diy solar

diy solar

I'm DONE with MPP Solar

robby said:
Serial data transmission is much more reliable than USB.
Click to expand...
Meh... after fighting with flashing some firmware due to serial communicatitons issues for a couple weeks I have to disagree. Undocumented parity requirements, bespoke (and broken) usb-serial drivers for computers to deal with each chipset, and the lack of auto-negotiation baud rates make me feel differently.
robby said:
A lot of commercial equipment still uses serial connections because of that.
Click to expand...
Electronics rely on serial communications because it is cheap and it has only really been ~5-6 years that better solutions have really been viable at a reasonable price point. Everything really should have an internal web server these days (that can be locked down and out).
robby said:
If data transmission speed is not a factor then serial ports are a good choice.
Click to expand...
Serial is good for ubiquity, but honestly that is about it. You shouldn't need low-level debugging tools to just communicate with a device. Proprietary [windows-only] software makes it significantly worse.
 
SparkyJJO said:
The only USB to serial I trust is FTDI - every other USB I've tried has been sketchy at best. FTDI always works.
Click to expand...
Yeah, the challenge there are the number of fake "FTDI" adapters out there that FTDI broke compatibility with.
 
Shimmy said:
Meh... after fighting with flashing some firmware due to serial communicatitons issues for a couple weeks I have to disagree. Undocumented parity requirements, bespoke (and broken) usb-serial drivers for computers to deal with each chipset, and the lack of auto-negotiation baud rates make me feel differently.

Electronics rely on serial communications because it is cheap and it has only really been ~5-6 years that better solutions have really been viable at a reasonable price point. Everything really should have an internal web server these days (that can be locked down and out).

Serial is good for ubiquity, but honestly that is about it. You shouldn't need low-level debugging tools to just communicate with a device. Proprietary [windows-only] software makes it significantly worse.
Click to expand...
Well your going up against just about every industrial equipment manufacturers assessment.
You will be hard pressed to find any kind of very expensive or even lower priced industrial machine that does not have serial ports.
The cheaper it is, is the more likely it is that it will have USB ports.
 
robby said:
Well your going up against just about every industrial equipment manufacturers assessment.
You will be hard pressed to find any kind of very expensive or even lower priced industrial machine that does not have serial ports.
The cheaper it is, is the more likely it is that it will have USB ports.
Click to expand...

Yeah this is true, I'm an IT technician and manage labs at work, I always keep a USB-to-Serial adapter cord in my backpack wherever I go hehe... And keep the specific serial cords for each device in the racks close by each one so I know which cord goes to which brand device.

Some racks I have IP-to-Serial switches and just leave several serial cables plugged into a bunch of devices so I can telnet to the serial port I want and access a device via serial if their normal networking failed. Or I can reset a device and still get to it to configure an IP onto it again, without having to go to the lab to do it.
 
Last edited:
ghostwriter66 said:
So I say this after having hooked up well over 25 MPP Solar systems at work ... so this is not one of those bitching for no reason type things (well it actually is) ... BUT .....

The MPP Solar is an excellent system - until its not.

Until you need customer support.

Until you try to read one of their "ENGLISH" manuals.

Until you try to figure out why in 2022 they are still using Serial cables with RG45 connectors on the end (Seriously - have they never heard of a USB connector!!) ...

There's just toooo many lighter, better, faster, cheaper systems coming on board to go thru this MPP headache any longer ... Sure back in the day when MPP Solar was really the only "slightly better than the rest" I would defend them and basically say that there wasn't really a choice out there that we could all afford .. but there is NOW -- and several of them ...

Manuals are mostly wrong - you waste several hours trying to figure out what they actually mean

OMG their WiFi software WATCHPOWER is sooo bad its not even funny - you can't even see anything you need... and everything comes out in PDF format instead of Excel...

There customer support is random at best -- and typically they are answering a question that you are not asking.... Their first answer is always - have you read the manual -- if you say Yes then they say - well tell us exactly what the issue is (which we already had) .. then they send you a response involving UNICORNs and Candy but not a solution...

AGAIN - Who the hell is using a serial to RG45 cable in the last decade ?? -- did they find a huge supply from 1990 they have to use up ... ??? ZERO of our laptops out here have an RG45 connector to plug into ...

My list actually goes on and on .. but all I can say is - before you start drinking the MPP Solar Kool-Aid you might want to look around at other alternatives ... For me personally - I'm done -- your playing Russian roulette hoping that if/when your system has any issues - that someone on YOUTUBE has made a solution because I promise you support is zero ...

Again - everyone of my MPP solar's are still up and running -- BUT it has been an "ass-pain" to get some of them to do what they say they can do.

aaaaggghhhhhhh
Click to expand...
OK so what hybrid inverter vendors would you recommend then? Is Voltronics better??
 
SparkyJJO said:
Voltronics makes the MPP Solar inverters.
Click to expand...

I just do think that ALMOST ALL hybrid inverters / AIO manufactured by Chinese companies come from one blueprint then cloned by the others.

Perhaps with the exception of Deye (but it looks like a Sol-Ark; maybe it's just me).

I have this AIO and it has these ubiquitous LCD, bottom layout, and manual that are almost always at the same place at the same time.

Mobile Display Hybrid Solar Inverter | Anern

The mobile display solar inverter is designed by Anern and is an improved product based on the original product. Built-in 100A MPPT controller, pure sine wave solar inverter, output power factor 1. Contact us!
www.anerngroup.com www.anerngroup.com
 

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Shimmy said:
Meh... after fighting with flashing some firmware due to serial communicatitons issues for a couple weeks I have to disagree. Undocumented parity requirements, bespoke (and broken) usb-serial drivers for computers to deal with each chipset, and the lack of auto-negotiation baud rates make me feel differently.

Electronics rely on serial communications because it is cheap and it has only really been ~5-6 years that better solutions have really been viable at a reasonable price point. Everything really should have an internal web server these days (that can be locked down and out).

Serial is good for ubiquity, but honestly that is about it. You shouldn't need low-level debugging tools to just communicate with a device. Proprietary [windows-only] software makes it significantly worse.
Click to expand...
The advantage of the RJ45 is that the crimping tool is cheap and most DIY should be able to make a specialized cable per manufacturer wiring requirements to connect specific inverters and batteries. If manufacturers would use standard cables, USB might be the a better choice.
 
Bmbthomp said:
OK so what hybrid inverter vendors would you recommend then? Is Voltronics better??
Click to expand...

ghostwriter66 said:
So I say this after having hooked up well over 25 MPP Solar systems at work ... so this is not one of those bitching for no reason type things (well it actually is) ... BUT .....

The MPP Solar is an excellent system - until its not.

Until you need customer support.

Until you try to read one of their "ENGLISH" manuals.

Until you try to figure out why in 2022 they are still using Serial cables with RG45 connectors on the end (Seriously - have they never heard of a USB connector!!) ...

There's just toooo many lighter, better, faster, cheaper systems coming on board to go thru this MPP headache any longer ... Sure back in the day when MPP Solar was really the only "slightly better than the rest" I would defend them and basically say that there wasn't really a choice out there that we could all afford .. but there is NOW -- and several of them ...

Manuals are mostly wrong - you waste several hours trying to figure out what they actually mean

OMG their WiFi software WATCHPOWER is sooo bad its not even funny - you can't even see anything you need... and everything comes out in PDF format instead of Excel...

There customer support is random at best -- and typically they are answering a question that you are not asking.... Their first answer is always - have you read the manual -- if you say Yes then they say - well tell us exactly what the issue is (which we already had) .. then they send you a response involving UNICORNs and Candy but not a solution...

AGAIN - Who the hell is using a serial to RG45 cable in the last decade ?? -- did they find a huge supply from 1990 they have to use up ... ??? ZERO of our laptops out here have an RG45 connector to plug into ...

My list actually goes on and on .. but all I can say is - before you start drinking the MPP Solar Kool-Aid you might want to look around at other alternatives ... For me personally - I'm done -- your playing Russian roulette hoping that if/when your system has any issues - that someone on YOUTUBE has made a solution because I promise you support is zero ...

Again - everyone of my MPP solar's are still up and running -- BUT it has been an "ass-pain" to get some of them to do what they say they can do.

aaaaggghhhhhhh
Click to expand...
I can easily understand your frustration and it is justified. However, anyone that has installed 25 MPP Solar inverters would have more knowledge and experience than the normal support person answering phone calls. Generally, a support person is someone that has read the manual and sometimes have attended a class to be certified. They are not usually engineers and not usually anyone with extensive knowledge of installing inverters. Usually, if the answer is not in the manual, support don't know and usually have limited resources to find an answer.

If you think that the MPP Solar inverters are excellent, until they are not, you should probably consider staying with this manufacturer especially since your are able to keep them working. Another inverter even if it is more expensive may actually be worse plus you need to go through another learning curve to understand all of it necessary adjustments, settings, limitations and quirks.

Not everything that you learned about the MPP Solar inverters was in the manual or provided by support, most of it is years of hands on experience, advice from peers, testing, trial and error to see what works and what don't work. Not sure it worth starting over with another brand, but that is only a decision that you can make.
 
These MPP/Growatt/Victronic systems remind me of VCR programming in the late 80s. They even have the fixed LCD screens just like it. For those of you that weren't around 40 years ago for that, it's exactly the same technology that these chinese inverters are using.
 
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