Victron VE Direct DIY Cable

If you broke or lost the VE.Direct cable for your Victron device, you can make your own. The original cable is a RS232/Serial-to-USB converter. This means that any device that appears as an COM/serial device in the operating system will work for this purpose.

Connection

Connection diagram:

Voltage: 5V - when the Victron solar charge controller is powered by the PV, you can leave the 5V pin unconnected Baud rate: 19200

Sample output of the continuous update stream for the live page in VictronConnect:

PID	0xA043			-- Product ID
FW	119			-- Firmware version of controller
SER#	HQXXXXXXXXX		-- Serial number
V	13790			-- Battery voltage
I	-10			-- Battery current
VPV	15950			-- PV voltage
PPV	0			-- PV power
CS	5			-- Charge state (bulk, absorption, float)
ERR	0			-- Errors
LOAD	ON			-- Load output status
IL	0			-- Load current
H19	0
H20	0
H21	397
H22	0 
H23	0
HSDS	0
Checksum	l:A0002000148		-- Message checksum
:A0102000543
:A0202000000000047
:AD7ED00000087
:AD4ED00008A

For the protocol documentation see:

• Victron Whitepapers

Sniff serial data

If you have an Arduino Mega, you can utilize one of the extra serial ports to listen on the serial stream from the controller. Connect RX to D19 and TX to D18 on the Mega.

Use this code and open the Serial Monitor on baud rate 19200:

void setup() {
  // initialize both serial ports:
  Serial.begin(19200);
  Serial1.begin(19200); // D18 D19
}

void loop() {
  // read from port 1, send to port 0:
  if (Serial1.available()) {
    int inByte = Serial1.read();
    Serial.write(inByte);
  }

  // read from port 0, send to port 1:
  if (Serial.available()) {
    int inByte = Serial.read();
    Serial1.write(inByte);
  }
}

Materials

This requires the following parts:

• Adafruit FTDI 5V 1m adapter cable
• JST-PH 2.00mm pitch 4-pin with wires

Or build one from adapters, cable and connector:

• Sparkfun FTDI 5V RS232 Mini-USB adapter
• JST-PH 2.00mm pitch 4-pin connector
• 4 Wire cable 1m

Software

For Windows, download the USB drivers and install VConnect:

• Victron software downloads

For Mac, just download and install VConnect:

• Victron software downloads

Future

The next project is to try to use a Bluetooth LE serial adapter and try to make it work like a VE.Direct Bluetooth smart dongle.