cabin setup. Rather than the Cerbo → Pi path, I'm pulling data directly from my Victron SmartShunt via VE.Direct into the Pi using a cheap USB adapter. Feeds into InfluxDB the same way, but cuts out a layer of complexity.

The bit that surprised me most — the dashboard running on a battered old Pi Zero 2W I had knocking about. Genuinely couldn't believe something so tiny handles continuous Grafana queries without breaking a sweat.

One thing worth mentioning if anyone's just starting out: write your InfluxDB to an external SSD rather than the SD card. Lost six months of data to a corrupted card before I learned that lesson the hard way.

@Squib82 been doing something similar on my tiny house setup but went with a Pi Zero 2 W instead — massively overkill for just logging but the power draw is negligible which matters when you're watching every watt.

One thing worth flagging if anyone's running InfluxDB: the default retention policies will absolutely hammer your SD card over time. I switched to a good quality Samsung Endurance card and set up aggressive downsampling in Flux for older data — anything beyond 30 days gets averaged down to 15-minute intervals. Card's been fine for over a year now.

Also using Grafana with a few calculated fields to track my Fogstar Drift 200Ah SOH over time — genuinely useful for spotting degradation trends before they bite you.