Lithium for cheapskates

[splitting_lanes]

Nice! Very impressive, centralized controls.

So, are the controls browser based and Bluetooth connection?

Do you have a Coleman AC?

 

[hugh]

Nice! Very impressive, centralized controls.

So, are the controls browser based and Bluetooth connection?

Do you have a Coleman AC?

On the touchscreen, the controls are displayed directly from the raspberry pi. That's the only thing you can access from the touchscreen, and there's no web browser. However, if the raspberry pi is connected to a Wi-Fi network, you can access the controls from a web browser by connecting to the IP address of the raspberry Pi.


I had originally thought that the Venus OS software that I installed on the Pi (which is the same software on the Cerbo GX) would support the use of bluetooth to connect to the other devices. (after all, the Victron Connect app on my phone can directly connect to all the devices using bluetooth, so why not Venus OS). As it turns out , Venus OS doesn't support bluetooth connections to devices. Everything must be hardwired using Victron's VE.direct cables. Not that big of a deal, but it did involve a few more cable runs to make the connections.


And yes, I'm using the coleman Mach 10 AC.

 

[splitting_lanes]

As it turns out , Venus OS doesn't support bluetooth connections to devices.

And yes, I'm using the coleman Mach 10 AC.

I *think* if you can get Bluetooth support you can centralize your access to the AC without too much effort, and with Bluetooth to the battery BMS you could monitor state and run the AC as long as the battery is above say, 20%.

Just thinking of all the cool stuff you can do with the touchscreen, but it really needs Bluetooth.

 

[hugh]

Yeah, that would be nice. Venus OS does support Bluetooth to non-victron devices, but there doesn't seem to be a Bluetooth driver for the Coleman. In fact, I didn't find any 3rd party support for Coleman's Bluetooth devices on any other system either. I'm sure it's doable, but would require some reverse engineering. Maybe I'll get motivated at some point to do that.