Solar Assistant sadness

[Lt.Dan]

I've actually had a couple SSD's fail in the last few years. But not doing the very simple thing that Solar Assistant does. They aren't as reliable as some people think they are. But they definitely have a longer lifespan than an SD card.

I'm on Pierre's side from SolarAssistant. Most of the time when an SD card fails, its a cheap $5 unit they pulled out of their junk drawer and are now upset. Solar Assistant is very very low disk usage. Yes, it is reading/writing, but its a HELL of a lot less than other devices, like security cameras etc. I don't see how Solar Assistant can be responsible for corrupting an SD Card unless it was on its last leg to begin with. And just like Pierre said, "It's rare that you need to reflash the SD card, unfortunately it's hard to tell why it was necessary." You can't prove that Solar Assistant was the one to kill it, because there's no way of knowing.

At the end, I do agree that an SSD is a better fit. That being said, I still have a Sandisk SD card in mine.

 

[Lilikoi_Heavy_Industries]

I don't see how Solar Assistant can be responsible for corrupting an SD Card unless it was on its last leg to begin with.

It's a product that implements it's own operating system and is fully capable of restricting the types of I/O devices and brands that are used. It's absolutely at fault for poor implementation and a bad reputation for data corruption that follows.

 

[Lt.Dan]

It's a product that implements it's own operating system and is fully capable of restricting the types of I/O devices and brands that are used. It's absolutely at fault for poor implementation and a bad reputation for data corruption that follows.

How can you restrict someone from putting in a Cheap Chinese SD card instead of a Sandisk SD Card?

I also believe the Raspberry Pi Foundation was the ones to determine that the Pi strictly used an SD card for storage. Solar Assistant was not responsible for the RPi foundation on that decision.

Once you start requiring much more advanced hardware etc, pricing goes up, and your customer base gets much smaller. Just like people posting in here, the average individual is NOT tech savvy enough to flash to an SSD.

 

[houseofancients]

I've actually had a couple SSD's fail in the last few years. But not doing the very simple thing that Solar Assistant does. They aren't as reliable as some people think they are. But they definitely have a longer lifespan than an SD card.

I'm on Pierre's side from SolarAssistant. Most of the time when an SD card fails, its a cheap $5 unit they pulled out of their junk drawer and are now upset. Solar Assistant is very very low disk usage. Yes, it is reading/writing, but its a HELL of a lot less than other devices, like security cameras etc. I don't see how Solar Assistant can be responsible for corrupting an SD Card unless it was on its last leg to begin with. And just like Pierre said, "It's rare that you need to reflash the SD card, unfortunately it's hard to tell why it was necessary." You can't prove that Solar Assistant was the one to kill it, because there's no way of knowing.

At the end, I do agree that an SSD is a better fit. That being said, I still have a Sandisk SD card in mine.

well, good old intel 240 gb datacenters here.
i think they will outlast me.

corruption of an sd card isnt that hard.
those cards were never developped for the small writes a database does.
what does make me wonder though ;
pierre does send the data to his cloud when you allow the raspi internet access, which means in theory he already has the data to some extend and it would be pretty easy to download it from his cloud back to the raspi

 

[wattmatters]

pierre does send the data to his cloud when you allow the raspi internet access, which means in theory he already has the data to some extend and it would be pretty easy to download it from his cloud back to the raspi

It's just viewable via an internet connection to your RPi.

It's a product that implements it's own operating system and is fully capable of restricting the types of I/O devices and brands that are used. It's absolutely at fault for poor implementation and a bad reputation for data corruption that follows.

No one is forcing you to use it.

If you have something with the simplicity, utility and user friendliness SA provides people (who are buying budget brand inverters to begin with) and which comes with superior data management capabilities and costs less, then by all means share.

 

[Lilikoi_Heavy_Industries]

How can you restrict someone from putting in a Cheap Chinese SD card instead of a Sandisk SD Card?

I also believe the Raspberry Pi Foundation was the ones to determine that the Pi strictly used an SD card for storage. Solar Assistant was not responsible for the RPi foundation on that decision.

Once you start requiring much more advanced hardware etc, pricing goes up, and your customer base gets much smaller. Just like people posting in here, the average individual is NOT tech savvy enough to flash to an SSD.

Dude selling a product and deciding to base it on raspberrypi is his decision entirely.

It looks like maybe you don't understand open source. Nothing is stopping him from making solarassistantos which has a script at startup to make sure you're using a reliable disk. He also has hardware locked licensing, meaning he could simply decide to have people agree that they're going to use an approved storage configuration before issuing them a license that runs on their pi.

There are a million ways to address this. Just because he took a shortcut and used free open source software doesn't mean it's "oh gee darn rpi's fault" as soon as something doesn't work. You have to actually get to the bottom of the issue or work with your users on making sure they deploy in a stable environment, this guy clearly hasn't done that.

 

[houseofancients]

Dude selling a product and deciding to base it on raspberrypi is his decision entirely.

It looks like maybe you don't understand open source. Nothing is stopping him from making solarassistantos which has a script at startup to make sure you're using a reliable disk. He also has hardware locked licensing, meaning he could simply decide to have people agree that they're going to use an approved storage configuration before issuing them a license that runs on their pi.

There are a million ways to address this. Just because he took a shortcut and used free open source software doesn't mean it's "oh gee darn rpi's fault" as soon as something doesn't work. You have to actually get to the bottom of the issue or work with your users on making sure they deploy in a stable environment, this guy clearly hasn't done that.

so really, you problem is you have pay for it.
as you said, most of it is open source, so go build it yourself and have fun doing that

 

[Lilikoi_Heavy_Industries]

No one is forcing you to use it.

You may not understand why I would go out of my way to comment or know what my background is. That's okay.

I view it as worthwhile to call these weak points out so that other people don't buy it thinking that it's a polished or reliable solution for less technical users.

 

[Lilikoi_Heavy_Industries]

so really, you problem is you have pay for it.
as you said, most of it is open source, so go build it yourself and have fun doing that

It looks like you either didn't read or understand my posts. VenusOS+dbus-serialbattery already covers everything I had considered solarassistant for. dbus-serialbattery didn't support my battery at the time, so I considered solar assistant. I'm happy that I didn't bother to use it now.

VenusOS is compatible with the rest of my hardware, and already open source.

There was no need to "go build it yourself", it was already built.

 

[SolarRich]

For those that want to make their own monitoring system you can start with this(ws from another post on this forum):

GitHub - aaronmelton/solark_monitor: A Python script to read memory register(s) from Sol-Ark Inverters and insert them into a database.

A Python script to read memory register(s) from Sol-Ark Inverters and insert them into a database. - aaronmelton/solark_monitor

github.com

 

[Quattrohead]

For those that want to make their own monitoring system you can start with this(ws from another post on this forum):

GitHub - aaronmelton/solark_monitor: A Python script to read memory register(s) from Sol-Ark Inverters and insert them into a database.

A Python script to read memory register(s) from Sol-Ark Inverters and insert them into a database. - aaronmelton/solark_monitor

github.com

So I am looking at this and I see 1. it still needs an RPi and 2. WTF do I do with that code stuff ?
SA, burn to card and turn on ?

 

[Nobodybusiness]

well, good old intel 240 gb datacenters here.
i think they will outlast me.

corruption of an sd card isnt that hard.
those cards were never developped for the small writes a database does.
what does make me wonder though ;
pierre does send the data to his cloud when you allow the raspi internet access, which means in theory he already has the data to some extend and it would be pretty easy to download it from his cloud back to the raspi

I have 2 Kingston 240gb that I’ve had forever and they still chug away today.

One on the PI and one on a Synology NAS.

 

[timselectric]

I'm on Pierre's side from SolarAssistant. Most of the time when an SD card fails, its a cheap $5 unit they pulled out of their junk drawer and are now upset.

I actually purchased the Pi, SD card, and software pre-installed from Solar Assistant. Because I am a low tech guy, and needed plug and play.
Maybe, I just got a bad card. Or maybe my inner magnetism took it out. Whatever happened, I don't want it to happen again.

 

[wattmatters]

It looks like you either didn't read or understand my posts.

Did you read this bit of my comment?

If you have something with the simplicity, utility and user friendliness SA provides people (who are buying budget brand inverters to begin with) and which comes with superior data management capabilities and costs less, then by all means share.

I searched VenusOS+dbus-serialbattery and get sent to a github repository for dbus-serialbattery. Requiring knowledge of how to use a GitHub repository already fails the simplicity and user friendliness aspects.

Meanwhile Venus OS is specific to one brand of inverter AFAIK and is designed to run on a proprietary device, an expensive one at that. So it fails on that point too.

Unless of course you run a version of it for an RPi + SD card. Do they tell you NOT to do that? I thought not.

So while that might be a fantastic solution for you and your set up, it does not make it suitable or practical for everyone else.

SA is low cost plug and play option for people using a range of inverters of the Voltronic / Deye families, as well as working with a wide range of battery management systems.

 

[Lilikoi_Heavy_Industries]

Did you read this bit of my comment?


I searched VenusOS+dbus-serialbattery and get sent to a github repository for dbus-serialbattery. Requiring knowledge of how to use a GitHub repository already fails the simplicity and user friendliness aspects.

Meanwhile Venus OS is specific to one brand of inverter AFAIK and is designed to run on a proprietary device, an expensive one at that. So it fails on that point too.

Unless of course you run a version of it for an RPi + SD card. Do they tell you NOT to do that? I thought not.

So while that might be a fantastic solution for you and your set up, it does not make it suitable or practical for everyone else.

SA is low cost plug and play option for people using a range of inverters of the Voltronic / Deye families, as well as working with a wide range of battery management systems.

Ummm yeah, time to pull out the grandpa awards on this one, putting code into github does not mean that it has a complicated install process. That has nothing to do with how you install it, that is how its' code is being source controlled. When you make beta or stable release, it's typical for an archive or installer to be compiled...

But here's the thing. That's how most software works. You googled, found github, and apparently your head exploded instead of just looking at the documentation, which doesn't require usage of github to actually install the driver.

Yep, I'm aware that it's targeted at voltronic/deye, I just don't think it's a stable product worth buying after seeing the shit they're pulling.

Lots of bootlicking going on in this thread after dogpiling this guy saying "it's not pierre's fault!!!" when in fact he did provide the apparently faulty hardware if all it takes is high endurance SD to be stable.

 

[timselectric]

I don't know why it crashed. But for $20 , I don't mind upgrading the card. Just in case it might help.
While waiting for the backup/restore option.

 

[Nobodybusiness]

I don't know why it crashed. But for $20 , I don't mind upgrading the card. Just in case it might help.
While waiting for the backup/restore option.

Hopefully they implement that so more folks don’t lose their data.

 

[wattmatters]

Ummm yeah, time to pull out the grandpa awards on this one, putting code into github does not mean that it has a complicated install process. That has nothing to do with how you install it, that is how its' code is being source controlled. When you make beta or stable release, it's typical for an archive or installer to be compiled...

You have lost a lot of people already when talking about drivers. Many people need plug and play. They know little about drivers and GitHub and source code etc. And what is wrong with being a grandpa? Not everyone is blessed with the same skills, experience and knowledge of such things. What a ridiculous attitude.

But at the end of the day you still haven't answered the question:

For people with these families of inverters, needing a plug and play monitoring and control system, what option is there with the same (or better) functionality which is more robust, easier, cheaper?

If you can't actually come up with one then crapping on the solution which does what people want seems rather lame.

 

[nc73]

You guys should go with what Will does about monitoring. Nothing. At least I don't care much about historic data. Just interested in a week's worth. I do have Solar Assistant, but who cares about what happened last month.

 

[timselectric]

I'm more interested in comparing right now to this time last year. To see if I need to troubleshoot anything.