diy solar

diy solar

Solar Assistant with Growatt SPH6000

Duckcm18 said:
Hi, I've had Solar Assistant up and running for about 6 a month now. It's way more reliable than Shinephone. I lost that recently for about 2 weeks until I had time to completely reinstall the data logger. In relation to your questions,
1. Not all the settings, I can't find the section for time slot charging from the grid, bit that may just be me.
2. Unfortunately I can't help with this as I have not gone down this route.
3. The only thing I find missing data wise is a bar graph showing the percentage of self use Vs the grid import. Other than that I have adjustable import and export timescales, current MPPT values, power generation to the second if I want it rather than 5 minutes delay. There's loads more but it's all covered on the website.
4. I got all my bits from Amazon in the UK including the 5V DC buck converter and then cobbled it all together. My RS485 lead was a FTDI one which was unterminated on the Ethernet end which I just crimped as per the instructions using pins 4 and 5. The one you linked to would possibly need cutting and then re- terminating. Depends on what you want to do.

Hope some of that helps.
Click to expand...
I have it up and running but I can't see anyway to make changes to my inverter setup?
Is this supposed to live in the Power Tab?
Mine simply says "Power management for your inverter is currently in development"
 
I joined the beta scheme and that has slightly different features but the inverter settings are limited. What is you want to change?
 
By the time you do want it it may not be an issue anymore! It would be good to be able to change the grid tied charging from SA but I very rarely use it that it's not too much of a problem to use Shinephone unless it's down
 
I was hoping to drop Shinephone alltogether butmit seems I'll have to hang on to it for a while at least.
How are you finding the beta version and how do you get on it?
Ah, found it in the FAQ.
 
The link is on the website to join and explains all about it. It's pretty stable, occasionally comes up with connection issues but a refresh of the app usually sorts it. There's a nice percentage drop/charge per hour rate on the main page and then there may be other changes but I don't really know what they are compared to the stable version
 
cliver1956 said:
I was hoping to drop Shinephone alltogether butmit seems I'll have to hang on to it for a while at least.
How are you finding the beta version and how do you get on it?
Ah, found it in the FAQ.
Click to expand...
I can us solar assistant and shine dongle. I use the USB to solar assistant, then printer type end square from solar assistant to inverter. Then I used USB extension cable to the shine dongle. Both give me data. I am trying figure out bms hook up.Question bms to solar assistant via uart rj4 plug or bms to inverter.
 
cliver1956 said:
Well, I went for it.
I used this USB to 485 with a cut off RJ45 patch lead. My thinking was it would be easy to change pins if it didn't work.
Happily I used pins 4 & 5 and it worked first time. It's pulling in data as I type.
Just have to work out how to get the data into my InfluxDB now.
Think I'll start another thread to see if anyone has done it because I'm finding the solar assistant documentation a bit confusing.
Click to expand...
Hi @cliver1956 - I bought https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07JVG6H2K and crimped black wire to Pin 2, yellow to Pin 4 and orange to Pin 5 on RJ45. Changed the RS485 port settings on my Growatt SPH-6000TL to VPP, but no data is incoming when connected to the COM port through PuTTy. Should I see any data? Should I have ignored the black wire, like the rest of them?

Edit: the cable works as expected with Solar Assistant, crimped only yellow and orange wires.
 
Last edited:
I have been offline for a while, busy with other things.
Just updated SA to version 2023-08-16.
There have been a lot of additional settings added to the settings page.
So, it looks like I may be moving in the right direction to be able to drop the server.growatt system.
One thing is confusing me though.
In the settings on the server.growatt page my inverter is set to "Power harvester" mode.
I can't find any information on what this setting does.
It appears to be essentially load first judging by what I am observing i.e. the load takes power from PV, Battery then Grid in priority order.
I reached out to my installer and to growatt themselves but got no reply.
Plus, I don't see Power harvester as an option in SA settings?
Can any Growatt owners shed any light for me please?
 
hmmm.. I am struggling with this.

It might be that my adapter is wrong. I have purchased the simplier one with 2 terminals only.
ordered one now as OPs...

can you guys also take a picture of the bottom of the inverter which ports are listed there?

differently from the SA pictures, mine has just RS485 written on one (SA has RS485-a, RS485-2)
 
Potentially stupid questions but is there:
1) a way to power the raspberry/orange pi from the growatt set up directly (sph5000 and 6.5kw battery)?
Or if not:
2) can anyone tell me what is the longest cable run possible between the inverter and the pi without risking data loss/compromise?

Our inverter/battery is on an exterior wall with no external power sockets and the hole through the exterior wall to our main fuse box (which runs all the cabling from the inverter into the house) is a reasonable distance from the inverter itself (a good 4-5 meters plus the depth of the cavity wall), with the cable run through conduit along the external wall (between the inverter and the hole through the wall).

I would love to use the solar assistant option instead of the shine app (the latter is really impressively poor as far as reliability for us!) but unless I’m missing something see my only two solutions being:
1) to house the pi in a weatherproof case at the site of the inverter and connect via on board wifi to the house/WAP (with power supply to it being my problem to “solve”)
2) to run the connecting cable from the rs485 port, as a reasonably long cable with the other solar install cables, through the exterior wall and have the pi in the house plugged into a mains socket near the fuse box…

I think I still would need the growatt shine app (so the wifi dongle in the inverter) connected for firmware updates etc but I find the shine app fairly unfit for purpose as a monitoring system.

So a third question;
3) DO I actually need the shine app for any reason or would I be able to perform all functionality (battery/grid force charge/discharge…) through the solar assistant option now?

Thanks in advance and pretty stoked to have found this resource! In other news we’re in the process of installing a SunAmp Thermino heat battery with an Eddi, so tentatively looking forward to see how that integrates to the system too!
 
Crowz said:
As for powering the pi you just need a stepdown converter that runs at the voltage your battery runs at. I'm guessing your at 48v so you need a 48v to 5v converter.

My 12v system powers my pi's so I use this :


Which is a 12v to 5v dc to dc adapter. Even the pi's that monitor my 48v stuff are powered by my 12v system so I just use the ones I listed above.
Click to expand...
Amazing, thank you! So with that running from the battery to the power feed of the pi it should all just sit happily outside with the battery/inverter in a waterproof housing then.

Finally (hopefully!), is there any potential warranty issue with growatt using solar assistant/raspberry pi? Reading through the inverter manual, they state the following as reasons to not honour warranty claims:

·Misuse, abuse, neglect or accident;
·Alteration, improper installation or application;
·Unauthorized modification or attempted repairs;
·Non-observance of Growatt installation and maintenance instruction;
·Failure to observe the applicable safety regulations

Our system was installed by a very reputable installer but they have said they would not be able to fit a third party device as they have no experience on this. I’ve heard mixed reports of the reliability of growatt systems (ours is pretty new) so curious how into the weeds growatt would go to dodge a potential warranty claim if I set up/fit the pi/solar assistant myself. Mainly in reference to points 2 & 3 of the bullets above.
 
Ive never heard of any complaints with using solar assistant with growatt.
 
Solar Assistant will not void the warranty. It can't make it do anything it wasn't designed to do.
 
I'm up and running with SA on a pi zero W giving me nice frequent data from SPH5000 and ability control 'work mode' from home assistant and change my charge time slots via SA site without having to do password which after 7 months of daily changes for Octopus Agile is a relief :) However what I cannot see at present is any way to update the timeslots with MQTT into SolarAssistant Beta. I'm currently evaluating, whilst also going down the ESP Home on shinewifi sticks bought for the purpose (although I'm still awaiting the shinewifi-S for my hybrid inverter but have successfully flashed shinewifi-X on the smaller PV inverter). Does anyone have any info about how to change timeslots for battery charging from homeassistant please?
 
I did using 4&5 with the 485 converter but no way can I get any after market battery to work with it. GROWATT don't care
 
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