How to connect Victron go to bmv712

[freshalaska]

I want to connect my victron color control GX to a BMV712. Problem is both of the GX control ports ve direct ports 1 and 2 are already filled with cords to my two solar controllers. What to do to get the color control GX connected up to the bmv712?

[wholybee]

This?
https://www.amazon.com/Victron-Energ...+direct&sr=8-1

[SailingHarmonie]

RTFM…

Connecting more VE.Direct devices to your Cerbo GX than number of VE.Direct Ports

First of all, note that the maximum of VE.Direct devices that can be connected, regardless of the interface is limited. How they are connected, either direct, via USB or via CAN, does not change the maximum. See here for the maximum connected device limits. Select the correct GX device for the number of connected devices required by the system.

• Option 1: Use the VE.Direct to USB interface. The Cerbo GX has built-in USB ports (see Overview of Connections [5]). Use a USB-hub when additional USB ports are required. • Option 2: The BMV-700 and BMV-702 can also be connected using the VE.Direct to VE.Can interface. Note that the BMV-712, MPPTs and VE.Direct Inverters cannot be connected using this CAN-bus interface as it does not translate the data into CAN-bus messages. When using the VE.Direct to VE.Can interface, make sure that the VE.Can network is terminated, and also powered. For powering the VE.Can network, see Q17 in our data communication whitepaper

Looks like Option 1 is the way you are going to have to go. It works fine, I have used it on several systems that had multiple MPPT devices that all used VE.Direct communications.

[freshalaska]

Perfect that’s exactly what I need and thank you.

[JustMurph]

Then if you have more devices than spare USB ports, you can use any USB hub to add as many devices as you like.

One recommendation, is to plug the BMV into the CCGX directly with VE.direct and use the USB adapter for one of the MPPTs. I've generally found in my system that the connections via USB are less reliable than the ones using VE.direct. On occasion my Cerbo GX will stop seeing one (or both) of my MPPTs connected via USB, until I reboot it. The other two connected via VE.Bus are always there.