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Is Solar Assistant-Raspberry PI a reliable remote monitoring/control solution

apctjb

apctjb

Solar Enthusiast
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I have 2 Growatt SPF 3000TL LVM (in parallel) connected to 3 280AH LiFePO4 battery banks (also in parallel) each with a separate Daly BMS. This set up is for an off grid vacation home where I am gone 1/2 the year.

I have been using Growatt ShineServer cloud/web based monitoring, which has worked without problem the last couple of years but because my batteries do not communicate with the Growatt inverters I am not able to monitor individual battery /cell voltages or SOC.

I have read that Solar Assistant now supports Growatt SPF inverters and Daly BMS. I have also read about problems with SA/Raspberry PI crashing and needing rebooting, etc. I need something that is reliably going to work for the 6 months I am away.

So questions to all the SA/Pi users.

1) Is SA and Pi a reliable solution for remote monitoring/control?
2) Can SA monitor 2 inverters and 3 BMS all at the same time (Doesn't the PI only have 2 USB input ports, wouldn't I need like 5?)
3) What version Raspberry PI should I get or should I consider the Orange Pi which it appears is what SA is using for its pre bundled package?
 
Great endorsement. So how do you deal with the limited USB ports on the PI, use an external USB hub?
 
1) Absolutely. Mine has been on for almost 18 months now, with the only reboots when it looses power.
2) The Pi 4 has 4 USB ports. You should only need communication from the 2 inverters, and your 1 Master BMS. I don't think the Daly BMS's have communications with each other, which is the downside here. Solar Assistant is looking for 1 BMS, being a Master, and any other BMS's are "Slave" units, sending all their data to the master, which then the master relays to Solar Assistant. Not sure how yours would handle that.
3) Thats going to be up to you. Getting the Pi through them makes it easier though.
 
The new Solar Assistant pie has only 3 usb ports, one on three sides. You can run a power hub if you need more USB ports The mini hdmi port is gone. Still has Ethernet port which works very well. T-Mobile updated the router and SA wouldn’t stay connected on Wi-Fi so I just connected it with a cat 8 cable and it’s rock solid and faster. Problem with my router. I probably look at it from my phone 3 times a day. Every once in a while the iPhone 12 won’t make changes remotely so just reboot the phone. It’s happened on two different phones. On cloudy days I can make changes or adjustments to charge from the grid during off peak hours and do this from anywhere. If you bms’s are the same brand/models and listed as supported it’s likely that you can run more than one bms. SA will also total the battery stats.
 
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apctjb said:
1) Is SA and Pi a reliable solution for remote monitoring/control?
2) Can SA monitor 2 inverters and 3 BMS all at the same time (Doesn't the PI only have 2 USB input ports, wouldn't I need like 5?)
3) What version Raspberry PI should I get or should I consider the Orange Pi which it appears is what SA is using for its pre bundled package?
Click to expand...
1. It's about as reliable as your power supply and internet and local network connections. Where I've had trouble is my sometimes flakey local WiFi. So now I have it connected with an ethernet data cable. Don't skimp on the Pi power supply.

2. SA, at present (it may change in future), can only monitor one source of battery data, be that a BMS or a shunt or via an inverter. So if your battery's BMSs are connected to each other and one acts as the main comms connection to the SA Pi then yes it can report on each battery, provided it is a compatible BMS/comms. But if you are hoping to connect each battery BMS individually to the SA Pi then at present SA cannot do that. Having SA monitor more than one source of battery data is an oft requested feature and is on the long list of features to add. There is no time frame for this feature.

3. I bought mine direct from SA, it was just easier as it was my first Pi and I wanted to shorten the learning curve. It was a Pi 3b. SA has guidance on hardware requirements here:

Load SolarAssistant on Raspberry Pi

Flash SolarAssistant on to a Raspberry Pi in a few easy steps.
solar-assistant.io solar-assistant.io

I would stay with the officially supported models as listed. Note that the Orange Pi is not supported. That doesn't mean it won't work but that SA has stated it's not going to provide support for it.
 
I just installed SA last weekend. Bought the Pi kit. Received an Orange Pi with 3 usb ports and an hdmi port. Came with a nice power supply that attaches to my battery buss so it will never loose power. Works very well
 
Bought the Pi kit. Received an Orange Pi
Click to expand...
Approximately how long did it take from placing order to receiving the kit. Any idea why they are using the Orange Pi?
 
Only took 1 week from South Africa. Arrived DHL. The Orange Pi is available on Amazon $54. SA has the option of power supplies and the DC one is very nice. Haven’t tried to source that one. Watts247 is a distributor but last time I checked they were out of stock. Make sure you order the correct inverter AND BMS cables as shipping is $45. I did not and had to order my BMS cable from Watts247.
 
I purchased two because I thought the SA croaked but it turned out to be my router so now I’ve got a spare(both listed to me). The first had 4 USB ports. Got both from Watt247 and both times it was about 3 days to CA. Do get the cable to the inverter(s) from them as many cables from Amazon /Wallmart won’t work. Don’t put any additional load on the pie because the down converter power supply is already maxed out ( it gets hot as it is). When you power down your inverters, disconnect the cables first because the pie may try to back feed power to the control board of the inverters (one inverter stays on & fault code of not seeing it’s twin (LV6548).
 
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One word of caution. I run a domoticz system 5+ years on a RPI with great success. But I have experienced regular failures of the SD cards used. First I didn’t understand but after some reading on the internet it became clear. SD cards have a limited amount of Read-Writes you can do so they will fail after time. If you have an older one which has been used before it can happen quick. When it is a new one from a good quality they can last long. The longest I have done so far with a good quality card is 2+ years. Shortest time is 2 months. Keep this in the back of your mind and prepare a backup with the system is critical.

Good news I have the RPI 3B already running 24/7 for the 5+ years. Only stopped on power outage and SD cards failures
 
That’s what I thought my problem was but it was the router. I had replaced the original card with a SanDisk ultra. Hopefully it will hold up a long time. What constitutes a rewrite? Daly, constantly, each time you look at it?
 
.

Pi problems: trying to use a too small of a powered wall-wart and those SD cards wearing out from read/writes.

Operating systems are constantly logging status of everything they are doing, plus the software they run has their own activities (logs, checks). Use a wifi bandwidth usage monitoring program sometime and see the huge amount of 'talk' on a network between machines when you're not doing anything specifically.

.
 
Great input! Regarding the question of how best to deal with 5 USB cables (2 inverters, 3 Daly BMS) going to a Pi with 3 or 4 USB inputs. On the SA website I see they recommend combining the Daly USB/4cables together. Others have recommended simply using a USB hub. Curious to hear what approach others are using successfully... 1665749597950.png
 
For the SD card, there are options to use a so called RAM drive to reduce the r/w to the SD card. Search the web how to do this. I now try with Sandisk Max endurance cards.
I have also an VenusOS installed on a RPI in my camper to monitor all victron equipment. I needed 5 USB ports and have 4 on the RPI. I resolved this by using a 4 port (unpowered) USB hub. This worked for me without issues to connect 4x UART converters to.

RS485 communication protocol is written for devices to work on a network. Meaning each device can be setup with its own device address 01, 02, 03 …. The device can then talk to each other and data can be read from different devices using one interface on a master computer. However it requires each device is setup with an unique address in the network. I don’t know if this is possible on the DALY BMS. If the RS485 device address can be changed it is possible to use a single RS485 interface. See an example of a RS485 network below.

RS485-NetworkExample2.jpg
 
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1665751350145.png
Click to expand...

Thanks for detailed explanation, very helpful. According to the SA website it appears it is possible to assign each Daly with a unique address. Using a hub sounds like an easy approach. Can a hub be used with USB/RS485 cables or only USB/UART cables. (sorry if this is a dumb question, this is all Greek to me...)

1665751508457.png
 
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