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diy solar

Solar Assistant Wish list, Bugs and Issues.

robby said:
Well I re made the RJ45 connector and everything worked great for 24 hours and then it slowed down and stopped again.
I rebooted the unit and had no luck, I rebooted it a second and then third time and it starter working again for another 18 hours and then stopped.
This time I did not mess with the Pi or the cables but I simply went into the settings menu on the Sol-Ark front panel and looked at the battery settings and the pressed cancel. Within 20 seconds the data started to flow again! The unit stopped again the next day and I did the same thing and it started up again for another 18-24 hours.

It looks like my Sol-Ark 12K is putting the RS485 port to sleep after 18-24 hours and it can only be woken back up by going into a menu item on the display.
Click to expand...
Interesting. Might want to let one of the engineers know that. Could be a power saving thing..
 
Biasjo said:
Interesting. Might want to let one of the engineers know that. Could be a power saving thing..
Click to expand...
I should have gotten back and let people know I had solved the problem. It seems like the Power Supply that I got with my PI was defective. I had picked up a complete 3B kit but it seems like the PS they included was crap. The voltage was low and that is the reason I was having so many random problems.
I replaced it and everything has been working fine for over a month.

My only issue now is the lack of a backup system for the Database.
 
hello, it seems that with the latest software we can't edit the battery settings anymore
 

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robby said:
My first wish list item is that when they put in the power outage feature that they include a setting to turn on a constant Audible Alarm for users like myself who use wall mounted Tablet in the house to monitor the Inverter. That way even if I am not in the room, when I do pass it I will hear the alarm and know the Grid has gone down.
Click to expand...
Maybe try a power outage alarm? Not sure this would work but search for that type of product maybe?

Power Failure Alarm | Power Outage Detection | Power Lost Notifications

Receive a text message notification when power is lost with the cellular power failure alarm. Power outage detection can save you thousands of dollars in lost food, frozen pipes, and water in your basement.
www.pumpalarm.com www.pumpalarm.com

The power utility I am on allows me to sign up for an online "account" which is connected to my account , I can see my bill, pay my bill all online, however they also allow me to sign up for text alerts if/when the grid is down. This works great, even if I'm not at home I know the grid is down at home.
 
SolarHead said:
Maybe try a power outage alarm? Not sure this would work but search for that type of product maybe?
Click to expand...
Using an automation with the Home Assistant integration, mine sends an alert to my phone when the grid power goes down which includes an alert sound, and another alert when the grid power returns. Here's a sample of what it looks like:

IMG_3493.PNG

Nice thing about this is I'll get the alert no matter where I am, as long as I have the phone with me and I in a mobile phone coverage area (or am on the same local network as the Home Assistant uses.
 
Noticed something strange today, wondered if anyone else has seen this?

Software version: 2022-05-11

https://imgur.com/W69ZYl0

Click to play.

Follow the pointer and note the battery SOC values as shown in the battery dashboard, the inverter dashboard and the main dashboard.
 
I updated to Solar Assistant Ver 2022-05-19 yesterday, and noticed that it's no longer tracking each of my three G4LL/GYLL units. Looks like it's showing only Pack No. 1, though I know this only by mousing over the blue state of charge, voltage and temperature bars in the Dashboard>Battery display. Earlier versions showed data for all three G4LL units.

Anyone else having this problem?
 
My SA Wish list

  • Export data to CSV or similar
  • Ability to differentiate AC and DC loads. Smart shunts & Battery BMS correctly include DC power in/out but "Load" is specific to inverter. With BMS/smart shunt integration, it would be easy to show Load gauge as AC (Inverter values) & Total (Shunt/BMS Values) in a cool split-color gauge.
  • Display select inverter details on dashboard next to Inverter Icon.
  • Conversion for Fahrenheit (I know, I know)
  • Fix bug where battery power gauge text is scrambled on iOS when utilizing emulated BMS. (image attached)
IMG_4093.PNG
 
Is anyone else having issues with USB connection issues on solar assistant?
I keep getting USB timeouts and only way to get the data back is to reboot the pi.
Running on a raspberry pi 4 2gb 16gb SD card. Sometimes happens very often, sometimes once everycouple of days.
I have a hard wired Ethernet connection bit that didn't help, changed power supplies, also didn't help.
Connection to growatt spf5000 using a USB to USB b cable to each inverter (currently running 2 in parallel)
 
medamechanical.co.nz said:
Is anyone else having issues with USB connection issues on solar assistant?
I keep getting USB timeouts and only way to get the data back is to reboot the pi.
Running on a raspberry pi 4 2gb 16gb SD card. Sometimes happens very often, sometimes once everycouple of days.
I have a hard wired Ethernet connection bit that didn't help, changed power supplies, also didn't help.
Connection to growatt spf5000 using a USB to USB b cable to each inverter (currently running 2 in parallel)
Click to expand...
I have two SPF 3000 TL’s and have them connected with the original Growatt USB cables to the RPi with zero issues.
However, I did have a communication problem with the inverters before Solar Assistant and had to get the communication boards warrantied. For some reason both my inverters came with bad boards. It mainly would not stay connected to the Growatt sever. They kept telling me it was bad connection with internet.. after months I managed to convince them it was bad boards as I suspected all along and after them sending them and me installing them I have never had another issue again!
But if you don’t have the same issue I had. I would think maybe you have bad software on the RPi or maybe bad hardware?!?
 
I also would like better info on home assistant. Especially since I have 3 inverters, and 2 different models.
Also being able to name the inverters would be helpful Instead of inverter #1/2/3, House, Shop, Well would be much better.

And there is definitely an issue with Pi4s when using multiple inverters. See my thread:

Post in thread 'Parallel LV6548 inverters - Problems with SolarAssistant'
https://diysolarforum.com/threads/p...roblems-with-solarassistant.42162/post-545424

Here's my last email change with Pierre:

When someone mentions that they don't see MPPT2, then we advise using a direct cable for that inverter and to test monitoring it on it's own to ensure the direct cable is working. When someone mentions they have connection issues, meaning it sometimes drops out, usb devices disappear, etc. then we advise using an RS232 port. In South Africa there are some distributors of these inverters that tell customers the USB port is not for monitoring, you have to use RS232, which is of course not true, but they do it for reliability.

I'm going to make a change to SolarAssistant so that you can clearly see which USB devices are connected via USB. It will be released in the next beta.

Kind regards
Pierre
 
Last edited:
Jazzmonger said:
I also would like better info on home assistant. Especially since I have 3 inverters, and 2 different models

Since there is no way to name multiple inverters with a unique ID (like serial number), when the data is sent to home assistant via mqtt, how do you know the the same inverter is being monitored, especially after the pi restarts and the inverters have changed position in Solar assistant?

1657888591665.png
I've asked Pierre how to solve for this... no way currently that I can find.

also, there are no Summary stats. This is Not really a big deal as they can all be summed in home assistant but without knowing which inverter is doing what, it's kind of pointless to build graphs of usage.
 
Yup, totally done that but trying to do things on a single inverter is kind of pointless right now Until it can be directly referenced.
 
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