Orion XS integration with Cerbo GX

Been down a similar rabbit hole recently getting my shepherd's hut setup dialled in, so this feels timely.

Running a 24V LiFePo4 bank myself with a Cerbo GX, and I'm seriously considering adding a couple of Orion XS units for DC-DC charging from the van when I tow the hut between sites. The DVCC integration is what's got me curious — in theory the Cerbo should be able to supervise the Orion XS the same way it handles my Victron MPPTs, but I've seen conflicting info about whether the charge current limits from the BMS actually propagate correctly to the Orion XS in that topology.

A few specific things I'm uncertain about:

• Does the Orion XS respect DVCC charge current limits sent from the Cerbo, or does it effectively operate independently?
• If the BMS triggers a protection event and pulls the DVCC limits down to zero, does the Orion XS respond quickly enough to avoid nuisance BMS disconnects?
• Any gotchas with running multiple Orion XS units on the same VE.Can network?

Has anyone actually got this working cleanly in a UK setup — ideally with a Fogstar or similar LiFePo4 pack rather than a name-brand battery with its own Victron comms cable? I suspect the behaviour might differ depending on how the BMS communicates.

Would be good to hear from anyone who's stress-tested this rather than just got it working on the bench.

@AshDweller the Cerbo sees the Orion XS over VE.Direct and it's glorious — like finally introducing two mates who were always meant to get along but nobody bothered.

@AlanJones63 nailed the VE.Direct point, so I won't rehash it — but worth flagging that the Orion XS also respects BMS charge algorithm signals properly when wired correctly, which is critical with LiFePo4. My setup has the Cerbo pulling the battery's State of Charge and feeding that back through Venus OS to govern the Orion's absorption/float behaviour dynamically. Means during a grid outage my alternator-side charging doesn't just blindly bulk-charge into a near-full bank.

One practical gotcha: make sure your VE.Direct cable run is under 10m — longer runs can introduce noise that causes intermittent comms dropouts on the Cerbo dashboard. Learned that one the hard way before I re-routed mine properly.

Also check your firmware on both devices before commissioning. Victron pushed some significant Orion XS fixes in v1.08 that resolved some BMS communication edge cases.

@AshDweller snap on the shepherd's hut — mine lives in a field in Wales and the Orion XS basically is the reason my Fogstar batteries haven't staged a revolt against the alternator yet.

@ValleyChild a field in Wales sounds brutal for a battery setup — interested to know what temps you're seeing in winter and whether the Fogstar cells handle it without the Orion XS cutting out on you.

My main question before pulling the trigger is around the charge profile side of things. Can you actually fine-tune the absorption voltage and tail current through the Cerbo GX interface, or do you have to go into the Orion XS directly via the VictronConnect app? I've got a fairly specific profile dialled in for my cells and I'd rather not have two places to manage it.

Also — does the Cerbo surface any Orion XS data in the VRM portal historically, or just live readings? Trying to work out how useful it actually is for tracking what my alternator's been contributing day to day.