Safiery STAR range demo system complete – Cerbo GX MK2 and GX Touch 70Powder-coated demonstration board with STAR switching, STAR-Tank and Victron GX

Overview

Safiery's complete STAR demo system is a powder-coated board that shows the STAR family working together with Victron monitoring. It carries a STAR-Light controller, a STAR-Switch Custom, an Icon keypad and an SP8 keypad, a STAR-Tank radar sensor, Ruuvi wireless sensors and LED strips on an NMEA 2000 backbone, together with a Victron Cerbo GX MK2 and a GX Touch 70 screen. Wireless and CAN switching, dimming and tank readings can therefore be shown and operated on one assembled board.

• STAR-Power, STAR-Light and STAR-Rover controllers, 10–32V DC
• Fuseless outputs open a short circuit within 80µs
• Bluetooth, CAN/NMEA 2000 and Matter Wi-Fi in parallel
• Up to six switch buttons per output channel
• Set up from a phone browser, no central hub
• 5-year Safiery warranty on the STAR family

What's in the kit

• 1 × Safiery STAR-Light
• 1 × Safiery STAR-Switch Custom
• 1 × Safiery STAR-Switch Icon keypad
• 1 × Safiery STAR-Switch SP8
• 1 × Safiery STAR-Tank
• 1 × Victron Energy Cerbo GX MK2
• 1 × Victron Energy GX Touch 70

How it works

STAR has no hub or master unit. Loads are wired to a controller output, while switches only send commands: a Bluetooth switch broadcasts its unique UUID, a CAN keypad sends its CAN ID and button number, and every controller programmed to listen for that address switches or dims the matching channel. Keypad LEDs follow the real channel state, even when the channel was operated over Bluetooth.

Each channel accepts up to six buttons from any mix of Bluetooth switches, CAN keypads, STAR-Switch Custom inputs and touch screens. In dual-channel mode one button cycles through channel A, channel B and both, which suits white/amber LED strips; RGBW groups take their colour from the phone setup.

Controllers and switches

STAR-Power has six 30A on/off and six 10A dimmable channels, positive switching only, plus twelve manual backup buttons. STAR-Light has twelve 10A channels, eight dimmable, two RGBW groups and 40A in total. STAR-Rover is the compact IP65 unit with four 15A dimmable channels. STAR-Light and STAR-Rover channels can each be set to positive or negative switching. Switches range from battery Bluetooth types to IP65 and IP67 CAN keypads.

Installation and wiring

Safiery designs STAR for the rear of vehicles, motorhomes, vans and caravans, not the engine bay or the driver's cab, below 2m from the ground. With positive switching the load negative goes to chassis or battery, never back to the controller; negative-switched loads need their own fused positive. Supply cable and maximum fuse: STAR-Power 16mm²/150A, STAR-Light 8mm²/50A, STAR-Rover 6mm²/50A.

CAN keypads use an NMEA 2000-style backbone of up to 40m with two 120Ω terminators at its ends, drops of 6m at most and power fed near the middle. Each keypad on one network needs a different letter ID, A to P, which the controllers use to tell keypads apart.

Programming and integration

Controllers are programmed over Wi-Fi: holding the left button for 10 seconds opens an access point, and a phone browser reaches the setup page at 172.24.24.1. Channels are defined first, then switches assigned. Bluetooth, CAN, NMEA 2000, MQTT and Matter services are enabled individually; NMEA 2000 links STAR to Victron equipment and chartplotters. Firmware updates are installed over the air.

Questions and answers