dbus-mqtt-ac-charger - Emulates a physical AC Charger from info in MQTT data

First off, a big thanks to mr-manuel that created a bunch of templates that made this possible

GitHub repository: LundSoftwares/venus-os_dbus-mqtt-ac-charger

Disclaimer

I'm not responsible for the usage of this script. Use on own risk!

Purpose

The script emulates a physical AC Charger in Venus OS. It gets the MQTT data from a subscribed topic and publishes the information on the dbus as the service com.victronenergy.charger.mqtt_ac_charger with the VRM instance 31.

Config

Copy or rename the config.sample.ini to config.ini in the dbus-mqtt-ac-charger folder and change it as you need it.

JSON structure

Minimum required

{
"ac_charger": {
    "ac_current":0,
        "DC0":{
            "current":0
        }
    }
}

Minimum required with DC0

{
"ac_charger": {
    "ac_current":0,
        "DC0":{
            "current":0,
            "voltage":0,
            "temperature":0
        }
    }
}

Minimum required with DC0 and DC1

{
"ac_charger": {
    "ac_current":0,
        "DC0":{
            "current":0,
            "voltage":0,
            "temperature":0
        },
        "DC1": {
            "current": 0,
            "voltage": 0,
            "temperature": 0
        }
    }
}

Minimum required with DC0, DC1 and DC2

{
"ac_charger": {
    "ac_current":0,
        "DC0":{
            "current":0,
            "voltage":0,
            "temperature":0
        },
        "DC1": {
            "current": 0,
            "voltage": 0,
            "temperature": 0
        },
        "DC2": {
            "current": 0,
            "voltage": 0,
            "temperature": 0
        }
    }
}

Full

{
"ac_charger": {
    "ac_current":0,
    "ac_power":0,
    "ac_currentlimit":0,
    "state":0,
    "mode":0,
    "errorcode":0,
    "relaystate":0,
    "lowvoltagealarm":0,
    "highvoltagealarm":0,
        "DC0":{
            "current":0,
            "voltage":0,
            "temperature":0
        },
        "DC1": {
            "current": 0,
            "voltage": 0,
            "temperature": 0
        },
        "DC2": {
            "current": 0,
            "voltage": 0,
            "temperature": 0
        }
    }
}

Install

1. Copy the dbus-mqtt-ac-charger folder to /data/etc on your Venus OS device

2. Run bash /data/etc/dbus-mqtt-ac-charger/install.sh as root

The daemon-tools should start this service automatically within seconds.

Uninstall

Run /data/etc/dbus-mqtt-ac-charger/uninstall.sh

Restart

Run /data/etc/dbus-mqtt-ac-charger/restart.sh

Debugging

The logs can be checked with tail -n 100 -F /data/log/dbus-mqtt-ac-charger/current | tai64nlocal

The service status can be checked with svstat: svstat /service/dbus-mqtt-ac-charger

This will output somethink like /service/dbus-mqtt-ac-charger: up (pid 5845) 185 seconds

If the seconds are under 5 then the service crashes and gets restarted all the time. If you do not see anything in the logs you can increase the log level in /data/etc/dbus-mqtt-ac-charger/dbus-mqtt-ac-charger.py by changing level=logging.WARNING to level=logging.INFO or level=logging.DEBUG

If the script stops with the message dbus.exceptions.NameExistsException: Bus name already exists: com.victronenergy.grid.mqtt_ac-charger" it means that the service is still running or another service is using that bus name.

Multiple instances

It's possible to have multiple instances, but it's not automated. Follow these steps to achieve this:

1. Save the new name to a variable driverclone=dbus-mqtt-ac-charger-2

2. Copy current folder cp -r /data/etc/dbus-mqtt-ac-charger/ /data/etc/$driverclone/

3. Rename the main script mv /data/etc/$driverclone/dbus-mqtt-ac-charger.py /data/etc/$driverclone/$driverclone.py

4. Fix the script references for service and log

sed -i 's:dbus-mqtt-ac-charger:'$driverclone':g' /data/etc/$driverclone/service/run
sed -i 's:dbus-mqtt-ac-charger:'$driverclone':g' /data/etc/$driverclone/service/log/run

5. Change the device_name and increase the device_instance in the config.ini

Now you can install and run the cloned driver. Should you need another instance just increase the number in step 1 and repeat all steps.

Compatibility

It was tested on Venus OS Large v3.01 on the following devices:

• RaspberryPi 3b+
• Simulated AC Charger data sent from NodeRed

NodeRed Example code

Import into NodeRed runing on your VenusOS device for some simple testing

[{"id":"36b8e7c267cde307","type":"tab","label":"Flow 1","disabled":false,"info":"","env":[]},{"id":"fee581eac3fab0c3","type":"mqtt out","z":"36b8e7c267cde307","name":"","topic":"chargers/ac","qos":"","retain":"","respTopic":"","contentType":"","userProps":"","correl":"","expiry":"","broker":"3cc159c0642d9663","x":730,"y":200,"wires":[]},{"id":"6e400e6ad609538c","type":"function","z":"36b8e7c267cde307","name":"function 1","func":"msg.payload=\n{\n    \"ac_charger\": {\n        \"ac_current\": 5,\n        \"ac_power\": 0,\n        \"ac_currentlimit\": 0,\n        \"state\": 4,\n        \"mode\": 1,\n        \"errorcode\": 0,\n        \"relaystate\": 0,\n        \"lowvoltagealarm\": 0,\n        \"highvoltagealarm\": 0,\n        \"DC0\": {\n            \"current\": 8,\n            \"voltage\": 12.5,\n            \"temperature\": 23\n        },\n        \"DC1\": {\n            \"current\": 10,\n            \"voltage\": 12.8,\n            \"temperature\": 12\n        },\n        \"DC2\": {\n            \"current\": 3,\n            \"voltage\": 12.85,\n            \"temperature\": 23\n        }\n    }\n}\nreturn msg;","outputs":1,"noerr":0,"initialize":"","finalize":"","libs":[],"x":520,"y":200,"wires":[["fee581eac3fab0c3"]]},{"id":"e64506d8e5edefe0","type":"inject","z":"36b8e7c267cde307","name":"","props":[{"p":"payload"},{"p":"topic","vt":"str"}],"repeat":"30","crontab":"","once":true,"onceDelay":"1","topic":"","payload":"","payloadType":"date","x":350,"y":200,"wires":[["6e400e6ad609538c"]]},{"id":"3cc159c0642d9663","type":"mqtt-broker","name":"","broker":"localhost","port":"1883","clientid":"","autoConnect":true,"usetls":false,"protocolVersion":"4","keepalive":"60","cleansession":true,"birthTopic":"","birthQos":"0","birthPayload":"","birthMsg":{},"closeTopic":"","closeQos":"0","closePayload":"","closeMsg":{},"willTopic":"","willQos":"0","willPayload":"","willMsg":{},"userProps":"","sessionExpiry":""}]

Screenshots

With DC0

With DC0 and DC1

With DC0, DC1 and DC3

Full

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