[Tuckie]

For you Home Assistant fans, note that ESPhome has a CANbus module.
CAN bus
It supports both the ESP-32's internal CANbus transceiver and external CANbus modules such as the TJA1050 (which interfaces to the ESP via SPI). So, the low-level CAN stuff is all nicely done in a dedicated ESP, in proper edge-computing style. This is how I intend to proceed, at least at first.

That's definitely my preferred route too, if it can handle the traffic volume. It looks like there's support for the MCP2515 too. I thought this was an interesting idea to bridge the esphome and opendbc projects.

 

[harryn]

The home assistant approach is ok if you can find components that are designed for the vibration / temperature conditions in a van, but all of the ones that I looked at were not capable of operating over the (-40 C) to ( + 50 - 60 C) temperature range expected in a normal vehicle.

Instead they struggled at 0 C, which isn't even cold.

 

[brío]

Instead they struggled at 0 C, which isn't even cold.

Could you give an example of this? Not my experience.

For example, the ESP32 is rated
-40C to +125C

ESP32 Wi-Fi & Bluetooth MCU I Espressif Systems

ESP32 is a feature-rich MCU with integrated Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity for a wide-range of applications.

www.espressif.com

It is true that the RPI's published temperature range is a little scary. But, read this:

https://copperhilltech.com/content/The%20Operating%20Temperature%20For%20A%20Raspberry%20Pi%20–%20Technologist%20Tips.pdf

In any event, there are plenty of alternatives available if that becomes a problem.

 

[djb_rh]

The likelihood of van temps being a problem for an RPi is very very low provided you do sane things to help it out. Just a tiny amount of airflow if the temp starts to get on the high side of its CPU range should keep it fine given how little actual demand an automation system is putting on it relative to what it's capable of.

And yeah, basically any other truly embedded type of CPU (ESP, arduino, etc) should be perfectly fine in a van at its worst.

I mean sure, don't be trying to use downtime to mine crypto while your van is out in the sun with no AC running. lol.


--Donnie

 

[Sparky961]

Specific doors - probably, but this is on MS-CAN and I don't currently have it connected to verify

@Tuckie

Confirmed individual doors are available and it's even on HS-CAN, which makes it easier.

Stay tuned. I have a lot of discovery and data entry and do plan to make something publicly available when I can.

 

[Tuckie]

That's great news! Thank you for all your work!

 

[Sparky961]

That's great news! Thank you for all your work!

Thanks, but don't thank me yet. It's a slog for sure.

It would be great to have some competent others that could help with the drudgery of filling in the details... For anyone who is willing to directly access the CAN bus(es), and issue a series of harmless commands while taking note of the output, contact me via PM and I'll try to give you more details. I don't have the time to hold anyone's hand in setting this up though, so I'm probably fated to doing it myself.

 

[Tuckie]

Currently researching the the capabilities of RV-C, an extension of CAN bus that is used in the RV industry.

Pros:

• open protocol specs
• Potential interoperability with existing products
• Proven physical layer
• no single point of failure
• supports multiple device instances with dynamic addressing and automatic device discovery

Cons:

• Those standards aren't always followed
• Severely lacking in open source library support. Most work seems to be surrounding OS-level integrations, instead of lightweight microcontroller-based nodes/devices. If someone can find otherwise, please let me know!
• Some existing devices are locked behind OEM installers

Edit: @Sparky961: I would love to help on the Transit CAN bus front, but unfortunately, my Transit is currently in the waiting to be in the "2023 waiting list" list.

 

[Sparky961]

Currently researching the the capabilities of RV-C, an extension of CAN bus that is used in the RV industry.

Pros:

• open protocol specs
• Potential interoperability with existing products
• Proven physical layer
• no single point of failure
• supports multiple device instances with dynamic addressing and automatic device discovery

Cons:

• Those standards aren't always followed
• Severely lacking in open source library support. Most work seems to be surrounding OS-level integrations, instead of lightweight microcontroller-based nodes/devices. If someone can find otherwise, please let me know!
• Some existing devices are locked behind OEM installers

Edit: @Sparky961: I would love to help on the Transit CAN bus front, but unfortunately, my Transit is currently in the waiting to be in the "2023 waiting list" list.

If needed, I'll do my best to answer any questions related to CAN interface and implementation of the Transit. I've taken a pretty deep dive into this stuff.

As I've alluded already, I may be winding down the van living thing in favour of sticks and bricks soon. I'm leaning towards putting much of my work out there for others to continue.

 

[Tuckie]

I'm leaning towards putting much of my work out there for others to continue.

Any work you've done would be very much appreciated for myself and the community! A Github repo would be fantastic, even if you want to immediately mark it as archived.

 

[mototreks]

Interesting thread. I've thought about some type of esp32 device for managing simple devices like lights, refrigerators, water pump, etc. with automation like on/off for each device as well as group functions. I've not used a esp32 device but I have done a fair amount of manufacturing automation in another life (retired now). @brío Do you know of or have any examples of using ESPHome/Home Assistant in a van environment that would help jumpstart a newbe?

 

[brío]

RV-C has its merits, but I think it is mostly interesting if you need to talk to an existing device that speaks it.

@brío Do you know of or have any examples of using ESPHome/Home Assistant in a van environment that would help jumpstart a newbe?

Yes, I have been building modules to measure temperature and current consumption of the fridge; perform motion control of a TV lift; read CANbus data; use an accelerometer to measure vehicle level; and control LED lights (using ESP-based Shelly controllers). ESPhome is the best thing since sliced bread. Very easy if you are any kind of a programmer. Home Assistant will run on a Raspberry Pi, with a local touchscreen and also a wall-mounted Fire Tablet. Waiting for my van to install all this stuff.

 

[mototreks]

Yes, I have been building modules to measure temperature and current consumption of the fridge; perform motion control of a TV lift; read CANbus data; use an accelerometer to measure vehicle level; and control LED lights (using ESP-based Shelly controllers). ESPhome is the best thing since sliced bread. Very easy if you are any kind of a programmer. Home Assistant will run on a Raspberry Pi, with a local touchscreen and also a wall-mounted Fire Tablet. Waiting for my van to install all this stuff.

Good to know. I’ve been researching Home Assistant on Raspberry Pi. I think I’ve found all the bits I need to control lighting and handle 12v I/O. Now I just need to convince myself that this would be a fun task ;-)

 

[brío]

Good to know. I’ve been researching Home Assistant on Raspberry Pi. I think I’ve found all the bits I need to control lighting and handle 12v I/O. Now I just need to convince myself that this would be a fun task ;-)

Well, I'm having fun, FWIW.

You should note that Raspberry Pis have been pretty much unobtanium at any reasonable price since before the holidays, due to the current chip shortages. They are starting to appear on Amazon now and then, usually packaged with power supplies and cases (which you probably want anyway). I recently snagged a pair of 4GB Pi-4s for $99 each, which was a steal in the current market. They are out of stock now. I have seen some kits for $129 recently, which is still not bad.

If you decide to proceed, I would be glad to help you get started.

 

[TransitFocus]

Looks like I found the nerd thread.

Anyone know of a shunt that doesn't need excessive investment (time or money) to get onto a bus? Just starting down this rabbit hole, I paid a little extra for an inverter/charger that supports NMEA2000, which I can access with a PICAN-M or a cheap Arduino-based standalone N2K display for, but I really want the shunt data as well. I'm really only looking to monitor at this point, but maybe if I tackle this and run a small SQLite DB, I can do a little more w/ the historical data after.

Looks like the Victron SmartShunt will do it if you connect to the Cerbo GX and get the VE.Can/N2K adapter, but that's a $650 investment in Victron bits over VE.Direct! Sorry, doing realtime discovering while I'm posting.

 

[Cdnbiker]

Looks like I found the nerd thread.

Anyone know of a shunt that doesn't need excessive investment (time or money) to get onto a bus? Just starting down this rabbit hole, I paid a little extra for an inverter/charger that supports NMEA2000, which I can access with a PICAN-M or a cheap Arduino-based standalone N2K display for, but I really want the shunt data as well. I'm really only looking to monitor at this point, but maybe if I tackle this and run a small SQLite DB, I can do a little more w/ the historical data after.

Looks like the Victron SmartShunt will do it if you connect to the Cerbo GX and get the VE.Can/N2K adapter, but that's a $650 investment in Victron bits over VE.Direct! Sorry, doing realtime discovering while I'm posting.

Interesting idea, I went down the home assistant path as it is relatively easy to integrate lots of these different measurements, graph them, automate things etc. My BMS has UART so with a USB converter I can read and store the voltage and current from the battery. What are you using for a house battery and BMS?

If you put the shunt going to the ground of the battery you should be able to use the Analog input pins on an arduino / ESP style processor and calculate the current.

Again I'm in the Home Assistant route so I would add in something like a wemos D1 mini flashed with Tasmota to read the analog value and see how accurate that is. Maybe this falls into the excessive time category though...

I hadn't seen that PICAN-M before, looks interesting. I haven't started taking over the boat electronics yet, but one day.

 

[TransitFocus]

NMEA2000 seems pretty ideal. I'd like to get more devices on it and skip the whole charade (below), but they don't come cheap. That said, there are some open source analog data collection devices that will just throw data onto the CAN network so you can skip the costly tank level sensors and such, i.e. NMEA 2000 Converter Connector For Marine Yacht Tank Gauge CX5001 Accessory Tool | eBay

I'm still learning as I go. HA sounds neat, but I'm still working on the monitoring piece. All my system monitoring will originate from one Pi 4, just pulling from several systems.

The Renogy DCC50S is RS485 Modbus, the NMEA2000 should(?) just go into the PICAN Duo with a pigtail, and I can pull vehicle data off the second CAN interface on the hat. I just found the Victron Smartshunt supports RS232, so that's an option as well if not going w/ an N2K shunt. All systems look fairly well implemented except the Renogy, but someone was able to get the Modbus registers for it (below).

I am not running a smart BMS; each battery has their own BMS and I'll just let them self manage. Between the Renogy data, the inverter data, and the system shunt, I should be able calculate the bulk of the inputs and outputs using math, except the DC air conditioner (maybe it'll get it's own shunt though).



Renogy Modbus registers:

Renogy DCC50S Display

For those who are still interested in reading informations from Renogys Smart Battery with RS485 Modbus. Yesterday I got the Modbus Mapping for the Smart Battery from Renogy.

www.t6forum.com

 

[Sparky961]

Looks like I found the nerd thread.

Anyone know of a shunt that doesn't need excessive investment (time or money) to get onto a bus? Just starting down this rabbit hole, I paid a little extra for an inverter/charger that supports NMEA2000, which I can access with a PICAN-M or a cheap Arduino-based standalone N2K display for, but I really want the shunt data as well. I'm really only looking to monitor at this point, but maybe if I tackle this and run a small SQLite DB, I can do a little more w/ the historical data after.

Looks like the Victron SmartShunt will do it if you connect to the Cerbo GX and get the VE.Can/N2K adapter, but that's a $650 investment in Victron bits over VE.Direct! Sorry, doing realtime discovering while I'm posting.

GitHub Public Release, "Offgrid" Van Controller

With little fanfare, I'm announcing the release of the following companion projects: Main "server", running on Raspberry Pi: GitHub - TheWandrr/offgrid Slave controller running most peripherals: GitHub - TheWandrr/offgrid_arduino First time EEPROM initialization, or bulk changes...

www.fordtransitusaforum.com

 

[edumartins]

Hi everyone, great discussion here!

Has anyone tried to integrate CCTV cameras into the transit van in a way to stealth and also can be used in automation with home assistant?

I’ve been looking to use side and back up cameras but I’m having problem to find DVR decoder that can do this. Any ideas?

thanks.

 

[KenVango]

Hi everyone, great discussion here!

Has anyone tried to integrate CCTV cameras into the transit van in a way to stealth and also can be used in automation with home assistant?

I’ve been looking to use side and back up cameras but I’m having problem to find DVR decoder that can do this. Any ideas?

thanks.

I installed 4 wyze V3 cameras primarily due to their small size and IPX rating. However, they are wireless and run 2.4Ghz only- so 4 of them overwhelm a single access point. They do work, but not all at once and not for a long period through home assistant. So instead I just purchased some amcrest POE bullet cameras. They are bullkier but have a great reputation for image quality and have several output options. Planning to install this week. I also looked into dvrs and analog cameras, but didn't did too deeply on that. There are dvrs that support analog input from the likes of tiny backup cameras. Here's an example. For low profile I think they would be your only option.