Virtual "total system" charge controller (feature request)

Been mulling this one over for a while and thought it worth raising here.

Running two Victron SmartSolar MPPTs on my static caravan setup — both feeding into the same battery bank via separate inputs — and the SmartShunt sits between the bank and the loads. Works fine in practice, but the system-level view is a bit fragmented.

Each MPPT reports its own charge state, its own current, its own "battery full" logic. They talk to each other via VE.Smart networking well enough, but what I'd really love is a single virtual charge controller that the Victron ecosystem treats as one coherent entity — total combined input, unified charge curve, one set of absorption/float decisions based on the actual shunt data rather than each controller guessing independently.

The SmartShunt is arguably already doing the "source of truth" job on SOC. So why can't the MPPTs fully defer to it and operate as one logical unit?

I suspect part of the answer is that this is sort of what DVCC is meant to do on a Cerbo/Venus OS setup, but in my experience it's still not quite a clean "total system controller" view — especially if you're not running a full GX device.

Anyone else here running multiple MPPTs into a single bank and hit this frustration? I'm on a fairly modest 2×100W + 1×200W array split across orientations, so two controllers makes sense physically — but the software side feels like it hasn't quite caught up.

Would be interested whether anyone's found a workaround, or whether this is just a known gap in the Victron architecture at the moment.

@BayJason ooh this is something I've thought about too on my van build!

What you're describing sounds a bit like what Victron's VE.Smart Networking already does — if both MPPTs are on the same Bluetooth network they share battery voltage/temp sensing and kind of "agree" on charge state together.

Not quite a true virtual combined controller but it does stop them fighting each other, which was my main worry when I was considering two units.

Worth having a dig through the VictronConnect app settings if you haven't already — the shared network option is buried a bit but it's genuinely useful once you find it.

Whether it does everything you're imagining is another question though — what specifically are you hoping the "total system" view would solve? Might help narrow down if it's a firmware thing or a feature gap. 🔆

@BayJason Victron partially solves this already — if both MPPTs are on the same VE.Smart network they'll share voltage/temp sensing and sync absorption/float transitions, which is about 80% of what you're asking for without any firmware wizardry.

The remaining 20% (true combined current limiting) needs a Venus OS device acting as the brain — it can run DVRS across the whole system and you can bodge the rest with Node-RED scripts on a Cerbo GX.

Had exactly this headache on my motorhome with two SmartSolars arguing over who was in charge — VE.Smart networking sorted the squabbling overnight.

@VanAnne worth noting van builds benefit even more since panel orientations often differ and each MPPT harvests independently anyway, so total-current coordination matters less than you'd think.

@BayJason this scratches an itch I've had with my motorhome setup for ages. Running a Victron SmartSolar 100/30 alongside a smaller Renogy unit, and getting them to agree on what the combined system is actually doing feels like herding cats.

What I'd love to see is something akin to a virtual "master controller" layer — not tied to any single physical unit, but reading aggregate input/output and making absorption/float decisions based on total bank state rather than each MPPT acting on its local voltage reading.

Victron's Venus OS gets tantalizingly close but it's still not truly orchestrating charge decisions across mixed brands. Even within the Victron ecosystem, the load-sharing feels more like polite coordination than genuine unified control.

Has anyone experimented with Node-RED flows on a Cerbo to get closer to this behaviour?

@MarineGeoff that's useful context on VE.Smart — but does the shared voltage/temp actually translate into coordinated absorption timing? My understanding is each controller still makes its own decision about when to transition to float, which is exactly the problem @BayJason is describing.

Practically speaking, if controller A decides the battery is full and drops to float whilst controller B is still pushing hard in absorption, aren't you potentially overcharging? Or does the voltage sharing prevent that scenario entirely?

Asking because I'm planning a dual-MPPT setup for my garden office — likely two Renogy units rather than Victron given budget constraints — and I'm trying to work out whether this coordination problem is theoretical or something people actually encounter in real-world monitoring data.

Has anyone logged this behaviour through Victron's VRM portal to see what the charge stages actually look like across two controllers simultaneously?