Victron Energy Integration Guide
How to connect your TITAN Lithium battery to a Victron GX device (Cerbo, Nucleo, Color Control, Venus, Ekrano, etc.).
Why use CANBUS?
Connecting your TITAN battery to a Victron GX device lets the battery report its live limits and state directly to the system. The GX device can then pass the battery's requested charge voltage and current limits to compatible inverter/chargers and solar chargers through DVCC.
- Direct state of charge (SOC): the GX device displays the SOC calculated by the TITAN BMS rather than estimating it independently. The battery may still need a full-charge resynchronisation after long periods without reaching 100%.
- Safety first: the battery automatically manages charge currents and stops charging if it gets too cold (engaging the built-in heater) or full.
- Plug & play: designed to work with Victron's native BMS-Can protocol.
- Automatic adjustments: when connecting multiple batteries in parallel, the system will automatically adjust available capacity, charge and discharge current allowances in real time.
What you'll need
Before you begin, ensure you have the following components ready.
- TITAN Lithium battery with comms ports - any model in the current range.
- Victron GX device - Cerbo GX, Nucleo GX, Color Control GX, Venus GX, Ekrano GX, or any GX-enabled inverter.
-
TITAN comms cable (RJ45) - in 1.8m, 3m or 5m lengths.
- Standard ethernet cables look the same but rarely have the right pin-out for BMS data. Use the certified TITAN cable - the cables that ship with Victron equipment or generic ethernet runs will not work.
How to connect
Step 1 - Identify the ports
- On the battery: locate the data ports on your battery (on the top for 230Ah+ or the side for 105Ah-180Ah). Find the port labelled RJ45-2 & RJ45-3.
- On the Victron device: locate the ports labelled BMS-Can or VE.Can.
Step 2 - Plug in
- Connect the labelled 'To Battery' end of the RJ45 comms cable into the battery's CAN port.
- Connect the labelled 'To Inverter' end into the Victron's BMS-Can port.
- Tip: on a Cerbo GX use the port specifically labelled BMS-Can (usually the middle pair). BMS-Can has been renamed on V2 Cerbos to VE.CAN. On the new Nucleo GX, either VE.Can port can be configured as BMS-Can.
Step 3 - Terminate the network (required for multiple batteries)
- If you are connecting multiple batteries, daisy-chain them together first (battery 1 to battery 2, etc.) using normal CAT5 ethernet cables, and plug the Victron cable into the first or last free port in the chain.
- Ensure the terminator (supplied with your battery) is plugged into the last remaining free port on the last battery, or use the Victron blue terminator (supplied with your Victron device) plugged into the second BMS-Can port on the Victron device, to close the data loop.
Victron console settings
Once plugged in, you need to tell the Victron device to listen to the battery.
- Open your Victron Remote Console or touchscreen.
- Navigate to Settings → Connectivity → VE.Can port → CAN-bus profile.
- Change the profile to CAN-bus BMS LV (500 kbit/s).
- Do NOT select "VE.Can & Lynx Ion BMS" - this is for Victron's own batteries.
Connect to Bluetooth
Once the menu is set, connect to the battery's Bluetooth via the TITAN Lithium app (see the TITAN App page for download links). This wakes up the comms section of the BMS so data can flow over both Bluetooth and the RJ-45 ports. You only need to do it once - a live connection on the comms ports keeps that section awake from then on.
Enabling DVCC (the brain)
Distributed Voltage and Current Control (DVCC) allows the TITAN battery to control the charging logic of the entire system.
- Go to Settings → System Setup → Charge Control → DVCC.
- Enable DVCC: turn this ON.
- Limit charge current (optional): if you have a small battery bank but a large current charge input, switch this on. The BMS will control how much current is allowed through the system.
- SVS (Shared Voltage Sense): turn this OFF. The BMS provides the most accurate voltage reading directly.
- STS (Shared Temperature Sense): turn this OFF. The battery monitors its own temperature internally.
Verification
If successful, the battery should appear in your Device List.
- Go to the main menu.
- Look for a device named Generic BMS or TITAN Lithium (depending on firmware version).
- Click on it. You should see live stats for voltage (V), current (A), state of charge (%) and temperature (°C).
Troubleshooting
- Don't see the battery? Check your cable type. A standard LAN cable often works for monitoring but may not allow full control. Ensure you are using the correct CANbus cable sold by TITAN, and that you have connected to the battery's Bluetooth via the TITAN app to wake the comms section of the BMS.
- System charging too fast? Double-check your DVCC settings and ensure "Limit Charge Current" is active if your charger exceeds the battery's recommended max charge rate (see your battery label).
What DVCC changes, and the "always in bulk" question
This is the most common call we get about Victron systems, so it is worth setting out plainly. Once DVCC is on, the battery owns the charge profile. The BMS tells the Cerbo how much current it wants, the Cerbo passes that to your chargers, and the absorption, float and rebulk figures set in each MPPT largely stop being the deciding factor.
That is why an MPPT can sit in bulk while the battery reads 90-100%. When the pack is full the BMS holds it between roughly 14.0V and 14.2V, so the charger keeps being asked for current and the stage label follows that request. Nothing is stuck and nothing is being overcharged.
Watch pack voltage, not state of charge. A battery sitting near 14.2V and easing back to 14.0V is a full, healthy battery, whatever the percentage says.
How much current the BMS asks for
The BMS works from the highest single cell in the pack rather than the pack average, and steps its request down as that cell fills. The coefficient applies to the BMS current rating, so the right-hand column is what a 250A battery asks for.
| Highest cell voltage | Coefficient | 250A BMS asks for |
|---|---|---|
| Below 2.30V | 0.1 | 25A (recovery trickle) |
| 2.30V to 3.45V | 0.8 | 200A |
| 3.45V to 3.55V | 0.5 | 125A |
| 3.55V to 3.59V | 0.2 | 50A |
| 3.59V to 3.70V | 0.1 | 25A |
| Above 3.70V | 0 | 0A |
Each band releases 50mV below the level that triggered it, which is the hysteresis that stops the request flickering at a boundary. If any single cell climbs more than 150mV above its overvoltage protection threshold, the request drops straight to zero. Batteries in parallel add together, so two 250A packs in the 0.5 band ask for 250A between them rather than 125A.
Temperature sits on top of all of this. Below 0°C the request is cut to 0.1C, as it is above 60°C, and charging stops altogether if a cell goes 10°C beyond its high-temperature threshold.
The practical upshot for solar: the BMS does not ask for less than 125A until cells pass 3.55V, and very few leisure arrays produce 125A. So if you think DVCC is throttling your solar, it almost certainly is not. Your array output is the limit, not the battery.
If your MPPTs are also linked over Bluetooth
If your MPPTs are joined in a VE.Smart Network at the same time as running DVCC, you have two things trying to do the same job. VE.Smart shared voltage and current sense exists for systems without a GX device, and DVCC already handles it. Running both gives the chargers conflicting instructions, and erratic charge stages are the usual symptom.
Take the MPPTs out of the VE.Smart Network and leave the wired connection to the GX device doing the work. MPPTs connect over VE.Direct, or VE.Can on the larger models.
Worth checking before you call anyone
- Is DVCC on? If it is, the charge figures in each MPPT are not what is driving things.
- Are the MPPTs also in a VE.Smart Network? Take them out of it.
- SVS and STS should both be off. The battery supplies its own voltage and temperature.
- Read pack voltage rather than percentage.
- Compare your combined array output against the figures above. If it is lower, there is nothing to fix.
Raising the rebulk offset in the MPPT, say from 0.1V to 0.4V, does lengthen the gap before bulk restarts, and it is worth doing on a system running without DVCC. With DVCC on it will make little difference, because the MPPT is no longer the one deciding.
The side effect: a percentage that slowly drifts
There is one consequence of the DVCC ceiling that is worth understanding, because it turns up later as a separate-looking complaint.
The BMS re-references its percentage reading when a cell reaches the top of its range, which needs roughly 14.4V at the terminals. The DVCC cycle described above tops out at 14.2V, and Victron's default lithium profile does the same by a different route. Neither quite gets there. So the counter never gets its reference point, small errors accumulate with nothing to correct them, and after a few weeks the percentage in the app starts disagreeing with reality.
The battery is completely fine. The counter has simply lost its bearings. Correcting it takes one deliberate full charge, and the fix is the same on any charger rather than anything Victron-specific.
Technical data (for installers)
- Communication protocol: CAN-bus
- Baud rate: 500 kbit/s
- Compatible Victron profiles: Pylontech / Generic CAN-bus BMS
- Recommended charge voltage: 14.2V-14.4V (controlled automatically by BMS via DVCC)
- Float voltage: 13.5V-13.8V
- Cable pinout: see below.
Installing using other protocols?
We support RS485 (1363.3), RS485 (MODBUS), generic CAN bus profiles & NMEA 2000, but these need specific instructions to install - please contact us so we can assist.
