GPS Driver

[trinler007]

Hi,

on my camper I've a router with an external GPS antenna. This device could easily send the position data to my Cerbo GX via MQTT.

I’m already using dbus-mqtt-devices for tank and temperature devices. Would it be possible to add a GPS driver?

Thanks!

Markus

[freakent]

Hi Markus,

Great to hear you have Temperature and Tank devices working? What device do you use as a client?

I also have a GPS enabled router, a Teltonika RUTX-11. I have looked into this but so far it seems Victron do not expose GPS interface through DBUS-MQTT. It seems the simplest solution for GPS is actually to use SOCAT. https://community.victronenergy.com/questions/17470/venus-gx-to-pull-gps-coordinates-from-onboard-rout.html

[trinler007]

Hi Martin,

I use various Homematic and Zigbee sensors for the temperature, and get the filling level of the tank via ModbusTCP from a barometric sensor. I process this information with node-red and send it to dbus-mqtt-devices.

For GPS (and LTE) I'm using a Mikrotik LtAP (https://mikrotik.com/product/ltap_lte6_kit). These devices are able to use MQTT in scripts.

Since I'm already processing the position whit a script and sending it to a tracking server, it would have been very simple to send the position to the Victron device with adding just a few lines of additional code.

If I connect a USB GPS device, I see the determined data in the MQTT. Does this help in any way?

[freakent]

So, after your first message, you got me thinking..... So I added GPS settings to services.yml on my test system, ran a simulation and it appears to be working. I can see the GPS device on my Venus console I am just waiting to see if the GPS coordinates are being sent to VRM.

[freakent]

VRM just updated, and guess what, it works!

Even I'm surprised!

[trinler007]

Awesome! That was extremely fast! Thanks!

[freakent]

If I share my updated services.yml file with you, would you be able to replace your existing services.yml with this patched version?

[gharshaw]

Martin, Not to hijack this GPS thread but I'd be curious to know if Markus is having the same mqtt stability problem on the Cerbo GX

Gene

[trinler007]

If I share my updates services.yml file with you, would you be able to replace your existing services.yml with this patched version?

Yes, of course. I'm very happy to test that.

[trinler007]

Hi Gene, so far I haven't found any issues with MQTT on my Cerbo.

[freakent]

Find a zip file attached. I also included my simulator script so you can see which mqtt topics to use. gps-dbus-mqtt-devices.zip

[freakent]

After device registration, to see the GPS device in the Venus GX Console, from the main menu choose settings > GPS. You have to scroll down to find both options.

[trinler007]

It works like a charm!

[freakent]

OK, I'll plan to make another release with the GPS support added. In the mean time if you encounter any problems with it please raise another issue so I can decide whether it is safe for making generally available.