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Wi-Fi controlled inverter power

Vicario

New Member
Joined
Oct 26, 2021
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Hello,

I have a this setup:
We have 18 x 300W panels on our roof. We have 430A of battery power (8 x Crown SLA batts)

During the winter I’d love to do the following:

1) hardwire my Huawei Smart Hub Wi-Fi router and my Accurite weather hub directly to battery bank to be able to see the weather at our cabin.
2) we also have an Wi-Fi Ecobee (t-stat) controlled propane wall heater which when the inverter is on I can turn on remotely and heat cabin prior to our arrival.

The problem is that our inverter draws 30W of power just to stay on and it happens during Nov-Feb where we don’t get enough solar to prevent batts from dropping below minimum SOC… so I have to turn inverter off which means I lose power to router and other wifi enabled things like weather station and wall heater.

I can figure out how to hardwire the router and weather hub but I can’t seem to figure out how to set up my inverter so that it can be controlled (on/off) remotely via a wifi enabled switch because inverter doesn’t plug into anything… so wifi plug won’t work!

Sorry for the long winded post. In short, does anyone have any guidance or brilliant ideas on how I can control the power of my inverter remotely using wifi?

Thank you!
 
Maybe a DC to DC converter is more your needs. Most electronics use 5v 9v so if you can just run off DC you’ll save tons of losses.

Is your battery set up for 12v or 24v?
 
Switching your modem / router / weather device to the battery bank will likely be easy as they're likely already DC devices running off some wall adapter. I'd go with some cheap adjustable DC to DC buck converters.

I use something similar to these on amazon.
Step Down Converters

For the remote enabling of your inverter, there are a few possible options. Some inverters have a remote enable pin or can be remotely addressed via RS232 / RS485, some do not. If it's a dumb inverter, you can add a high current relay to the input of your inverter. Something like this Kilovac Relay would work. From there, use a generic WiFi automation wireless relay such as this to control the Kilovac Relay or the remote enable pin. If your inverter only "talks" RS232 / RS485, then can find the appropriate WiFi automation device for those such as this.
 
Maybe a DC to DC converter is more your needs. Most electronics use 5v 9v so if you can just run off DC you’ll save tons of losses.

Is your battery set up for 12v or 24v?
Batt setup is 48v. Thanks a lot for the reply!
 
Switching your modem / router / weather device to the battery bank will likely be easy as they're likely already DC devices running off some wall adapter. I'd go with some cheap adjustable DC to DC buck converters.

I use something similar to these on amazon.
Step Down Converters

For the remote enabling of your inverter, there are a few possible options. Some inverters have a remote enable pin or can be remotely addressed via RS232 / RS485, some do not. If it's a dumb inverter, you can add a high current relay to the input of your inverter. Something like this Kilovac Relay would work. From there, use a generic WiFi automation wireless relay such as this to control the Kilovac Relay or the remote enable pin. If your inverter only "talks" RS232 / RS485, then can find the appropriate WiFi automation device for those such as this.
Thanks a lot for the reply. I’m considering using a switch bot for the inverter on/off function. Don’t suppose you’ve had any experience w these? My question re SBs is whether they’ll work with my existing Huawei Wi-Fi modem or if I need to get a separate “gateway 2.4 ghz hub”… and if I do any thoughts on what to get? Thx again, much appreciated.
 
Thanks a lot for the reply. I’m considering using a switch bot for the inverter on/off function. Don’t suppose you’ve had any experience w these? My question re SBs is whether they’ll work with my existing Huawei Wi-Fi modem or if I need to get a separate “gateway 2.4 ghz hub”… and if I do any thoughts on what to get? Thx again, much appreciated.
I had no idea such a product like the switch bot existed! Sometimes I get so lost in my little world of microcontrollers and programmable logic devices that I just don't know what's out there!

If already have an internet connection to your cabin and you have WiFi devices connected to it, you're golden. Seems like all you'd need to do is buy switch bot and the accompanying hub mini and you should be good to go.
 
you know... I have an inverter with a USB port on it and there was a Bluetooth dongle that would plug into it and I could control with an app. I know on the Home Assistant side of things you can now use Bluetooth to connect to bms and other devices. Thats how I plan to control my inverter. its just.. the included dongle some how broke and so did the replacement. now they don't sell anymore and just haven't had time to make the PCB and have a few made. My plan is to test them out on other inverters with USB ports.
 
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