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

Been running a Pi 4 (2GB) with VRM local logging for about 14 months now and it's been rock solid. I've got it pulling data from my Cerbo GX via MQTT every 30 seconds and pushing it into InfluxDB, then visualising everything through Grafana. The dashboard shows SOC, AC loads, PV yield, and battery temps all on one screen — far more useful than the VRM portal for day-to-day tweaking.

The main reason I went local rather than relying purely on VRM cloud is obvious if you're off-grid — internet goes down and you're flying blind otherwise. Having everything stored on a local NAS means I've got years of data I can actually query properly.

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

• Use a good quality SD card or boot from USB/SSD — SD cards die. Lost three months of data early on learning that lesson.
• The Victron MQTT topics are well documented — N/<VRM ID>/vebus/ etc. Once you understand the structure it's straightforward.
• Set your InfluxDB retention policy sensibly — I keep full resolution for 90 days, then downsampled for long-term storage.

One thing I'm currently working on is correlating my EV charging sessions (I'm on a Type 2 setup pulling from the off-grid system) against solar yield and battery state. Trying to automate charging windows when SOC is above 85% and PV is genuinely surplus. The data's all there in Grafana, just need to close the automation loop with Node-RED.

Anyone else doing something similar with EV load management through Pi-based automation? Keen to see how others have approached it.

@QJ_Builds been doing almost identical but went InfluxDB + Grafana on a Pi Zero 2W to keep the parasitic draw down — thing sips about 0.7W idle which matters when you're running a 200Ah Fogstar Drift LiFePO4 and every watt-hour counts in a van.

One thing worth flagging: SD card rot is the silent killer on these setups. Moved the root filesystem onto a cheap USB SSD after my third corrupted card in 18 months. Night and day for reliability.

Also bumped my MQTT polling to 10 seconds — 30 feels too coarse when you're trying to diagnose a dodgy Victron MPPT doing weird things at dawn. Grafana's $__interval variable handles the resolution gracefully so the dashboards don't explode with data points.

What retention period are you running in Influx? I'm at 90 days local, then cold storage on a NAS.

Great to see this thread — been lurking on a similar setup for a while now.

I went down this road after my van conversion last year. Started with just the Victron VRM portal but wanted something fully local when I'm off-grid without a signal. Running a Pi Zero 2W like @GoldenNomad — the draw really is negligible once you've got it dialled in.

One thing worth adding: I keep a weekly InfluxDB backup copying to a USB stick automatically. Lost three months of lovely Grafana data once when an SD card died. Lesson learned the hard way.

@QJ_Builds — 14 months solid is impressive. What are you running for SD card endurance? I swapped to a Fogstar-quality mindset and started using an industrial-grade card rather than a standard SanDisk. Made a noticeable difference to longevity apparently.

@GoldenNomad the Zero 2W is a smart call on draw — how are you handling SD card write cycles though? That's always been my concern with InfluxDB writes every 30 seconds on flash storage. I killed a card in about 8 months doing something similar on my cabin setup.

Moved the data partition to a small USB SSD after that. Tiny parasitic hit but the peace of mind is worth it.

Also worth noting — if anyone's running this on a boat, humidity is a silent killer for Pi setups. Lost one to condensation before I got sensible about enclosures. A basic Schneider IP65 box sorted it.

@QJ_Builds 14 months rock solid is genuinely impressive. What are you using for alerts when something goes sideways — still relying on VRM cloud for that or have you rolled something local?

@RelayNomad raises exactly what I was going to ask! I've been on the fence about this whole setup for my motorhome — mainly because I want solid emergency backup monitoring when I'm parked up somewhere remote.

One thing nobody's mentioned yet: have any of you looked at running the OS from a USB SSD instead of SD card? I've read the Pi 4 handles USB boot natively without any faff. Presumably that solves the write-cycle headache entirely, and a small 120GB SSD draws barely anything more than an SD card.

Also curious — how are you handling the Pi going down unexpectedly? Like a watchdog timer or automatic reboot script? For emergency backup use cases I really need the monitoring to self-recover without me physically being there. Does Victron's MQTT reconnect gracefully after a Pi restart, or does it need babysitting?