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

Been running this exact setup in my Fiat Ducato conversion for about 18 months now and it's been rock solid.

I've got a Pi 4 (2GB) connected to my Multiplus-II via the VE.Direct USB cable, running VictronConnect's data over to InfluxDB, then visualised through Grafana. The whole stack lives in a Docker Compose file so if the Pi throws a wobble I can have it back up in minutes.

The key bit that took me a while to figure out was using the venus-mqtt bridge rather than polling VE.Direct directly — latency dropped significantly and I stopped getting those occasional corrupt packets I was seeing before.

A few things worth mentioning for anyone considering this:

• Power draw matters in an off-grid context. A Pi 4 pulls around 3–5W continuously. I switched to a Pi Zero 2 W for the van and it's closer to 1–2W idle, which makes a real difference on cloudy winter days
• The official Venus OS Large image exists if you want to run a Pi as a GX device rather than alongside one — worth knowing about
• Fogstar's cells have been in my system the whole time and the granular logging has been really useful for tracking cycle count and capacity fade

Currently logging: SOC, voltage per cell (via BMS over RS485), current, temperature, and inverter AC output. Retention set to 90 days before downsampling.

Anyone else gone down the Venus OS Large route rather than a separate logging stack? Curious whether the trade-offs are worth it or whether keeping them separate is cleaner long-term.

@DucatoSolar yes, similar setup here on my narrowboat. Pi 4 (4GB) pulling data from a Victron SmartShunt and MPPT via VE.Direct. Running InfluxDB + Grafana for local logging — no cloud dependency which suits me fine.

One thing worth mentioning: power the Pi from a stable 5V supply, not directly off the 12V bus. I use a small Victron Orion DC-DC for that. Cheap USB converters can cause SD card corruption when voltage dips during heavy inverter loads.

Also set up a read-only root filesystem after losing two cards in the first few months. Rock solid since then.

What are you using for dashboards? Curious whether you're doing anything clever with alerts when SOC drops overnight.

Been doing this for a couple of years on my emergency backup system at home — Pi 3B+ rather than a Pi 4, and honestly the overhead from Venus OS Large is negligible enough that the older hardware handles it fine.

One thing worth flagging: if you're logging to an SD card long-term, wear levelling becomes a real concern. I lost one card after about 14 months of continuous writes. Switched to logging to a small USB SSD instead, and also set up a RAM-based tmpfs for the frequent write cycles with periodic flushes. Much more reliable.

@BatteryRay — are you pulling data from the SmartShunt via VE.Direct or Bluetooth? Curious whether anyone's had stability issues with the BLE polling approach over extended periods, as I've seen reports of the connection dropping overnight.

Ran this same thing in my shepherd's hut for about two years. Pi 4 (4GB) with Venus OS Large, pulling from a Multiplus-II and a SmartSolar 100/30.

One thing nobody's mentioned — SD card failure is the real enemy here. Lost three months of data when mine corrupted during a power blip. Switched to booting from a USB SSD and haven't had a problem since. Cheap insurance.

Also worth configuring Venus OS to write the round-robin database to RAM and sync periodically rather than hammering the SD constantly. Proper difference in longevity.

@BatteryRay curious whether you're getting dropouts on the VE.Direct USB when the Pi's under load — had that issue until I switched to a powered USB hub.

Great thread — exactly what I've been researching for my shepherd's hut build.

Few questions before I commit to this approach:

1. SD card wear — with constant data writes, how often are you replacing cards? I've seen recommendations for running the OS from USB SSD instead. Is that overkill for this use case?
2. VE.Direct USB cables — are you using the official Victron ones or third-party? The genuine ones seem pricey for what they are.
3. Power consumption — what's the Pi drawing continuously? On a modest system this feels like it could matter overnight.

@SaltyHiker your shepherd's hut setup is particularly relevant to me — did you have any issues with temperature extremes affecting the Pi? Mine will be unheated in winter.

Also curious whether anyone's experienced data gaps during Multiplus grid switching events specifically.