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Thornwave Powermon-5s

Horsefly

Solar Wizard
Joined
Dec 12, 2020
Messages
1,817
Location
Denver, mostly
I searched the board and found a few mentions of the Thornwave Powermon-5s, but not many detailed comments.

The device is much like the Victron Smart Shunt. It monitors the Ah going into and out of a battery, and provides lots of information via Bluetooth to an app on a cell phone or tablet.

I bought a Victron Smart Shunt thinking it would satisfy my needs, but after plugging it in I realized that its ability to log information is on the App, not in the device. That would mean that the app (and the phone it was running on) would have to stay active and nearby for however long you wanted to log information. That's not at all what I'm looking for, as I've got a remote cabin and co-owners of the cabin (siblings of mine) that use the system but can't be expected to monitor how it is doing.

The Powermon-5s is more explicit in its definition of logging, saying that it will log information for up to three years. So I am considering selling my Victron smart shunt and buying the Powermon-5s. Before I do so I wanted to hear from someone with the Powermon-5s about how well it works, and hopefully specifically about the data logging.

Anyone what to share their experience with this device?
 
Works great - especially for SOC/coloumb counting/time remaining at current discharge rate. It's been super handy. Good range on bluetooth.
But, I don't use the data logging feature - my Schneider system (SW4024/combox/SCCs) has more than enough for me (including graphs) going years back. Best.
 
Works great - especially for SOC/coloumb counting/time remaining at current discharge rate. It's been super handy. Good range on bluetooth.
But, I don't use the data logging feature - my Schneider system (SW4024/combox/SCCs) has more than enough for me (including graphs) going years back. Best.
Well, I also have the SW4024, MPPT60-150 SCC, but I have the System Control Panel (SCP) instead of the combox. The combox is now discontinued and a little harder to find.

Besides, I'm thinking of putting in two 8S LiFePO4 packs, with a powermon-5s on each.

Glad to hear you like the Thornwave Labs box. Have you had any customer service interaction with them?
 
Well, I also have the SW4024, MPPT60-150 SCC, but I have the System Control Panel (SCP) instead of the combox. The combox is now discontinued and a little harder to find.

Besides, I'm thinking of putting in two 8S LiFePO4 packs, with a powermon-5s on each.

Glad to hear you like the Thornwave Labs box. Have you had any customer service interaction with them?
Raz (owner/designer at Thornwave) has been very helpful, both with firmware upgrade and some miscellaneous questions. Nice guy. I think you'd like the Combox - makes firmware upgrades easier, allows use of iPad to monitor system and make changes - I have an SCP but I mostly use the iPad interface - and like the graphing/history. The Gateway replaced it, but mine is still kicking. Best.
 

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If anyone is looking for a ComBox:

Thanks for that, but I'm not sure this is something I would buy off Amazon. I've read lots of tales about items from Schneider not talking to each other do to version incompatibilities. Besides - like I said - I'm really looking for something to log how my future / new LiFePO4 battery packs are performing.
 
Raz (owner/designer at Thornwave) has been very helpful, both with firmware upgrade and some miscellaneous questions. Nice guy. I think you'd like the Combox - makes firmware upgrades easier, allows use of iPad to monitor system and make changes - I have an SCP but I mostly use the iPad interface - and like the graphing/history. The Gateway replaced it, but mine is still kicking. Best.
Sounds like a vote of confidence for Thornwave. I'm still hoping someone can chime in here about the data logging. On the other hand, it sounds like Thornwave is small enough (and Raz is personable enough) that I may be able to just send him an email.
 
@Horsefly did you get a response from Thornwave? I'm also interested in learning more about data logging, specifically what is being logged and if it's possible to export the data from the mobile app to CSV.
 
@Horsefly did you get a response from Thornwave? I'm also interested in learning more about data logging, specifically what is being logged and if it's possible to export the data from the mobile app to CSV.
I haven't contacted them yet. Been busy with some other stuff, but thanks for reminding me. I'll post back here if I get some useful info from them.
 
I have installed 2 Thronwave monitors. I can't say enough how much I appreciate the build quality and app. The android app data logging I couldn't get to work but there is software to supply its info to applications. See ThornwavePy. I use Grafana for displaying its data as supplied by this software. I use one for my inverter and the other for my solar charge controller. For battery cell data I use a Overkill BMS.

thornwave.png
 
The android app data logging I couldn't get to work
That's discouraging. It's impressive what you've done, but I don't think I'm looking to do a Raspberry Pi with a Bluetooth to get the data. I want to look at the log on my phone or tablet, which is implied in their site material.

What I would really like is a shunt-based history for the battery: energy in, energy out, and SoC. That may be too much to ask, but it sounded like I could get it (or derive it) from the Thornwave powermon-5s.

I guess I'll still contact Thornwave, but I'm not so hot to buy the thing anymore.
 
I did call, and realized quickly that I shouldn't have called while walking around my garage, as I didn't have anything to write with or on. :oops: Anyway, I think he said that it really mostly logs the amps through the shut, and the battery voltage, and I think something else. He did point out it doesn't really log the power (Ah) or energy (Wh) because you can compute that with the data in the log, which is true.

I mentioned that someone on-line had said they could not get to the logs via the Android app, and he said he was very certain that it works on both iOS and Android, and that there must be something else going on.

I realized as I hung up that I meant to ask about the ability to save the log from the app. I would need that in order to load the data into a spreadsheet for analysis, since it is only the raw data that is logged.
 
You don't have to use a Raspberry Pi and bluetooth is supplied with the Thornwave. You could just use any browser to look at the data. the issue is collecting the data into a database.

It is supposed to be available on the device but as yet I don't think there is a download option so can only use app to view. With Thornwavepy one can supply ongoing data to a database for their own use.
 
I have modified thornwavepy to output cvs data. The data output : PctCharged, V1Volts, V2Volts, Current, Power, Temperature, PowerMeter, ChargeMeter, TimeSinceStart, Currentime, PeakCurrent.

To simplify any effort I use 2 free apps (Telegraf and Influxdb) to collect my cvs output and automatically input it into a time series database. I choose the time interval for collection. This only requires setting 2 configuration files.

Finally, I create various dashboards with Grafana (another free app) via its browser interface. Very simple to use and create many types of graphs. It's just a graphing front end for time series data.

After setup all is now automated and only need to interact with the graphing program until it's to my liking.

After that I only use the browser to view present state of system and historical data and accessible from any device on my lan.

github.com/tgalarneau/bms
 
Thanks for that, but I'm not sure this is something I would buy off Amazon. I've read lots of tales about items from Schneider not talking to each other do to version incompatibilities.

If you don’t want a ComBox that makes sense.

However the ComBox is made by Schneider and the first step to do when you get it is a free firmware update from Schneider so I don’t understand that concern.
 
If you don’t want a ComBox that makes sense.

However the ComBox is made by Schneider and the first step to do when you get it is a free firmware update from Schneider so I don’t understand that concern.
Thanks. It's hard to get you to let something go, heh? :unsure:

Seriously, I've been in the Schneider universe for 4+ years, I designed a system around them, and I think I know their stuff pretty well. I started this thread because I wanted to know if another product (Thornwave powermon-5s, if you've forgotten ;)) would do what I wanted. Just monitor the battery and log the data. If the combox satisfied that need (and I actually don't think it does), I suppose I could spend $300 or whatever for a combox that is now out of date and no longer sold (by Schneider), or maybe I could spend about half that for something else.

And by the way, there is lots of info on line about people having one issue or another with the combox and Schneider telling them to go pound sand, because it is no longer supported. So there's that.

We cool?
 
Yessir, no problem here.

I’ll show myself out ?
 
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This is not really on topic but seems there is some collective wisdom here on schnieder sw 4024 here .
I have recently purchased one for my auxiliary off grid system.
My issue is although now the unit defaults regarding battery chemistry suits my AGM bank it seems to me that when i come to replace with lifepo4 in the future i need a SCP to configure to custom battery configuration for lithium ?
At 20% of the initial purchase price of the sw 4024 its a bit annoying and concerning that when i do come to replace batteries in the future SCP may not be available as per the com box.
My dilema is Should i bite the bullet and get one now or not worry as generator / charging is basically opportunistic and algorithm not really necessary ?
regards confused
 
As I recall the SW4024 has default settings for FLA, AGM, and Gel. I would not attempt to use any of those for LFP batteries. The default absorption voltage is 28.8V (3.6V per cell) which may be OK, but if you cells get a little bit out of balance your BMS will be cutting of charging fairly frequently. More importantly, the default settings have temperature compensation, which you do not use with LFP.

I personally would go with an SCP.
 
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