Solar Assistant with dual Inverters

[MikeMynis]

regular cables will work, within your inverters there is an usbtoserial adapter

Great, thanks!

 

[timselectric]

I currently have 3 Growatt SPF-5000-ES units running on a single Solar Assistant Pi. 2 are paralleled as one system. And the other is a stand alone system. They are all 3 connected to a single battery bank. Each one is connected to the Pi via the special USB cable provided with Growatt units. Solar Assistant reports it all together, as a single system. Along with the victron shunt.
No issues, it's working perfectly.

 

[MikeMynis]

special USB cable

Hi @timselectric, what is so special about this USB cable? I tried a normal USB printer cable, but it doesn't work.

 

[timselectric]

Hi @timselectric, what is so special about this USB cable? I tried a normal USB printer cable, but it doesn't work.

I don't know. But it's the only thing that works.
If I remember correctly. The pinout was the same as a standard printer cable. I gave up trying to figure it out.

 

[MikeMynis]

I don't know. But it's the only thing that works.
If I remember correctly. The pinout was the same as a standard printer cable. I gave up trying to figure it out.

Ah, I see. And I got it working. I asked SA and got this response: :"In the configuration tab under Inverter, click disconnect, select both usb cables, click connect.".

And that worked (with a regular USB cable). So problem solved.

Thanks anyway for letting me "hijack" this topic for a short while ;-)

 

[ijhammo]

I have the same setup and same question, only with 2 Growatt inverters. I only see 1 inverter in SA.
So I guess I need to connect the second Growatt inverter to the pi as well via USB.

Question: is the USB cable from the inverter to the pi a normal USB cable? In other words: do regular USB cables (i.e. to connect a printer to your PC) also work?

What Growatt inverters are you doing this with? I want to do this with two SPH BL-UPs and trying to find others who may have already done it

Also, are you able to control the settings on both inverters?

 

[harlam2]

One tip: remember after connecting the communications cables to both inverters, you need to disconnect from the current inverter in Solar Assistant under Settings, then select the connextion type and should see both usb connections. You have to click to select both, then click reconnect, and should see the combined inverter info

 

[IrishG]

I currently have 3 Growatt SPF-5000-ES units running on a single Solar Assistant Pi. 2 are paralleled as one system. And the other is a stand alone system. They are all 3 connected to a single battery bank. Each one is connected to the Pi via the special USB cable provided with Growatt units. Solar Assistant reports it all together, as a single system. Along with the victron shunt.
No issues, it's working perfectly.

resurrecting an old thread. Are you able to see the pv production of each inverter seperatly? or does it just show a total pv production across all the inverters.

 

[Quattrohead]

This depends how solar assistant is connected to the inverters, if USB to each inverter you will see all of the data but if only connected to the master inverter it depends on what data the inverters will share across their parallel connection.

 

[timselectric]

resurrecting an old thread. Are you able to see the pv production of each inverter seperatly? or does it just show a total pv production across all the inverters.

I can see both.
Total, on the main dashboard.
Total and individual, on the inverter details page, and the graphs page.