phocos any-grid monitoring

[guzman_goav]

hi. a bit of background, i have been running a 5 Kw, 15*325Watt panels with a 5kw phocos any-grid inverter because my old "sofar solar" was a purely grid tied while this gives me the added benefit of being off-grid without batteries. so, when the grid is down, inverter keeps running the home as long as its sunshine.

this works but there is no monitoring. there is a stupid bluetooth app but it does not record anything and the inverter is in my attic so i cant just wait in there everyday to get the readings.

i have attempted to buy a rs-232 to USB cable and plugged that into a raspberry pi hoping i could read the serial data from there and put it in home-assistant but so far nothing.

i have tried multiple baud rates, other nonsense i tried to search for online but i get no data.

i asked a friend to try t reverse engineer the android app that maybe we could see what protocol or what data stream the serial data is getting but i am told its encrypted in the app so that is a bummer too..

my question to the community with anyone who owns a phocos device, how do you go about monitoring? i hear there is a windows desktop app but i am on linux and wine does not work with this app and i got no data anyways so i am stuck.

i could not find any datasheet or any documentation on rs-232 protocol on www.phocos.com website.

phocos has one any-cloud option but that requires a separate package and it is a cloud subscription which is not fun. i would rather pay once to get data into my home-assistant.

any help would be appreciated

 

[Gboyegs]

Hello, I found this reference online ..... I've also attached one for the Axpert Series (which is very similar), that has a few other useful commands that work for the Phocos

 

[guzman_goav]

so much thanks for the file. this will be useful.

my Pi broke down a few days after setting up the server and i dont know if its because of a broken USB cable or something. it is now showing USB overcurrent and solaranzeige server is not detecting any data.
i had made a couple of dashboards by just yolo-ing it but i have no PI to continue using it

i am still trying to find a replacement but sadly this experiment lasted as quickly as it started

 

[Gboyegs]

I am using Solaranzeige myself.... it has been running smoothly for nearly two weeks now
Did you use the cable that came with the Phocos Inverter? That's what I've used.... with a RS-232 to USB converter that has a FTDI chip...
have you tried formatting the SD card and starting afresh?

 

[guzman_goav]

yeah, the cable that came with the inverter with a cheapo amazon rs-232 to usb.

the Pi 3b+ is showing overcurrent in dmesg terminal which i read online means the usb controller on it has broken. i havent gotten my hands on a replacement so the project is stuck but i had fun for the few days it was running

 

[PetriKarj]

Thank you for the manuals, this will surely be very useful information when I get my new phocos up and running. The plan is to send the data using MQTT to home assistant. Most likely will write arduino code to handle the conversion to MQTT.

Do you know if POP<NN><cr> work on Phocos ? , i.e. Inverter output source priority

If it works would be handy to use battery and maximize flow back to grid when electricity hourly price is expensive. At least here in Finland I can get fixed utility price contract for consuming but full hourly grid price for feeding back to grid.

edit1: phocos rs232 looks very much like the pip protocol: https://watts247.com/manuals/mpp/PIP-HS_MS_MSX_HYBRIDV RS232 Protocol-C_20170822_.pdf

edit: looks like the pip protocol to mqtt device exists already saving a ton of work: https://github.com/softwarecrash/Solar2MQTT

 

[guzman_goav]

@PetriKarj hi. sorry for the late reply, was busy because my PI seems to break after a few days of use, USB goes wonky.
anyways, the solaranzeige is going great. i will try to share photos of my dashboard

 

[Verigak]

hi. a bit of background, i have been running a 5 Kw, 15*325Watt panels with a 5kw phocos any-grid inverter because my old "sofar solar" was a purely grid tied while this gives me the added benefit of being off-grid without batteries. so, when the grid is down, inverter keeps running the home as long as its sunshine.

this works but there is no monitoring. there is a stupid bluetooth app but it does not record anything and the inverter is in my attic so i cant just wait in there everyday to get the readings.

i have attempted to buy a rs-232 to USB cable and plugged that into a raspberry pi hoping i could read the serial data from there and put it in home-assistant but so far nothing.

i have tried multiple baud rates, other nonsense i tried to search for online but i get no data.

i asked a friend to try t reverse engineer the android app that maybe we could see what protocol or what data stream the serial data is getting but i am told its encrypted in the app so that is a bummer too..

my question to the community with anyone who owns a phocos device, how do you go about monitoring? i hear there is a windows desktop app but i am on linux and wine does not work with this app and i got no data anyways so i am stuck.

i could not find any datasheet or any documentation on rs-232 protocol on www.phocos.com website.

phocos has one any-cloud option but that requires a separate package and it is a cloud subscription which is not fun. i would rather pay once to get data into my home-assistant.

any help would be appreciated

Hi, I have the same inverter and I face the same problem with monitoring and connection with my smartphone or a computer. I find a software for raspberry pi. https://iccsoftware.co.za/about/shop/ but they told me it must be linked with a cable R232 to USB now I'm searching a wireless connection.Did you find something to solve this problem?

 

[guzman_goav]

Hi, I have the same inverter and I face the same problem with monitoring and connection with my smartphone or a computer. I find a software for raspberry pi. https://iccsoftware.co.za/about/shop/ but they told me it must be linked with a cable R232 to USB now I'm searching a wireless connection.Did you find something to solve this problem?

hey... i am using a cheap rs232 to USB and that has aleady killed 3 raspberry pi's of mine because of problems in power regulation or something.....

you can look up a DIY solution for transmitting RS232 data over wifi using rapsberry pico or something....


i tried the the link you sent but it is restricted for me. anyway, archive.org says this is some sort of shop, did you purchase the software or something? does it have a demo ?

i am currently using solaranzeige.de/ which is good but as i said, 3 Raspberry pi broke because of bad cable and i am trying to find a replacement. if your linked software works on raspberry pi zero, i would be interested.