dbus-mqtt-services

A driver for VenusOS, which listens on a special MQTT topic and creates a new dbus-service as instructed in the MQTT-message. This allows you to create whatever dbus-service you desire without having to run special python-code on the VenusOS device.

Credits: Louis Van Der Walt's dbus-serialbattery was a great inspiration for this work.

dbus-mqt-services MQTT topic

For publishing to the local mqtt service on the VenusOS device use topic /dbus-mqtt-services

Use topic W/dbus-mqtt-services if you use the remote victron MQTT service.

Example

The following example message published to the dbus-mqtt-services topic will generate a new battery service on the dbus (this is not a complete list of all parameters for a battery-service): (see further example devices in the examples folder.)

    {
      "service": "daly_bms_battery_1",
      "serviceType": "battery",
      "serviceInstance": 0,
      "dbus_data": [
        {
          "path": "/Mgmt/ProcessName",
          "value": "Daly Bms Bridge",
          "valueType": "string",
          "writeable": false
        },
        {
          "path": "/Mgmt/ProcessVersion",
          "value": "1.0",
          "valueType": "string",
          "writeable": false
        },
        {
          "path": "/Mgmt/Connection",
          "value": "Serial Uart Daly",
          "valueType": "string",
          "writeable": false
        },
        {
          "path": "/ProductId",
          "value": "0",
          "valueType": "integer",
          "writeable": false
        },
        {
          "path": "/ProductName",
          "value": "Daly Bms service",
          "valueType": "string",
          "writeable": false
        },
        {
          "path": "/FirmwareVersion",
          "value": "1.0",
          "valueType": "string",
          "writeable": false
        },
        {
          "path": "/HardwareVersion",
          "value": "1.0",
          "valueType": "string",
          "writeable": false
        },
        {
          "path": "/Connected",
          "value": "1",
          "valueType": "integer",
          "writeable": false
        },
        {
          "path": "/CustomName",
          "value": "Daly Bms service",
          "valueType": "string",
          "writeable": true
        },
        {
          "path": "/Info/BatteryLowVoltage",
          "value": "52.176",
          "valueType": "float",
          "writeable": false
        }
      ]
    }

Formatting

For formatting the values there are 2 additional field. These are not published on the dbus, but instead used for setting up the device.

• "digits": 3 is to indicate the number of digits in the value. (note, Victron does not always show all digits in the UI, this value provides the max digits visible)
• "unit": "kWh" is to indicate the unit visible in the UI

Note

The device is setup by the first message received for the device.

If after initiation new paths are added, these will not be seen until a restart. If you don't want a full reboot, you can restart the script with this command

kill $(ps | grep dbus-mqtt-services | grep python | awk '{print $1}')

Install

The installation procedure requires SSH root access to your VenusOS device.

$ wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sebdehne/dbus-mqtt-services/master/etc/dbus-mqtt-services/installrelease.sh
$ sh installrelease.sh
$ reboot

How to remove settings from 'localsettings'

In case your service creates an vrm-instance which you do not want, here is how to remove settings:

Stop the localsettings service

$ svc -d /service/localsettings

Make a backup

$ cd /data/conf
$ cp settings.xml settings.xml.backup

Remove the settings as needed

$ vi settings.xml

Bring the localsettings service back online

$ svc -u /service/localsettings

Check the logs for any issues

$ less /data/log/localsettings/current

Screenshot of result

Contributions

The dbus-mqtt-services driver was written by sebdehne with contributions by marcelrv and RFDarter.