Monitor JK BMS with Solar Assistant?

[wattmatters]

Do you have your victron shunt on your solar assistant?

I do (I don't have JK BMS though). I have it connected using the Victron cable to my Solar Assistant Raspberry Pi.

It works and was easy to set up but there are some issues with the data in SA.

The battery dashboard shows the data from the Victron Smart Shunt correctly but not all the data is making it to the charts tab, e.g.

These charts are using the smart shunt data:
- Battery power
- Battery SOC

These charts still seem to be using the data from my inverter:
- Battery current
- Battery voltage

I mentioned it to Pierre at SA and he has acknowledged it as an issue that needs to be sorted. No idea when such corrections are made.

 

[Huck]

I mentioned it to Pierre at SA and he has acknowledged it as an issue that needs to be sorted. No idea when such corrections are made.

I’m wondering the same ??

 

[Fahmula]

Do you have your victron shunt on your solar assistant?

Yeah I do.

 

[Fahmula]

I would have loved to use Solar Assistant but it does not address Solar Charge Controllers (IE MIdnite Solar SCCs) which have fully published and useable ModBus + as well as many others, including "Stand Alone" Inverters as it is focused on limited AIO's only. It's really a shame as it limits (hog ties) Solar Assistant.

Would be awesome if they added support for solar charge controllers. They added support for the Victron smart shunt so I don't see why they can't do the same with the Victron SCC and others.

 

[Fahmula]

I do (I don't have JK BMS though). I have it connected using the Victron cable to my Solar Assistant Raspberry Pi.

It works and was easy to set up but there are some issues with the data in SA.

The battery dashboard shows the data from the Victron Smart Shunt correctly but not all the data is making it to the charts tab, e.g.

These charts are using the smart shunt data:
- Battery power
- Battery SOC

These charts still seem to be using the data from my inverter:
- Battery current
- Battery voltage

I mentioned it to Pierre at SA and he has acknowledged it as an issue that needs to be sorted. No idea when such corrections are made.

Hopefully he sort this out soon.

 

[adrian1234]

hy
i have solar assistant too and the jk bms on my battery pack, i,ve tried a ttl adapter directly on my r.pi. it,s conecting just for a couple of seconds then i get this message "invalid payload data received"......trying to reconect, conected and then again and again......doing so
Anyone, have an ideea what is wrong?

 

[Messier11]

Anyone with experience of Home Assistant that can provide some info on if there are any advantages with Solar Assistant vs Home Assistant?

 

[Fahmula]

Anyone with experience of Home Assistant that can provide some info on if there are any advantages with Solar Assistant vs Home Assistant?

I used both. Although I'm not sure if you mean using HA directly. I'm using SA with MQTT to HA so I can do automations like turning on my solar water heater backup switch when my batteries are full and there is excess solar.

 

[Huck]

hy
i have solar assistant too and the jk bms on my battery pack, i,ve tried a ttl adapter directly on my r.pi. it,s conecting just for a couple of seconds then i get this message "invalid payload data received"......trying to reconect, conected and then again and again......doing so
Anyone, have an ideea what is wrong?

Haven't seen that one yet. I can't help on that. I can only say go through this thread and see if any of what we have posted along the way works. If you can't find something I would Contact Pierre @ Solar Assistant. He's pretty responsive.

 

[Huck]

I used both. Although I'm not sure if you mean using HA directly. I'm using SA with MQTT to HA so I can do automations like turning on my solar water heater backup switch when my batteries are full and there is excess solar.

Are you plugged to battery power with that hot water heater or AC? Why don't you get a https://www.victronenergy.com/battery_protect set it and forget it?

 

[Fahmula]

Are you plugged to battery power with that hot water heater or AC? Why don't you get a https://www.victronenergy.com/battery_protect set it and forget it?

My solar water heater is a close loop system. It's not connected directly to my house solar system. What it has is an element for backup use incase there is no solar. I basically make the switch for the element smart so I can add it to HA. I made a simple automation that turns on the switch when the battery is >= 99% and turns it off at 95%.

This is not really needed as the water heater as it's own solar panel but it helps keeps the water temperature where I want it for much longer and also keeps my panels producing power.

 

[Maintman]

hy
i have solar assistant too and the jk bms on my battery pack, i,ve tried a ttl adapter directly on my r.pi. it,s conecting just for a couple of seconds then i get this message "invalid payload data received"......trying to reconect, conected and then again and again......doing so
Anyone, have an ideea what is wrong?

Have you tried a different ttl/usb adapter? Or check TX to RX connections and make sure they are correct?

 

[wattmatters]

Anyone with experience of Home Assistant that can provide some info on if there are any advantages with Solar Assistant vs Home Assistant?

They are different things and serve different purposes. There is some overlap, and there will be more in future when Solar Assistant adds more controllable entities to their Home Assistant integration, such as enabling inverter control settings to be managed from within HA.

I use SA to monitor my system and to make changes to inverter mode of operation or system settings if needed. I never use the display panel on the inverter.

I use HA to provide some monitoring in a different form, and to automate loads, automations which can use data from SA such as battery status, or solar PV output etc as part of the automation trigger logic.

SA has some limited automation control of operational mode built in, e.g. having it automatically change the inverter's mode of operation between SBU and Utility First depending on the battery SOC. But I think opening these controls up to HA will enable more sophisticated automation of the inverter's mode of operation. I already have some things in mind for this once I add extra storage and begin to run more of the home from the off-grid system. Mainly about the timing of when to use grid support to charge batteries. I can use solar forecast data to know that tomorrow will be a crummy solar day, so some overnight off-peak pre charge might be worth while.

 

[Messier11]

They are different things and serve different purposes. There is some overlap, and there will be more in future when Solar Assistant adds more controllable entities to their Home Assistant integration, such as enabling inverter control settings to be managed from within HA.

I use SA to monitor my system and to make changes to inverter mode of operation or system settings if needed. I never use the display panel on the inverter.

I use HA to provide some monitoring in a different form, and to automate loads, automations which can use data from SA such as battery status, or solar PV output etc as part of the automation trigger logic.

SA has some limited automation control of operational mode built in, e.g. having it automatically change the inverter's mode of operation between SBU and Utility First depending on the battery SOC. But I think opening these controls up to HA will enable more sophisticated automation of the inverter's mode of operation. I already have some things in mind for this once I add extra storage and begin to run more of the home from the off-grid system. Mainly about the timing of when to use grid support to charge batteries. I can use solar forecast data to know that tomorrow will be a crummy solar day, so some overnight off-peak pre charge might be worth while.

I used both. Although I'm not sure if you mean using HA directly. I'm using SA with MQTT to HA so I can do automations like turning on my solar water heater backup switch when my batteries are full and there is excess solar.

Thanks guys!!

I just briefly looked at the Victron implementation in HA, not sure how much settings you can change, but if it was possible to change settings etc it just seems like you should be able to do "everything". HA is of course fantastic after that to automate everything, depending on available power etc.

 

[Maintman]

I do (I don't have JK BMS though). I have it connected using the Victron cable to my Solar Assistant Raspberry Pi.

It works and was easy to set up but there are some issues with the data in SA.

The battery dashboard shows the data from the Victron Smart Shunt correctly but not all the data is making it to the charts tab, e.g.

These charts are using the smart shunt data:
- Battery power
- Battery SOC

These charts still seem to be using the data from my inverter:
- Battery current
- Battery voltage

I mentioned it to Pierre at SA and he has acknowledged it as an issue that needs to be sorted. No idea when such corrections are made.

Is it possible to use the victron shunt and jk bms at the same time?

 

[wattmatters]

Is it possible to use the victron shunt and jk bms at the same time?

Do you mean have both feeding data into Solar Assistant? In SA you have a drop down menu from which to choose the source of your battery data and it doesn't provide for more than one option at a time:



Of course you can physically run them together as independent monitoring systems.

I guess if you had the full Victron connectivity in place then you could perhaps merge the system data with Home Assistant using both the Victron and Solar Assistant HA integrations.

 

[Maintman]

Do you mean have both feeding data into Solar Assistant? In SA you have a drop down menu from which to choose the source of your battery data and it doesn't provide for more than one option at a time:

View attachment 101432

Of course you can physically run them together as independent monitoring systems.

I guess if you had the full Victron connectivity in place then you could perhaps merge the system data with Home Assistant using both the Victron and Solar Assistant HA integrations.

Yes that's what I would like to see. Maybe something the guys at SA could look into.

 

[Maintman]

Do you mean have both feeding data into Solar Assistant? In SA you have a drop down menu from which to choose the source of your battery data and it doesn't provide for more than one option at a time:

View attachment 101432

Of course you can physically run them together as independent monitoring systems.

I guess if you had the full Victron connectivity in place then you could perhaps merge the system data with Home Assistant using both the Victron and Solar Assistant HA integrations.

Is there a way to recommend or request something from SA?

 

[wattmatters]

Is there a way to recommend or request something from SA?

Send them an email.
Contact listed at bottom of website:

Real-time solar monitoring from a Raspberry Pi | SolarAssistant Software

Real-time charts, analytics and power management from via a Raspberry pi - the most powerful, cost effective device on the planet.

solar-assistant.io

 

[Maintman]

Although now that I read up on the adapters I bought it seams a lot of people have the same problem with them not working all the time.

So I received the new usb/ttl adapter and it correcred the priblem. I no longer have issues with it not working sometimes.