dbus-fronius-smartmeter Service

Purpose

This service is meant to be run on a raspberry Pi with Venus OS from Victron.

The Python script cyclically reads data from the go-e controller SmartMeter via the go-e controller API and publishes information on the dbus, using the service name com.victronenergy.grid. This makes the Venus OS work as if you had a physical Victron Grid Meter installed.

Configuration

1. Activate the local HTTP v2 API on your go-e controller
2. In the Python file, you should put the IP of your go-e controller device that hosts the HTTP API.
3. Used API keys for each phase are: voltage -> "usv", current(i) and power(p) -> "isv"
4. In my go-e configuration home and grid is the same and the API key "cec" is used, for cunsumtion values AC power "ccp"

Installation

1. Copy the files to the /data folder on your venus:

   • /data/dbus-go-e-controller-smartmeter/dbus-go-e-controller-smartmeter.py
   • /data/dbus-fronius-smartmeter/kill_me.sh
   • /data/dbus-go-e-controller-smartmeter/service/run

2. Set permissions for files:

   chmod 755 /data/dbus-go-e-controller-smartmeter/service/run

   chmod 744 /data/dbus-go-e-controller-smartmeter/kill_me.sh

3. Get two files from the velib_python and install them on your venus:

   • /data/dbus-go-e-controller-smartmeter/vedbus.py
   • /data/dbus-go-e-controller-smartmeter/ve_utils.py

4. Add a symlink to the file /data/rc.local:

   ln -s /data/dbus-go-e-controller-smartmeter/service /service/dbus-go-e-controller-smartmeter

   Or if that file does not exist yet, store the file rc.local from this service on your Raspberry Pi as /data/rc.local . You can then create the symlink by just running rc.local:

   rc.local

   The daemon-tools automatically start this service within seconds.

Debugging

You can check the status of the service with svstat:

svstat /service/dbus-go-e-controller-smartmeter

It will show something like this:

/service/dbus-go-e-controller-smartmeter: up (pid 10078) 325 seconds

If the number of seconds is always 0 or 1 or any other small number, it means that the service crashes and gets restarted all the time.

When you think that the script crashes, start it directly from the command line:

python /data/dbus-go-e-controller-smartmeter/dbus-go-e-controller-smartmeter.py

and see if it throws any error messages.

If the script stops with the message

dbus.exceptions.NameExistsException: Bus name already exists: com.victronenergy.grid"

it means that the service is still running or another service is using that bus name.

If the script seems running start dbus-spy, you should see:

com.victronenergy.grid.mymeter go-e controller Smart Meter

Use arrow key to go down and hit Enter.

If every thing is fine you see the values and the UpdateIndex is rising till 255 and restart by 0 every second.

Restart the script

If you want to restart the script, for example after changing it, just run the following command:

/data/dbus-go-e-controller-smartmeter/kill_me.sh

The daemon-tools will restart the scriptwithin a few seconds.

Hardware

In my installation at home, I am using the following Hardware:

• go-e controller as meter (three phases)
• OpenDTU as PV meter (one phases)
• Victron MultiPlus-II - Battery Inverter (single phase)
• Raspberry Pi 3B+ - For running Venus OS
• go-e charger