Solar Assistant vs. Home Assistant

[marionw]

For me SA polls my 6 EG4 LifePower4 batteries every 15 seconds (each battery). How do I know? I created a splitter so I could listen/sniff the RS485 communications between SA and the batteries (I can also sniff between SA and the inverter). SA is getting most of the import data from the batteries but does nothing with some of what I consider important such as status of the Charge and Discharge MOSFETS or any alarm conditions. I have disconnected several batteries in the battery to battery communications and SA did not complain or let me know it was no longer receiving data from these batteries. I disconnected the RS485 link between the master battery and the inverter and SA did not show a BMS Fault alarm. Don't get me wrong SA is an adequate tool but I want more, hence I am writing my own. SA MQTT is limited in what it is sending to HA, how do I know, I wrote a program to subscribe to SA MQTT and display the data. I want to be able to get text or email notifications (audible or visual alarm) if there is a pending fault or fault. I want to be able to click on a battery overview display and get a drill down display that shows cell voltages etc. Work in progress but I am making progress, sometimes it is hard to decipher the Chinese in the various protocol technical documents I have but I will get there.

 

[robby]

This is a good point. Without this, you would need to give techs access to your SA dashboard, and they may not want to use a different interface to help diagnose problems. They would, however, have access to higher resolution data. Last I heard, they are targeting 30 second data points (big improvement over 5 minutes, but still nowhere close to live)

I don't think they would use SA to do Tech Support. They honestly do not trust SA for changing settings and SA can only change a limited amount of the settings and it cannot read 80% of the archived graph data.

As for update time, I have discussed this with them many times. I told them straight up that 30 seconds is not very useful, it needs to be realtime or at least within 10 seconds. I basically told them they need to make the dongle have a way to read the data from the local IP in realtime and then do 30 seconds for remote data logging.

I can tell you that their main issue with updates is that Sol-Ark tech support is complaining that the 5 minute wait time is making their service calls a lot longer. They need 30 seconds to make their service call times shorter.

 

[wattmatters]

If you don't like it, don't use it. Build your own if the specifications don't meet your needs. When I read the SA promo info I see nothing to say they claim data is logged every second.

As I said, via the MQTT interface you can log data as quickly as it comes in. e.g. here's my battery shunt data plotted with Grafana in HA, which comes via SA MQTT. Data is logged at short intervals (no shorter than one second) but can be longer as the data is only updated when the value itself changes. For this my system resides on a virtual machine on a PC with far greater processing capacity and better, more reliable storage than an SD card can ever provide, plus automated backups.



This is data captured by InfluxDB. Again, values are updated when they change. A one second interval:

 

[wattmatters]

SA MQTT is limited in what it is sending to HA, how do I know, I wrote a program to subscribe to SA MQTT and display the data.

MQTT Explorer would have done this for you.

 

[cmack]

If you don't like it, don't use it. Build your own if the specifications don't meet your needs. When I read the SA promo info I see nothing to say they claim data is logged every second.

Such a constructive response, thanks bud! I spent the money so I don't need to build it myself.

This is directly from their website, and it's the main reason I purchased the license.

 

[cmack]

For me SA polls my 6 EG4 LifePower4 batteries every 15 seconds

Is your battery connected to Solar Assistant logger AND to your inverter? I just tried that, but it didn't work (connection failed).

I am now reading that it may not be possible. Is anyone aware of a workaround?

 

[marionw]

It depends on the batteries as to whether SA and the inverter can talk to the battery stack at the same time. SOK and SunGoldPower rack batteries can do both as they have a dedicated RS485 (A) port specifically for inverter communications, and RS232 port for software (SA) monitoring and RS232(B &C) ports for battery to battery communications.

 

[wattmatters]

This is directly from their website, and it's the main reason I purchased the license.

That doesn't say data is logged every second but I can understand the confusion and your frustration at it not meeting your expectations.

Such a constructive response, thanks bud! I spent the money so I don't need to build it myself.

Send it back for a refund.

 

[cmack]

It depends on the batteries as to whether SA and the inverter can talk to the battery stack at the same time. SOK and SunGoldPower rack batteries can do both as they have a dedicated RS485 (A) port specifically for inverter communications, and RS232 port for software (SA) monitoring and RS232(B &C) ports for battery to battery communications.

I have a rack of Jakiper batteries, the manual is a little unclear how to set this up. When plugged into RS485A, I get "no response". With RS485B I get "invalid data".

According to the SA battery config page, I should be using "Jakiper RS485 port"

Any ideas based on this photo?

 

[cmack]

Send it back for a refund.

Might have to, although I'm in touch with them so I'll see if it's possible to add a user-defined setting to control logging interval.

 

[Mr.Hyde]

I think this comment is the real reason SA has value. Unless someone has already done this from Sol Ark into Home Assistant, it would likely be very time consuming / complicated to do.

I'm plugging this into the Pi today so SA can get more details about my batteries. I hope it's the right adapter :D

I'm not sure if I can post the link here, but this discussion over on powerforum.co.za has a lot of discussion on doing this (for Deye inverters, but hypothetically the RS485 is the same).

Either you have to pipe the RS485 directly into whatever you are running HA on, or use an ESPHome. I'm going to try the latter and have an ESPHome with an RS485 carrier ready (make sure you use the right RS485 chip for the 3.3V ESPHome).

Several people have created HA dashboards to ingest this data.

Like I said, this is all theoretical until my system is installed (power company signed off on permit, just waiting for town, then install can start), but I'll definitely post my experience.

 

[marionw]

They look very much like SOK and SunGoldPower batteries. The RS485A is for Inverter/BMS Communications. The RS485A on the Master battery is connected to the BMS Input on the Inverter. The RS232 (RJ12 jack) with an RS232-USB converter/cable will work with SA. The RS485B and RS485C ports are dedicated battery to battery communications ports. The RS232 port on the Master battery connects to SA or the battery monitoring software. Wonder if SOKTools.exe will work with these batteries.

If the BMS is the same as in the SOK and SunGoldPower rack batteries:
RS485A uses the Pylontec protocol. The RS232, RS485B and RS485C use the PACE protocol.

 

[marionw]

You can download the SOKTools software at SOKTools Software

This is the RS232 to USB Cable I use with SunGoldPower Batteries RS232-USB

 

[Grimmster]

How do you not have control over your data with Home Assistant? What are you referring to, specifically?

 

[cmack]

The RS232 (RJ12 jack) with an RS232-USB converter/cable will work with SA

Thanks! I will give this a shot, if all is good I'll pass along the info to SA to update their webpage.

How do you not have control over your data with Home Assistant? What are you referring to, specifically?

I think the thread title is confusing, sorry about that. I got control over my data by switching away from the default logger for my Sol Ark which is PV Pro. That system relies on an internet connection and stores data somewhere in China.

 

[dkyork]

I'm looking for notifications. Pv pro sucks. It doesn't even detect grid down and doesn't send any email notifications at all. Does SA send notifications reliably?

I need something better.

 

[wattmatters]

Does SA send notifications reliably?

SA has no notifications as yet. Configurable notifications are on their list for inclusion in a future release.

SolarAssistant changelog

Changes introduced with each SolarAssistant release.

solar-assistant.io

I use HA to send our phones notifications for various things, including when the grid is offline, back online, amongst other more mundane things like when the washing machine or dryer have finished a load.

 

[mciholas]

From their website:




The data throughput to do per second storage is minimal, so the logging limitation is mostly about not consuming storage. A Pi will process megabytes/s of video data, so storing a few numbers every second is trivial.

 

[wattmatters]

so the logging limitation is mostly about not consuming storage.

With a single inverter and just a shunt for battery data, my SD card has used up 8% of a 32 GB card (~2.6 GB) over two years and a bit.

Add more than one inverter and a battery stack with cell data, and it would add up pretty quickly I'd imagine.

Reminded me, just did a backup of it. My HA data is automatically backed up but the native SA backup requires a manual trigger.

 

[GregTR]

I think the data on Solar Assistant is within 1-2 seconds of it actually happening, they only log at 10s interval into the DB. Some of the metrics, like kWh consumptions were only summed once every 24h before, they just changed that to be summed hourly. I implemented my own integral sensor in HA to do the summing and it works fine.

Why do you need data more often than what MQTT feeds into Home Assistant? There isn't a whole lot you can/should do faster than the ~3.5 seconds per MQTT packet that is received.

Also note that Home Assistant only saves every data point for 10 days by default, then it only saves min/max/average values in historical data.

Again, why do you need more granular data?

I've had this setup for a while and the worst part of Solar Assistant is the abysmal WiFi implementation on the Raspbery Pi and the lack of static IP address. I (hopefully) fixed both of those issues so I expect this thing to be super reliable going forward.

 

[ChrisG]

I think the data on Solar Assistant is within 1-2 seconds of it actually happening, they only log at 10s interval into the DB. Some of the metrics, like kWh consumptions were only summed once every 24h before, they just changed that to be summed hourly. I implemented my own integral sensor in HA to do the summing and it works fine.

Why do you need data more often than what MQTT feeds into Home Assistant? There isn't a whole lot you can/should do faster than the ~3.5 seconds per MQTT packet that is received.

Also note that Home Assistant only saves every data point for 10 days by default, then it only saves min/max/average values in historical data.

Again, why do you need more granular data?

I've had this setup for a while and the worst part of Solar Assistant is the abysmal WiFi implementation on the Raspbery Pi and the lack of static IP address. I (hopefully) fixed both of those issues so I expect this thing to be super reliable going forward.

Just set a static dhcp (reserve) on your router. I do that for SA, HA and other devices.

 

[wattmatters]

I've had this setup for a while and the worst part of Solar Assistant is the abysmal WiFi implementation on the Raspbery Pi and the lack of static IP address.

You set that in your router, not the RPi.

I connect mine by ethernet anyway, I try to avoid Wi-Fi where I can.

 

[GregTR]

Just set a static dhcp (reserve) on your router. I do that for SA, HA and other devices.

Except that I prefer my static addresses to be of a different range than DHCP ones. Netgear's Orbi is pretty crappy with DHCP in general, so I much prefer true static addresses. I did manage to set it on the raspberry Pi eventually so I'm fine now, I'm crossing my fingers to see if the wired ethernet finally fixes my other dropouts.

 

[dkyork]

SA has no notifications as yet. Configurable notifications are on their list for inclusion in a future release.

SolarAssistant changelog

Changes introduced with each SolarAssistant release.

solar-assistant.io

I use HA to send our phones notifications for various things, including when the grid is offline, back online, amongst other more mundane things like when the washing machine or dryer have finished a load.

Sweet. Notifications coming this month. Hopefully.....

 

[wattmatters]

Hopefully.....

I've learned not to get hopes up as projected feature timelines tend to be pretty rubbery.