Is anyone controlling Grid current limit in Home assistant on Victron MPII GX?

Inverters
1

Hi guys I am running a setup where I have a Multiplus-II 48/5000/70-50 powering the house.
Grid is on AC1 and MPPT and battery also connected.
At night when off peak I switch my Grid from my usual not time based provider to another provider that is time based.
At that point I also set the Multiplus to ‘Keep batteries charged’ and because my batteries are usually almost depleted it tries to charge them ASAP with the grid
However I also need to reduce the grid current to around 16A to avoid issues.
I’ve been doing that through the VRM app (phone/desktop) but when I check Home Assistant, I can find the setting that shows the value but I can’t change it even though it’s a slider…

Is this a Victron Home Assistant limitation or a MQTT system limitation or something else I am missing?

See screenshots below

image
image306×292 5.41 KB

image
image536×508 15.4 KB

My versions

image
image483×280 14.9 KB

image
image480×270 17.4 KB

I also got this enabled already

image
image780×1600 112 KB

At a loss and thought perhaps a guru here might know what’s going on.

Thank you for your time!

2

It seems like you may have to ask the author of that bit of software.

There are two paths on dbus (and mqtt) that controls this. There is /Ac/ActiveIn/CurrentLimit and then there is /Ac/ActiveIn/CurrentLimitIsAdjustable. The current limit isn’t adjustable in all systems, for deeply technical reasons related to how VE.Bus devices communicate. For most people who don’t have a DMC (digital multi control) or a VE.Bus BMS, the current limit should always be controllable.

We also see that it does work correctly on VRM. Which suggests that maybe the Home Assistant integration gets this wrong somehow.

3

Hi!

Thank you for the reply. Very informative. I thought this might be a limitation on Victron side as I have seen other HA users of that addon where it works properly AND when I go in the GX interface (Sorry not sure of the name, it’s where I type in the IP address in a browser and get to the ESS settings) I cannot find the way to change the CurrentLimit anywhere however on the VRM app it’s there and it works.

My issue is I need to be able to change it through automations

Maybe I’ll try to use a MQTT client to see if I can change there.
Btw when I change it in the VRM app, I can see it changing in the Victron integration in HA so very odd…

4

I unfortunately don’t know what the Home Assistant integration uses. Some third party built a thing.

I know you can change it via modbus… because I know the guy that maintains the modbus stuff very well. I mean, in the words of Obi Wan in episode 4, of course I know him. If you write register 22 on the vebus service, you can change it.

And if you make something like this:

modbus:
  name: venus
  type: tcp
  host: 192.168.12.34
  port: 502
  sensors:
    - name: currentlimit
      unique_id: currentlimit
      slave: 227
      address: 22
      unit_of_measurement: A

That will create a sensor, which allows reading it. And then, according to this you can use modbus.write_register as an action to write the register as well. And that will allow you to create automations, which I assume is what you want to do?

I’m quite intrigued that you have multiple providers over there on the island :slight_smile:

1 Like
5

Haha,
I didn’t even know we had multiples… Actually I asked the same question direct to Victron and they just forwarded it to the one provider I used.

Thank you for the snippet, I will try it, mess up something and come back to tell you about it :joy:

To be clear (sorry I’m thick and scared), there is nowhere on this interface where this can be changed

image
image774×315 27.1 KB

image
image781×311 16.8 KB

Additionally, I tried connecting directly to the MQTT and subscribing to the topics but couldn’t see anything

6

After adding it (changing the IP + slave to 227) and ‘Checking configuration’ all was good. Then I restarted HA but apparently this failed to load…

I went in Dev → States and searched for Current limit and saw this (below) for the current integration.
Not sure why it’s got min and max to 0

When I try to ‘set state’ it changed the number in HA but then after like 20 seconds reverts back. I don’t think it actually changed anything (on VRM it did not)

I saw that the integration shows 'slave: 228 vs the 227 in your snippet

image
image1157×774 42.4 KB

7

If you go from the Device List (the first screen you get, the one with Settings at the bottom), there should be an entry on it for your Multiplus. If you follow that you will get (example from the test bench):

image
image495×281 48.6 KB

Note the third line from the top. You can set it there.

On GUI-v2, you get something similar by tapping on the Inverter block, while in the Overview screen:

image
image1329×581 42 KB

Or by tapping the icon top left, you’ll get the “cards”, one of which also allows setting the current limit:

image
image1392×585 43.1 KB

To automate though, I’d probably look at modbus control. To get that working (I’m assuming gui-v2 here), Settings → Integrations → Modbus TCP Server. Set it to enabled. Then look at the list of Available Services to get the correct address for your Multi (you want the one for the vebus service).

I used 227 above, but since you have a Multiplus-II-GX (and not an external Cerbo) it will be different for you.

I hope that helps.

1 Like
8

Ok using MQTT explorer I found some more info!

image
image386×352 13.2 KB

image
image348×186 5.53 KB

Should I change to ‘slave 275’ in the yaml?

9

OMG you have no idea how much I went through all these menus and NEVER found this… At least now I can change the 2 settings I need to change → min SoC and Input current limit without depending on the VRM app (meaning I can do it on my local network) thank you!!

Btw I saw this message after I wrote my previous one sorry.

You have been so helpful, can I ask if you work for Victron?

1 Like
10

Modbus addresses are limited to 247 addresses. So no, that will not work. The modbus address is different in this case. Look in the menu as I explained earlier, it will tell you the address of each service, you want the ve.bus one.

I’ll elucidate my previous comment :slight_smile:

11

hahaha,
Well Sir, you have been amazing. I have actually gotten to the end of it and now I can automate wooo

The issue I had was that in the initial integration config I had not set a maximum AC value… I decided to randomly input that and now I can use the slider to change currentlimit … I’ve been trying for so long haha.

For now I’ve satiated my thirst for Victron x HA knowledge but if you don’t mind I would love to discuss in the future :slight_smile: There are sooo many terms that are foreign to me and the documentation feels a bit sparse… If you have a recommendation for a youtube channel or other website with perhaps more info around Victron products I’d be interested.

Have an amazing rest of the week my friend!

Some screenshots that perhaps could help someone using the Home Assistant Victron Integration

image
image560×802 29.9 KB

image
image994×343 38.2 KB