Kenny_
Solar Addict
Yeah the full-meal-deal of acronyms!
Solar assistant: do you use it?
- Thread starter Will Prowse
- Start date
Excuse me, sir. Seeing as how the VP is such a VIP, shouldn't we keep the PC on the QT? 'Cause if it leaks to the VC he could end up MIA, and then we'd all be put on KP.
- Adrian Cronauer
timselectric
If I can do it, you can do it.
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You don't have to understand that, to know that it's funny.
wattmatters
Solar Wizard
lol yeah was trying to be brief but can see it gets lost in translation.
Let me expand.
RPi was my shorthand for a Raspberry Pi computer - same type of computer as Solar Assistant (SA) runs on.
I have a spare one, an RPi 4. I used to use it to run Home Assistant but I moved Home Assistant over to run on a different computer. So now I have a spare RPi I could use to run a second instance of Solar Assistant for monitoring the batteries, like you have done.
I moved Home Assistant over to run on a micro PC, similar to this:
I mistakenly called it a NUC (which is a bare bones unit of computing) when really it's a micro PC. They don't use much power, I think mine one uses about 6 watts more than the Raspberry Pi 4 computer I was using before.
This micro PC is much more powerful (in computer terms) than the RPi4 and as my Home Assistant system grew, the RPi was struggling to keep up. I was also concerned about the RPi running from an SD card which is not the most reliable choice for a system running stuff I just want to work. I was backing it up to a Google Drive but this has practical limits.
The micro PC uses a regular solid state drive and you can also connect external storage drives via the USB ports. It is possible to run a Raspberry Pi from a solid state drive but in the end its performance was inadequate for my needs.
These micro PCs can be picked up refurbished for about the same price (or even less) than an RPi. So I did.
However this micro PC is not dedicated to just run Home Assistant in the way the Raspberry Pi has to be dedicated to Solar Assistant.
Instead it has a basic operating system which runs software called Proxmox Virtual Environment. Proxmox is available to download and run for free. There are of course paid enterprise versions but these are not required in a basic home set up.
What Proxmox does is allow you to "divide" your computer into any number of "virtual" computers. e.g. you could have Microsoft Windows operating system running on one "virtual" PC, while Home Assistant is running on another "virtual" PC and so on. Obviously there are limitations as you need to assign a portion of your computer's hardware resources to each of these "virtual" computers. But for all intents and purposes, they act as if they are completely independent computers.
Now on my micro PC I have a Home Assistant "Virtual Machine" (VM) as well as a VM running a visual programming system called Node Red.
Home Assistant runs sooo much faster and more smoothly than when it was running on the RPi4.
One of the really nice things with Proxmox is the ability to easily take snapshots and/or full backups of each virtual machine, either independently or all together. I have an external storage drive connected and Proxmox looks after the backups automatically every night. I still also do three backups per week to a Google Drive but I may have to change that strategy as my internet upload speed is not great.
When upgrading Home Assistant to a new version, I can take a snapshot of the virtual machine with Proxmox, which just records the exact operating state of the VM at that moment, then do the upgrade to check it all works. If there is a problem with the upgrade which is not easily resolved, then I just "rollback" to the snapshot and the VM will continue operating from the moment the snapshot was taken as if nothing happened. It's a really nice feature, like having an undo button for entire system changes.
By this I mean I have an ethernet data point out where the inverter / batteries are and I have connected that to a small switch which allows me to connect multiple devices via ethernet. The switch looks like this:
This way I can easily connect my grid-tied inverter, the Solar Assistant RPi and a second RPi if I set one up.
I also have two other Wi-Fi routers out there, one dedicated to connect with my Iotawatt energy monitor and another which is a mesh unit designed to extend my regular home Wi-Fi signal (which is a bit of a dud and I may remove it).
Now I didn't get to this stage without help. Like many I am technically challenged when it comes to IT things (I'm far more comfortable with maths and physics) and so was fortunate to have assistance from an IT person on anther forum.
But it has opened up a range of possibilities and I have learned a fair bit. I expect to upgrade the micro PC for one with a bit more on-board storage capacity, will do a hardware swap with my IT buddy who has dozens of these thing lying around and offered one.
In many ways it is a shame Solar Assistant is confined running on a dedicated Raspberry Pi. It would be excellent if it could run on a virtual machine. It would then have all the advantages this enables (performance, reliability, automated backup, multiple instances of Solar Assistant on one box etc).
But for me it does a good job as a conduit to my inverter and the Victron shunt enabling not just monitoring but customised automations which work in with the entire home's energy systems. Adding another as a conduit to my server rack batteries would be useful.
timselectric
If I can do it, you can do it.
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Clear as Mudd, thanks. lol
It's not you, it's me.
It's not you, it's me.
OffGridForGood
Catch, make or grow everything you can.
Well, this time no Three Letter Acronyms!
- I wish I understood more of the computer control part, integrating all the data into one Virtural Machine seems very interesting, just a bit worried about what going down that Rabbit-hole will do to my free time...one step at a time I suppose!
- I wish I understood more of the computer control part, integrating all the data into one Virtural Machine seems very interesting, just a bit worried about what going down that Rabbit-hole will do to my free time...one step at a time I suppose!
marionw
Solar Enthusiast
Exactly why I am writing my own software in C#. Main program with plugins. I have a plugins for SRNE inverter, EG4 LifePower4 batteries, SGP/SOK batteries and Victron Shunts. Just need to develop a GUI and glue it al together. All the data collection gets pushed to an Sql server. I will have text and email notifications for alerts/alarms/failures as well as visual and audible alarms. In addition the software will replace the BMS to Inverter closed loop and will be the middle man with better control of battery charging. All will run on a small windows 10/11 computer the size of a couple of decks or playing cards. The problem is complete documentation of all the various communication protocols so I can be certain when I ask a device for info I get it and know how to accurately process the response. A work in progress....
NCislander
Solar Enthusiast
IMO - The weak link to otherwise reliable electrical will be the Microsoft Windows platform. Telecom/DataCenter is all based on linux platforms. Also why Solar Assistant is as reliable as it is.
Nobodybusiness
Collecting the leftovers of the Great Sky Reactor.
That is true. Almost every OS is Linux or Linux based or Proprietary kernels made from Linux origins.
Anything running Windows is usually a VM environment at this point.
Not sure when apps will be ported to Linux.
marionw
Solar Enthusiast
You are right. I am just developing (and learning) on the platform I have (I do have several Linux workstations). Migrating to Linux and even to a Raspberry PI (I have three) will be easier once all the processing logic and protocols are fully understood. There is a lot of data (messages) that can be sent to or received from all the various solar devices and ensuring 100% (or at least 80%) of the data is correctly interpreted is essential. As I said, a work in progress. If only there were simple and documented standards in the solar industry.
OffGridForGood
Catch, make or grow everything you can.
I sure love having Solar Assistant, makes the whole system better, easier and quicker to interact with, and heck, connected to the Local Area Network I can securely make changes to the system which is in my shop, while I am next door at my home. I followed along with @timselectric when he used multiple SA so he could monitor his batteries at cell level, or at least see Max Min Avg. for each pack. I was not prepared to go that far, and instead rely on the Victron Smart Shunt and put my efforts into getting the packs to run balanced between them (by playing with resistance and cable lengths), and the cells balanced within each pack.
Reading @wattmatters post makes me want to crack this nut; if I can, to run a single control centre that will collect battery cell voltages, SA data, victron shunt data, and present this data all from one central point of control would be awesome. Now where do I start...
Reading @wattmatters post makes me want to crack this nut; if I can, to run a single control centre that will collect battery cell voltages, SA data, victron shunt data, and present this data all from one central point of control would be awesome. Now where do I start...
timselectric
If I can do it, you can do it.
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When I get to the point of attempting it.
I will be apologizing to everyone here who tries to help me. lol
jsmithtx
New Member
I have a small C# program that does a RS485 modbus request to the 6000XP inverter to get data.. dotnetcore runs cross platform and will run on the Pi.
How seriously do you take network security-- do you have VLANs and firewalls between IoT stuff and things like your inverter? I can firewall off a few things that are miserable security risks, but struggle to find a good approach for firewalling MQTT between the really dumb and the really important.
wattmatters
Solar Wizard
I'm no IT / networking expert, so whatever answer I give will likely be inadequate for someone who is. Security no doubt could be better. What that would involve I really do not know.
I do have a network security friend who has helped me with various aspects of my set up, so I can ask them for some advice. They were not particularly concerned with what I do have.
wattmatters
Solar Wizard
Heh, I just integrated my car with Home Assistant.
timselectric
If I can do it, you can do it.
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You ran over the butler with your car? lol
Quattrohead
Solar Wizard
I love and hate home assistant so much.
Now to my problem, because of the inadequacy of solar assistant to support multiple bms's I just want a real simple voltage times current equals Watts in a home assistant gauge. I have both parameters coming in from my inverter but solar assistant will only take battery metrics or inverter metrics to do that calculation.
I made a helper to get the Delta between min and Max cell and I thought I could do the same to multiply two numbers but apparently not.
Now to my problem, because of the inadequacy of solar assistant to support multiple bms's I just want a real simple voltage times current equals Watts in a home assistant gauge. I have both parameters coming in from my inverter but solar assistant will only take battery metrics or inverter metrics to do that calculation.
I made a helper to get the Delta between min and Max cell and I thought I could do the same to multiply two numbers but apparently not.
wpns
Solar Joules are catch and release
How many hardware interfaces would you need to talk to all of your batteries? Shouldn’t be _that_ hard to use an MQTT client to push the data you want into SA or HA. #SimpleMatterOfProgramming
timselectric
If I can do it, you can do it.
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I'm assuming that you mean multiple brands of BMS's?
I have multiple BMS's of the same brand communicating with Solar Assistant, without issue.
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