Solar PV Monitoring/Automation Thread

Midlakelands

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119159034#Comment_119159034

On some of the loggers you can access the hidden menu by going to http://<YOURIP>/config_hide.html might be worth a try?

Metric Tensor

Thanks Midlakelands. I tried and it doesn't work.

championc

Whey hew, works on both of my Sofar inverters. So I assume that I could point the secondary address at a Pi (or whatever) of my own ? And does anyone have a script or Node-Red function to parse the incoming data ?

irishchris

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119159376#Comment_119159376

Nice, where did you read this Johnathon? In terms of remote configuration I assume you mean like charge discharge settings through the Solis cloud app?

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119160954#Comment_119160954

Yeah. It already works on RAI series inverters through the Solis Cloud and Solis Techview apps, but not there for the RHI series. Saw it mentioned on the Solis Owners FB group.

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119160705#Comment_119160705

Is this the secondary server, rather than Modbus polling via pysolarmanv5?

SD_DRACULA

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119161029#Comment_119161029

I actually asked Solis support about this and they said it will more than likely not happen on the 5G inverters which we have because 6G will be out in the 2nd half of the year and they basically can't be bothered adding new features to old tech.

Metric Tensor

Has anyone successfully asked Solis support to increase the polling frequency from 5m to 1m?

championc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119161639#Comment_119161639

There's no issue with polling at all. Data is sent out about every 10 seconds.

The app just takes on reading every 5 mins and displays that. So it's the Solis Cloud App that is restricting things

Metric Tensor

I wonder is there a way I can intercept and then interpret those 10 second packages within my own network. From a quick look with Wireshark they appear to be TLS encrypted - although I have very limited experience in this area so I could be misunderstanding what I'm looking at.

SD_DRACULA

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119161639#Comment_119161639

Yes but not solis, email these guys and ask: customerservice@solarmanpv.com

Give them the SN of the logger and that should be it.

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119161739#Comment_119161739

Interesting.. the existing data loggers are not encrypted, and just send updates in v5 format to 47.88.8.200 via TCP. Send me on a pcap file if you want me to take a deeper look for you.

SD_DRACULA

Some good news on my LAN logger, solis sent me a new one with ME-121001-V1.0.6(202107141620) on it and now I seem to be able to use pysolarmanv5 to read the data (haven't tried writing yet)

Not sure if the protocol being blank has anything to do with it:

Metric Tensor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119161840#Comment_119161840

I'm really new to this so I will see can I do that. Thanks a mill.

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119161914#Comment_119161914

New firmware or a new logger?

Metric Tensor

I just sent you a pcap file by pm Jonathan. Hopefully it works / makes sense!!

SD_DRACULA

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119162035#Comment_119162035

New logger but doesn't look any different.

The old one I might have bricked, they sent me some FW to update manually and it just won't work.

But, the FW that came with the new one is still causing issues, maybe not the latest, saw crazy values like 714kwh generated today (the worst day in weeks ha) but then again I probably didn't leave it on enough to settle down.

championc

Surely the logger just sends what the Inverter sends it. I'd say the logger is just a relay

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119163072#Comment_119163072

The logger is the Modbus master and does the polling. Inverter is dumb.

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119163072#Comment_119163072

What registers were you polling on the sofar, I didnt get anything from mine when i poked them, but didnt try very hard seeing as I had the rs485 connection already.

Midlakelands

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119162608#Comment_119162608

I also had crazy numbers with one of the many firmware versions I tried with that lan logger. Another one to watch out for is the ntp protocol not working with some firmware also. Really interested to see if you can get it working as it drove me nuts

SD_DRACULA

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119164625#Comment_119164625

Spoke too soon, tried to flash the FW with the latest file sent from Solis and I think I bricked the second one, FW reverted back to 2017.

These loggers are pure garbage it seems. Problem is they are not even solis ones, they are solarman.

About to give up on the "LAN" reliability, really hate wifi for this sort of stuff but I placed a mini router right beside the inverter fed by a cable, so I think it will be enough.

Metric Tensor

I stumbled across a post of yours elsewhere SD_Dracula where you were considering getting a device that allows two Modbus masters address the one slave. Did you ever go any further down this route?

With my "new style" wifi stick that sends encrypted data and has no open ports I might have to go down that route.

SD_DRACULA

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119166324#Comment_119166324

I gave it up but @reklamos came up with a pretty cool solution, a relay that toggles between your own modbus adapter and the logger, you get to read the data and also send to the cloud.

Or you could probably do without the logger completely and do your own polling but you will lose the cloud functionality.

reklamos

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119166324#Comment_119166324

I used it like that for almost a year. The problem is that only one master can be active at any given time otherwise you get corrupted replays and data that does not make sense. I had this done with esp8266, relay hat and automation. Since solis modbus port provides 5V I was powering ESP directly from it. The automation would switch relay to one side to power my modbus device and read the data, once the data is read it will switch to other side to power on WiFi stick, allow it to boot, connect to wifi and send data to cloud. I was pulling data every minute.

Metric Tensor

Did you post the steps you took anywhere reklamos?

It sounds like exactly what I need to do!

Edit: Why did you stop doing it that way?

reklamos

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119166796#Comment_119166796

Sorry no steps. Esp8266 and relay hat I bought from Aliexpress. I've flashed them with esphome since I have it integrated with HomeAssistant and used NodeRed for automation. I used elfin-ee11 RS485 to Ethernet for modbus. Here is a script that I wrote to poll the registers https://github.com/NosIreland/solismon2

I stopped using it after @Jonathan released his code that allowed reading registers directly from WiFi stick. Just had to modify my code.

irishchris

only getting into the basics so far of this but have 33,35 and 96 registers working good now thanks to the immense help of @connesha who tirelessly guided me through it. lots more to learn but will make big difference for my system having this ability to remotely do this. thanks also to @graememk for loads help along the way too with my system and to all who started this and just goes to show what decent community can do

Geeyfds53573

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119172270#Comment_119172270

Great stuff that will make a huge difference- I just have a scheduled task every 15 mins to switch to feed in priority if SOC>95

works fantastic

DrPhilG

OK, I've been reluctant to jump into this thread for fear of being overwhelmed...

I'm no expert in automation, at all. But I do have a lot of smart stuff around the house, lights, blinds, garage and gate etc. All connecting to Alexa and various automations running.

I have 2 things on my wish list re solar.

1 - is there any EASY way to get any kind of automation from the Solis inverter? In an ideal world I'd be able to adjust battery charge times remotely, even better if it would do so itself based on the weather forecast. Any time I've seen this mentioned though it is followed by a load of stuff about Raspberry Pi etc and I just check out.

So is there anything very basic and easy? Or is it all in/out?

2 - if number 1 is beyond me, can someone recommend a smart thermostat? If its a particularly hot day my attic gets very stuffy and the inverter core temp hits almost 60°. I have a fan up there that I can activate remotely, but that means logging into the inverter, checking the temp, then turning on the fan. I'd like the fan to turn on automatically if the attic ambient temp hits a certain point.