Sol-Ark, Powerview/E-Linter, and alternate gateways?

[wbspjr]

Hi All,

While reading through the documentation for the Powerview website, I saw there was some documentation about alternative gateways (see screencap)

The "Goldfinch" product appears to be the same as the Sol-Ark Wifi/Ethernet Dongle. There is a documentation page about integrating with Powerview.

There is also a product called Lark (e-manager/e-manager-pro), that appears to be a more capable, alternative, gateway device. There is a slight amount of documentation on the Powerview site about the device. On the lark product page on e-linter, Sol-Ark is mentioned as a compatible device. I cannot find any information about pricing or purchase availability of this device.

I am curious about this device because I am one of the people that cannot monitor my deployment with something like SolarAssistant given that my battery system is Fortress Power eFlex based. To do closed loop BMS with the sol-ark-12k-p inverter to my battery, the inverter must be set to speak in the Fortress Power protocol (BMS setting 04), and when that is set no inverter telemetry is sent through the CANBus/RS485 port.

My install is new and I would like to keep Powerview for a while longer while I get my bearings. So I, like many other people, am stuck with the choice of 5 min granularity telemetry (and potential security issues) or losing my closed-loop BMS with the Fortress eFLEX batteries (or, more generally, giving up something in my existing system to be able to use more granular HW monitoring like SA).

I am wondering if anyone has tried these alternate gateways? Or if anyone has seen anything about them at all? My hope is that something like this can provide more options for hw monitoring like SA (by providing more ports, or by exposing the telemetry on the serial port).

 

[robby]

I am in the same boat as you are. Sol-Ark 12K and eFlex batteries.
I am being told they are migrating very soon to AWS servers in the US and that they are changing the software. I have asked for more details but everyone is quiet about details on the software being changed and to what.
I do know the AWS server switch is real and is happening soon. I am told updates will be in 30 second intervals when they switch.

I really like PowerView, it is simple and detailed in it's first layer and yet is so full of features when you dig deeper in.

I am tagging along in case you find out something more from eLinter. I can tell you that if you email them you get an answer within 24 hours but it's like almost every other chinese company. They tell you that they are going to do something but it never happens.

 

[wbspjr]

Hi @robby , I have seen many of your posts here and you have helped me a lot in terms of saving effort.

e-Linter has already gotten back to me with an initial reply and they are asking me what problems I am trying to solve. I am curious about that alternative gateway discussion but am not optimistic. I will update here if it goes anywhere.

I am unsurprised to hear that Sol-Ark is considering the move to AWS. That relationship with e-Linter could be a significant liability to theirs sales given many of their potential users are turned off by it. Hopefully, the move to AWS will include some of the niceties of the AWS environment, like having our data available to us directly and the ability to integrate it with other AWS hosted services. I would pay for that. At this point, the only thing I care about in terms of deploying Solar Assistant is the MQTT integration so I can build subscribers that tuck the higher-resolution data into a local NAS and one of the big cloud providers anyway.

My understanding from your previous posts is that you gave up closed-loop battery monitoring so you could have SA for long term data retention and trending and then powerview for more short term? Or was that someone else? If that was you, how does that work exactly? Like, your inverter never knows the SoC of the eFlexes (powerview doesn't either I guess), but just knows when it is charging the battery and when the battery has stopped providing power to offset TOU? Something like this? Forgive m e, I am a n00b I am curious what losing closed loop battery monitoring for richer data in SA means.

Thanks for all of you help!

 

[wbspjr]

Another question comes to mind @robby : you ever ask Sol-Ark when they will release a firmware update to turn up that ModBus RJ45 port? It looks like so many other contributors to this forum have spent a great deal of time and effort working with the Deye-based inverter ModBus registers. There are some reasonable looking python implementations laying around. It is weird that Sol-Ark is not implementing closed loop-battery monitoring in a way that is more friendly to additional HW monitoring like Solar Assistant.

If I were an inverter OEM/reseller, I would be providing (in no particular order): onboard MQTT, onboard APIs to all data and functions of the inverter, IFTTT integrations, native support for cloud integration, possibly a way to run docker onboard, and, yes, many, many more working ports.

 

[robby]

Yes I have asked them numerous times and I never can get an answer as to whether they plan to turn it on.
As an EE my best guess is that unlike Deye they take their warranty policy very seriously and they probably do not want people messing around with the Inverter using third party software. It is possible to unintentionally brick your Inverter or send the wrong Voltages to your house or the batteries using home brew software commands.

They have acknowledged that the 5 minute update is to slow and they plan to change that. I am pretty sure the idea of a local IP with limited access to view parameters in realtime on an App they develop is something they are also interested in or maybe have in the works already. Every CSR I have talked to is pretty tight lipped on this whole subject.

 

[robby]

Hi @robby , I have seen many of your posts here and you have helped me a lot in terms of saving effort.

e-Linter has already gotten back to me with an initial reply and they are asking me what problems I am trying to solve. I am curious about that alternative gateway discussion but am not optimistic. I will update here if it goes anywhere.

Thanks.

I am unsurprised to hear that Sol-Ark is considering the move to AWS. That relationship with e-Linter could be a significant liability to theirs sales given many of their potential users are turned off by it. Hopefully, the move to AWS will include some of the niceties of the AWS environment, like having our data available to us directly and the ability to integrate it with other AWS hosted services. I would pay for that. At this point, the only thing I care about in terms of deploying Solar Assistant is the MQTT integration so I can build subscribers that tuck the higher-resolution data into a local NAS and one of the big cloud providers anyway.

I hope it works out that way but so far all I have been told is that they are moving the Data server to AWS very soon.

My understanding from your previous posts is that you gave up closed-loop battery monitoring so you could have SA for long term data retention and trending and then powerview for more short term? Or was that someone else? If that was you, how does that work exactly? Like, your inverter never knows the SoC of the eFlexes (powerview doesn't either I guess), but just knows when it is charging the battery and when the battery has stopped providing power to offset TOU? Something like this? Forgive m e, I am a n00b I am curious what losing closed loop battery monitoring for richer data in SA means.

Thanks for all of you help!

Yes I gave up closed loop and use the Batt-% mode instead. I am thinking of just moving to Batt-V mode instead as that is what they suggest. So far the percentage mode has worked pretty well but that one pesky EG4LL battery will sometimes throw it out of calibration if I have 2-3 days of bad weather and the batteries do not reach 100% or they do not complete the Float charging. The battery has 3 cells that are not taking a charge at the same rate as the rest of them.

Yes Powerview still knows the SOC but it is not always as accurate as in closed loop mode and you loose the safety systems provided by the Inverter. It no longer knows for sure that all the batteries are working properly. It just works on the total Amps you have set instead of pooling the batteries for the info.

BTW if you do decide to go down the Batt-% route keep in mind that the moment you make a voltage change and save it the calculations are reset and it takes 3 days to recalibrate the measurement. Also one of those days has to have a complete charge cycle happen. Meaning 100% until no more current is being used for charging.

I suggest you talk to Fortress for the latest settings they are using with the Sol-Ark.
I am pretty sure they are going to suggest Batt-V mode but really insist that you do not come out of closed loop mode.
I only did it because my Wife needs something simple and realtime like SA to decide what she wants to use and when.