diy solar

diy solar

esp32 automatic inverter restart device

jbatx

I make stuff with things
Joined
Jun 8, 2021
Messages
184
Location
Austin, TX
I'm thinking of using another esp32 to power cycle my inverter in the event of it hitting low voltage cut off AND AFTER a reasonable return voltage has been reached. The property is remote and I'm not always there so having something like this would be really nice. ...Basically a device that prevents me from driving, hiking, flipping a switch. We use the property for guests too.

aaaaanyway, I think it'd work like this, in the simplest terms:

With a couple of the various higher voltage sensing devices compatible with esp:
1. detect inverter output_voltage
2. detect inverter input_voltage
...I think this would be the least intrusive/dangerous to the inverter as opposed to some closer integration with the inverter.
3. series wire into rocker the switch using a relay
4. The logic in pseudo-python:

power_cycle():
open relay
delay 3000
close relay


loop():

if output_voltage is null
if input_voltage >= <return_voltage>
power_cycle()



I'd also be logging everything to my existing AWS IoT Core setup. ...until I drop that for Blynk.

Total cost of this hardware would be about $16 including the enclosure. Build, programming and install time would be maybe 2 - 3 hours


What do you all think? What would you do differently?
 
...follow up, my inverter is supposed to automatically restore output power once input is has been restored. However, I'm not sure it's actually doing that.
 
Well, I'm dropping this project now that I know what the issue is.

However, I am going to connect my 9000w generator to the system and have it automatically start in the event of a power loss due to lvc and shut off when the inverter restarts. I'll post about that separately.
 
I did something very similar with a esp8266 for my mining rig. Tried and tried to get it to keep mining couldn't figure out which riser card was causing the issue and would lose hours sometimes half a day before I noticed it was down. I put a split core transformer reading Amps fed to a ads1115 and when the current falls off I trigger a relay to restart the machine. Been running pretty well last 2 days and crunching away now.
 
Back
Top