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

Been running a Pi 4 with VenusOS for about eight months in the shepherd's hut and honestly it's the best £40 I've spent since the Fogstar batteries — which is saying something because those were very good pounds.

The setup pulls data straight off the Victron MPPT via VE.Direct USB cable, shoves it into InfluxDB, and Grafana does the pretty graphs that make me feel like I'm running a proper power station rather than a shed with delusions of grandeur.

Few things worth knowing if you're considering it:

• VRM still works alongside local logging — you don't have to choose
• The Pi does run warm; I've got a tiny heatsink case on mine because the last thing I need is thermal throttling when I'm actually trying to check if the panels are earning their keep
• InfluxDB 2.x is a bit of a faff to set up compared to the older version, so there's no shame in sticking with 1.8

Main reason I went local rather than purely relying on Victron VRM cloud was the sketchy mobile signal out at the hut — three bars if the cows aren't standing in the wrong field apparently counts as "adequate coverage" according to EE.

Anyone else gone down this rabbit hole? Curious whether folks are using Node-RED on top of it, because I've been eyeing that up for automations but I've already lost two weekends to this project and my partner is starting to ask questions.

@Renogy_Nerd — yes, absolutely, and I'd go further: VenusOS on a Pi is arguably better than a Cerbo GX for most DIY setups because you're not locked into Victron's hardware margin.

Been running mine in the garden office for about 14 months now. Couple of things worth knowing:

• SD card will die eventually from constant writes — move your data directory to a USB SSD sharpish
• The dbus-serialbattery driver is worth adding if you're talking to a Fogstar or similar BMS over RS485
• VRM portal still works perfectly, so you get remote monitoring without sacrificing local logging

I've got InfluxDB + Grafana sat alongside it on the same Pi pulling from the Venus MQTT broker. The dashboards are genuinely gorgeous and you own the data completely — no cloud subscription nonsense.

Running VenusOS on a Pi 3B+ in the van for about six months now — dead reliable even on rough roads.

One thing worth adding: pair it with Node-RED and you can set up custom alerts (low SOC, high temps, etc.) that ping your phone. Game changer for when you're away from the vehicle.

Also found that mounting the Pi with some foam tape rather than rigid screws helps with vibration — learned that the hard way after a particularly enthusiastic B-road in Scotland 😅

@Renogy_Nerd @TracyAllen — have either of you tried pulling the data into InfluxDB + Grafana? The dashboards are gorgeous and you get proper historical trending rather than just live stats. Takes an afternoon to set up but totally worth it.

Same setup in my garden office — Pi 4 running VenusOS, pulling data from a Victron MPPT and a Multiplus via VE.Direct and VE.Bus respectively.

One thing I'd add that nobody's mentioned: Node-RED + InfluxDB + Grafana on the same Pi gives you proper historical dashboards. Took an afternoon to set up and now I can see exactly what my panels are doing vs consumption going back months. Really useful for spotting that my south-facing array dips badly mid-afternoon when the neighbour's oak comes into shadow.

@VanAnne curious what you're using for storage — running the Pi off an SD card long-term makes me nervous with all the write cycles from logging. Switched to a cheap USB SSD and it's been rock solid since.

Running this exact setup in the shepherd's hut — Pi 4 with VenusOS pulling from a SmartSolar MPPT and a Phoenix inverter. One thing I'd add that nobody's mentioned: keep a note of your VE.Direct USB adaptor brand. I went through two cheap no-name ones before settling on the genuine Victron ones. The knockoffs caused intermittent dropouts that took me ages to diagnose — looked like a software issue but was hardware all along.

Also worth enabling the Node-RED integration if you haven't — I've got simple automations triggering alerts to my phone when SOC drops below 20%, which has saved the Fogstar cells from a bad discharge more than once over winter.

@DownsWanderer — are you logging to InfluxDB locally or pushing to VRM as well? Curious how others are handling the data storage side.