I’m signed up for a Solis inverter based system and was starting to get concerned how complicated the Home Assistant integration looked. This has given me cause for hope. Thanks very much for pulling this together.
excellent help, I really need to dive into SA and figure out my automation scripts etc. I have a Solis inverter, the 3kW one and 4 Pylontech batteries, 10 panels since Dec '22. Still catching up learning! May well have some questions but let's see how far I get... brilliant to hear you run through all this, cheers James.
Nice to see my solismod has a video tutorial. You done great work in explaining. Since you have dedicated VM, I'd say it should be easier to run solismod in docker as it would start and restart if it crashes. Anyway good video.
Thanks for the feedback, I really appreciate the positive comment. I did try to run solismod & pysolarman in a docker container but they wouldn't work for me unfortunately. I can't remember the exact issue but it was like solismod couldn't find python. Thanks for providing such great tools for us to work with! It's massively appreciated by lots of people!
Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou been looking for something like this for 2 years since I got my Solis 5k (again, like you, my suppliers promised all sorts and provided SFA) Thankyou !
@@gordonmarkus Very helpful indeed, even if my wife hasn't seen me since this video. This has taken me down a very large rabbit hole including homeassistant and the forecast solar integration for my batteries. Never thought this would be possible! Keep up the good work.
There’s all sorts of rabbit holes you can disappear down with home assistant. Literally anything with an internet connection probably has an integration! I’ve found the ‘solcast’ forecast a little more accurate/reliable than ‘forecast.solar’ that I was using when I made this video, so that might be worth a look when you get the chance
It's not just your installer that promised the moon and delivered chuff all. Our installer did exactly the same with the Sofar inverter and batteries they installed in December. Hoping something similar will give me the access that the crappy Solarman app doesn't.
Delighted to see something like this working...Have been stalling on getting a system installed, as I did not know what was supported on HA, as you say, asking an installer, and they wouldn't know One point to note, I have HA running in docker, with integrations working...HCAS, ZAPPI & a few others I think you need to install a "supervised" version/mode
Excellent video - sadly above my head, but It's really useful to know what can be achieved. I have been thinking of attempting the same thing - without the knowledge to do it and also I am using a Growatt inverter. Many thanks for taking the time and effort. Just off to see if I can import the agile prices into homeassistant as a starter.
Thanks for watching and the comment. 6 months ago I never knew about any of this stuff either, so it's been a massive learning curve for me as well, but it's a journey worth taking! There's loads of really good videos & facebook groups out there that will help you get your system setup as you'd like. Good luck with the aglle rate card integration :-)
This is great - I’m currently looking at getting a system installed and it’s between givienergy 5kw and Solis 6kw with pure storage ii. The givenergy clealry has a much better app and ability to control this stuff natively but the Solis is more capable specs wise in total power, backup battery power, charge rate and UPS ability. Seeing this makes me less worried about the “smartness” of the system.
Thanks for watching and the feedback. The Inverter is a really good product I think, hopefully one day this functionality will be built in to the Solis app but I think that sort of thing is a long way off at the moment!
Hi Andy, thanks for watching and the comment. If you are getting a new system installed, check what version of wifi stick (logger) will be provided. The video is relevant for the slightly older V4 devices (serial number of the stick has a leading 40, or 41). The later V5 devices don't work with solarman/solismod and don't allow write access to any of the registers which is a real pain at the moment. Apparently Solis are going to integrate remote control of the inverter into their own 'solis cloud' app, but they've been saying that for about a year with no updates since.
@gordonmarkus - an update for you. I have been using the SolisCloud app to set inverter parameters for a couple of months now. My biggest problem is remembering to stop battery charging for the following day, when the rate is less attractive! It would be great if Solis could come up with some sort of IFTTT integration to overcome this problem…
Great video, but just wanted to add that you can change the setting really simply from the Solis inverter to chrage the batteries over night on cheap rate electricity.
Thanks for the comment. That’s true, but the purpose of this is to get the battery to automatically charge from the grid based on logic I.e when the solar forecast is poor, when the battery is below a certain threshold, and when the octopus agile rate is at its best/cheapest rate without having to manually change any settings on the inverter by being physically in front of it
Hi not sure about the solar forecast bit of this but I'm pretty sure you can set state of charge limits on your inverter for example if the battery's get to 5% they will automatically charge via the grid to a pre determined SOC set by you for example to 20% to maintain the health of your batteries. Also you can set charging times to charge via grid at certain times eg midnight to 4am if your on the octopus go tarrif but I'm not sure how it will work for the half hourly data. Hope some of this helps
@@adamc20 Thanks for watching and the comment. The aim of what I was doing was to get the inverter to behave dynamically based on solar forecast, agile rate and battery SoC - rather than just get it to charge from the grid at the same time every day which I know you can control on the inverter itself. Thanks again :-)
Some useful links to the various modules you'll need: Install HACS on home assistant: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-v27N77df_34.html Solarman: github.com/StephanJoubert/home_assistant_solarman Solismod: github.com/NosIreland/solismod Pysolarmanv5: pypi.org/project/pysolarmanv5/ github.com/jmccrohan/pysolarmanv5 Paho-MQTT: github.com/eclipse/paho.mqtt.python MQTT For Home Assistant: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-TXbVLqv1j9M.html
If I understand it, you don't run HA on a pi. So your process needs several computer systems to work. Could you kindly share your configuration? I was hoping to run all of the pieces you name on a single pi. Is this possible?
Hi Mark, thanks for watching and the comment. The implementation as I have it does require 2 machines (one for full fat HA, and the other for pysolarmanv5/solismod). Since doing my build though, it might be possible to do it all just within HA using the 'solax' integration depending on what wifi dongle you have.
This might be obvious to some but I could not access config_hide without typing .html at the end Also, in your Device information page you have wireless AP mode enabled. Why is that? Does it make any difference to Soliscloud inverter control do you think? (I'm struggling with "data error, please contact webmaster" message with my Gen 2 data logger and wondering if its a simple setting change my end to fix. Thanks
Thank you for this - it's a great help. Can you point me to where I can find an example of the code you used for your test scripts in the "Testing" section of the video. Thanks.
Hi, thanks for watching. The format of the example can be found here github.com/jmccrohan/pysolarmanv5/blob/main/examples/register_scan.py just change the ip & serial number to your own details and then I would reduce the register scan range to the individual one that you want to query
I would pay for someone to set this up for me. After years of struggling with Tech it’s now much better for my Mental health and everyone in my home if I stick to the gas boiler controls and Tv remote 😂
I have HA OS and the Solis stick Solis-DLS-Wifi S3. I don´t know how to install python or make this work with this stick. Do you know if your tutorial could work with this two things? What stick do you recommend and what HA installation do you recommend also?
Hi, I'm afraid that the S3 logger won't really work like this. If you can get an S2 or DLS-W then you'll be able to control via HA. The S3 will not allow control via HA though I'm afraid. There are other options like the 'wavershare RS485 to ethernet converter' if you can run a cable to the inverter.
Hi, thanks for watching and the comment. HA yellow does seem to be the full fat version from what I can tell but it might be worth contacting the vendor just to double check. Note that if you have DLS-W wifi logger like I have, you also need a 2nd device to run the pysolarman/solismod elements. If you have DLS-L or S2 then you can just run the solax integration straight out of HA.
Hi thanks for putting this on, it's very helpful. I have a question. My system consists of 2 Solis S5-EH1P3.6K-L inverters, each having 10KW battery storage (Puredrive) and 4KW panels. The inverters are currently fitted with S3 dataloggers so can be controlled via Solis cloud, but it seems I'd need to change them to S2 to work with Solismod/Pysolarmanv5. Does the Solarman HA integration provide for systems with multiple inverters please? I'm a total newbie with HA, not much point in even getting started if it won't cope with a twin inverter set up. Any advice most gratefully received here.
Thanks for the comment. Yes you would need to get rid of the S3 loggers as they won't work and either get DLS-W, DLS-L, S2 or even just replace the solis logger with a waveshare device. Personally if I was going on this journey again I'd just use a waveshare as once you have HA running you'll never look at SolisCloud again. I'd also use the Solax integration which interfaces direct to the waveshare removing the complexity for the solismod/pysolarman scripts on a separate VM. In terms of running 2 inverters, no problem - the second one will just have a '2' at the end of all the device/entity IDs.
@@gordonmarkus Thx for speedy reply. It would not bother me at all to ditch SolisCloud. It does not properly support a twin inverter set up. Any guidance as to what sort of waveshare device we could use would be very helpful.
This is the one that many people are using www.amazon.co.uk/Waveshare-RS485-Ethernet-Converter-auto-negotiation/dp/B09QMNWYLQ@@neilfuller9348 check the supported adaptors here as well homeassistant-solax-modbus.readthedocs.io/en/latest/compatible-adaptors/
hi i think i have been communicating with you on FB, i am trying to go through this step by step, got home assistant up and running on raspberry pi, can't find solarman in Home Assistant Community Add-ons. i am ordering another pi for python, as i assume this is the best route thanks again for this video, you have almost exactly same set up as me, io would love to clone your HA lol
Thanks for watching and the comment. I can't remember how I added the solarman integration as it was a long time ago now, but worst case is that you could add it as a custom repository and just put in it's github url of github.com/StephanJoubert/home_assistant_solarman I'd have thought. Good luck!
@@gordonmarkus my son is sending me his old pi, so should have that soon, sorry to be a pain but how do id the dongle on my router? if i am being too needy let me know
Now i've got it all up & running, one final thanks 👍 Something that just sprung to mind, could writing settings to the memory (presumably FLASH) in the inverter on a daily basis cause problems later on down the line?
Good work on getting it up and running. It's no different that going to the panel on the inverter and making the changes manually every day, all we're doing is bypassing the button pressing. Yes in theory there is wear on the memory from doing this, but the thing has a 10yr warranty.
Hi, can you confirm which datalogger you have used for this? I have a Gen 3 wifi dongle which isn't compatible with MODBUS so I'm trying to work out which one I need to get
Nice video, thanks for sharing. So you couldn't get python scripts to run on the raspberry pi that home assistant is installed on? Or was it because you were running in a VM?
Thanks for watching and the comment. I have HA running on a VM on an HP microserver. Running HA on a pi will smash the microSD, so if you're going to use a pi for HA then use a proper SSD or some other external storage. I couldn't get python to run within my HA VM, but that's not to say it's not possible, I just couldn't do it so I have my pi doing the python (solismod/pysolarman) scripts.
Thanks for the video which has inspired me to get into HA. However, I've failed at an eary hurdle I'm afraid. I’ve been trying to integrate Solis Modbus on HA. When adding the integration, I’m asked for the IP and TCP port for my inverter. I’ve tried adding the IP address for my Solis datalogger (attached to my Solis RAI-3K-48ES-5G) with no luck. I used the default TCP port 502. Is there something I’m missing? Sorry, just getting into this so likely a stupid question.
Hi, I've not used the Solis Modbus integration so can't comment on that I'm afraid. In this video I used solismod/pysolarmanv5 on a linux VM and then publish via MQTT in HA to send values to the inverter via solismod/pysolarmanv5. Note if you have the S3 logger none of that will work, and you can't talk direct to that logger via modbus with any integration. Take a look at my other video that advises what integrations will work with which logger. If you need to start from scratch because you have an S3 logger, then I would bin that off and get a waveshare RS232/modbus converter and then use the Solax integration which simplifies things a lot.
Which bit of the video actually uses addons? I have a RasPi and I have HA in a docker (core) but I haven't found the bit in the video where I need addons?
The addons needed are Mosquitto MQTT broker and file editor. I also put on the samba share addon so that I can directly access the directory structure from a PC. Also helpful is the terminal addon so you can run commands via ssh. Docker version isn't the full version, so I think you might struggle to get this working but feel free to prove me wrong!
@@gordonmarkus Are you aware of a specific version requirement for the wifi dongle? I can't get to the my dongle's webpage from the ip, I'm presented with a login/pwd popup, I use admin/admin but it just repeats the ask, I recall a comment in one of your videos about the wifi dongle, hence the ask, thanks
@@adibbins hi, the dongle I have is the DLS-W, the other one that works with this method is the S2. The S3 model will not work. As far as I know the default password on DLS-W and S2 is 'admin' but on the S3 it's '123456789'.
Thank you for these instructions, I have managed to make it work, the only thing left changing register 43110 to switch timed mode on and off with 33 and 35. I added 43110 to the registers and I mqtt publish 33 (when it is 35) it doesnt change. I cant find how to trouble shoot this step. I would be grateful for your input. Thanks again
Hi, Thanks for watching and the comment. Have you got your inverter in self use mode? That's tripped me up before. Take a look at this other video of mine here that might help ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-MXlIsVWeq3c.html
@@gordonmarkus thanks for the reply. Yes I watched this one, along with many other of your videos 👍🏻 The inverter is self use mode and time of use switch is on. I can read the register and when I switch off the time of use switch, 35 becomes 33 when switched off I am able to change the charge start time via mqtt
It sounds like you've got everything as it should be. A couple of things to check, since you added 43110 into registers.py in solismod, did you restart solismod/main.py? That needs to be restarted after any changes in registers.py otherwise they won't get picked up. The other thing to check, is when you do the publish from HA can you look at main.py and see the message being received and sent to the inverter?@@cagcos
same as my issue i tried changing the config value to a string but it didnt seem to work and just getting time out error. wondering if anyone has a solution :(
Brilliant video, was wondering how/if this was possible. I'm just trying to set Home Assistant Up, I have a Solis 4th gen inverter like you do but I have the Pylontech batteries. I'd be really interested in how you get all the information and your setup on HA, would love a step by step video is you can produce one.
Hi Lee, thanks for watching and the comment. There’s loads of other much better videos than mine on installing HA, HACS and then different integrations so that you can get your inverter talking to HA. If you’re in the Solis owners FB group you’re welcome to message me with any questions though, or ask here too and I’ll try to help if I can
@@gordonmarkus thanks to your video I set HA up yesterday, sorted the HACS integration, Solarman, Solis, etc, modified the existing dashboard (looks surprisingly like yours at the minute but it's changing as I learn. Which would you say is the best way to integrate Octopus pricing? I'd really like to be able to download my exports from Octopus and have HA display the daily earnings, I'll figure it out (eventually). I'm going to set up the Linux host this afternoon and then start looking at some automations, etc. I have joined the FB group but will keep questions to a minimum, thanks for the offer though.
I love what you did and that was exactly what I wanted to do. BUT, I don’t have your computer knowledge. Will you consider do it for me for a price or if distance is an issue, walk me through it please 😊
Hi, thanks for the video. I am new to HA, raspberry Pi and will be getting the Solis system in Feb23. Since you do not suggest running the whole lot on a pi, then If I install HA on a windows laptop, does it need to run 24hrs/ day? Does my raspberry pi need direct ethernet connection by ethernet or can the laptop connect by wifi to the pi and my network?
Hi, thanks for watching and the comment. The laptop running HA would need to be on 24/7, and as long as it can talk to the pi via IP (so wifi or wired ethernet) then you're fine.
@@gordonmarkus Thanks for your reply. As my laptop being on 24/7 would use quite a lot of power, it would seem that I will have to run 2 raspberry pi's 24/7?
@@cheeyeong399 Yes, you could do that but HA is quite intensive in terms of read/write activity, and will soon burn out micro SD cards on a pi. If you're going to run HA on a pi, then have it use a proper SSD.
I have the DLS-W, but you could you a DLS-L or the S2 WiFi logger but with different integrations in HA. You could also just use an Ethernet to RS485 adaptor too
I’m happy to try and help but I’d imagine I’m nowhere near you geographically! If you join the Solis owners FB group there’s lots of helpful people in there too :-)
@@gordonmarkus Thanks I have been looking in to it a bit more and it seems the better option is to run a MQTT bridge on a Pi connected to the com port however those odd 4 pin connectors seem hard to get hold of
I'm just looking getting a full system installed and my installer has speced a Solis inverter. Is it possible to do this using Ethernet rather than Wifi? And if so would RPi still be required?
Hi, you could get an ethernet to RS485 adaptor like this www.waveshare.com/rs485-to-eth.htm then you just need to get the specific solis connector (they have them on ebay). Note that doing this you won't have access to soliscloud (which is actually not much good anyway). You can probably do away with the pi/linux vm running the python scripts as I think you'd be able to use the Solax integration on HA to control the inverter then. It's not something I've personally done, but I think several in the Solis Owners FB group have.
Thanks for the quick reply! I'm trying to keep the numbers of devices on my WiFi down. And the inverter will be right next to an ethernet port... However I suppose it's not a deal breaker. Not being able to automate the inverter to such as octopus agile possibly is, I can see is something you've done, will I be okay following this route? I'm just trying to get my head round the kit under less than ideal conditions, I had quite a bit of eye surgery yesterday!
Let your eyes recover before spending hours looking at screens :-) If you follow most of what I've done then you should be good, if you go down the waveshare/solax route that's not something i've personal got experience with currently but if you join the Solis Owners FB group there's others in there that will be able to assist. I'd take a look at agile pricing history, as it's not as good as it was. Personally I'm on Eco7 now as the guaranteed 7hrs at about 15p overnight is better than the occasional cheap 30 min slot on agile. @@KevinBagshaw
Yeah, I'm fairly happy with it. It's just that I was kind of mis-sold it as all the stuff I thought would work 'out of the box' didn't exist at the time. It seems to be a decent enough inverter though. @@KevinBagshaw
Video way above my level of computer knowledge, but I was hoping to find out what you make of my problem. I have had Solis hybrid inverter and 5k battery 48 hours. The issue is that my battery is fully charged, app shows it powering house and that nothing is coming from grid, yet my meter (analog / disc type) is spinning forward, it does this faster as I switch on more appliances. I think the installation is not working correctly?? Surely the meter wheel would be static as I'm supposedly using battery power. What do you think? , thanks
Hi, thanks for the comment and for watching. This could be a couple of things. There will always be an initial pull from the grid when you turn on a big appliance (cooker, washing machine, electric shower) as the inverter/battery can't supply the demand instantaneously and it takes a moment to ramp up. That said I would expect the meter to not be moving (or even rotate backwards on a sunny day) if the battery is charged. I'd be tempted to call your installer and ask them to check, one thing that might be an issue is there is a CT clamp on the live between inverter & the grid. If that has the arrow pointing the wrong way (it needs to point to the grid) then you can get all sorts of strange behavior. There's a really good FB group (Solis Owners) that have provided lots of help, it might be worth asking the question in there too if you don't get any luck with your installer.
I have the S3 wifi logger that doesnt work with solismod ect, when I login locally to the data logger with web page I can see current power and yield which update every 9 seconds. Is there any way to can this data to home assistant?
Hi, thanks for watching and the comment. I'm afraid I've got no personal experience with the S3 logger, so can't really offer any advice. It might be worth asking the question in the Solis Owners FB group though, there's lots of good information in there.
Thanks Gordon :) Finally got this set up. As a relative linux noob I was able to follow along and read the documentation right up until the solismod dicker container but I got there in the end Would you be willing to share the your test scripts from pysolarman with the ip/serial numbers blanked out?
Great news on getting it setup. No problem with sharing the scripts, but I won’t be able to do so until the end of the month. If you find me in the solis owners group on FB then send me a direct message and I’ll send them over.
@@gordonmarkus thanks. I'll go back and find the post. I had another look at the basic example script in the pySolarman docs and changed the register numbers to the ones in registers.py and think I've got it now. Just need to poke around a bit more to find the 2nd charge/discharge time slots.
Hi Gordon, looking at getting a Solar system and Solis was one of the options and this looks to make it more smarter. Do you know what Data logger is compatible? I think the system comes with a S3-WIFI-ST Data logger, do you know if this would work? Thanks
Thanks for watching and the comment. The S3 logger is a newer one than mine and unfortunately does not natively allow access to the registers on the inverter. Some clever people in the Solis owners Facebook group have got some functions working though I believe. Depending on what you want to do, Solis now offer very limited remote access from the solis cloud app so you can set times for charge/discharge but it’s very limited compared to what you can do in HA. One other option might be to run a wired connection to your rs485 port, several people have done that too.
@@gordonmarkus Thanks for the reply. Do you know of a logger that is compatible? is it a Solis or after market one? Also i can see from HA you are getting stats from other areas of the Solar system, are you also pulling them from the logger or the Cloud API? Thanks
@@jonnystroud81 the older logger (not sure of the model but the serial number begins with a '4') will do the same as what I have. I get all my stats these days direct from the logger using the solarman integration into HA as it's pretty much real time. If you use the API via soliscloud then it's a snapshot every 5 minutes which isn't particularly useful in my opinion.
@@gordonmarkus I'm looking at getting a Solar system installed and i have two options, SolarEdge or Solis and just looking at options on how i plug them into HA as i use HA to control my house already. I'm i right in saying you use solarman integration to connect with the logger to get all the stats but then use solismod/pysolarmanv5 to configure the inverter?
@@jonnystroud81 Yes indeed that's absolutely right. Solarman to pull the stats from the logger, then solismod & pysolarmanv5 to control the inverter (with a bit of mqtt inbetween).
Thanks a lot for the video! I only just hear about Home Assistant, so I will have to study from scratch. About hardware you use - is a Raspberry Pi enough to run everything, or will I need more hardware ?
Hi, thanks for watching. It depends on the integration as to what you need. There is a newer Solis integrations for HA now that all run from HA without needing another box to run solismod & pysolarman. Take a look at Solax perhaps. Running on a pi is fine, but I wouldn't use a microSD for storage as they only have a very short lifespan.
@@allan_sorensen Home Assistant is the base software that you're going to need to do anything, then to get it to talk to various devices you'll need to install different 'integrations'. In my setup I'm using MQTT/Solarman/Solismod & Pysolarman to control the inverter, depending on what connectivity you have to your inverter you might need to do something different. Maybe join the Solis owners FB group and post in there what you've got and what you're trying to do, and people will help you.
I see from the comments below that the solarman part of this will not work with the S3 datalogger. Does anyone know if it will work with the version that is both LAN and Wifi - Model no. SOL-S2-WL-ST?
Thanks for watching and the comment - take a look in the Solis owners FB group. Another member 'Francis Boundy' has put together an excellent table of which loggers can work with which integration types. I'm sure someone in that group will have done what you're looking to do too.
Hi Gordon, Thanks for posting this video, I was wondering if you had any recommendations on what to buy to get started with this. The end goal is to move to agile and charge within the half an hour segments where the price is cheap. I have 32kw of battery storage and a solis inverter at present. Also do you think this method would work on two Solis inverters? I am tempted to get a second one hence why I'm asking. Apologies for the lack of understanding, I've always been good with technology but have absolutely no clue what raspberry pi is although I understand now it's a form of computer. Thanks Luke
Hi Luke, thanks for watching and the comment. Initially I was on agile too as I thought I could make good use of the cheap (and even free) 30 min slots, but I soon came to realise that there weren't anywhere near enough of them to make it work. Between August-December 2022 the rate barely budged of the OFGEM capped rate of 33.86p, there was the very occasional dip but nothing too much. To get a decent charge on 32Kw of batteries even with a couple of 5kw inverters I'd imagine you'd need a solid 5hrs of charge, and on agile that just never happens. If you have an EV then 'Go' or 'intelligent' might work for you as they have longer/cheaper slots, but you have to prove EV ownership to get on those tariffs. In December I changed to Flex with Eco 7, so I get 7hrs at 16p a unit every day, that's more than enough to charge my 15kw of batteries with a 3.6kw inverter. Take a look at my later videos as I show some maths in a spreadsheet where I worked it all out. In terms of what you need to run HA on, a pi is fine but you'll need some storage other than a microSD card as they have a very short lifespan. If you've got an old laptop or desktop PC then you could run it on that too. Hope that helps.
@@gordonmarkus Hi Gordon, Thanks for this insight I am currently on octopus go as I was lucky to have been able to get into it as a one off due to a staffing error however next year I don't think I will be unless I get a hybrid like you say. In terms of charging If I had two inverters I could charge at 200amps in theory currently my setup will allow for 150amps which gets me 1/2% SOC every 5 mins. My main concern with the agile is exactly that, I dont want there to be a lack of cheap rate energy especially over winter when you need it most. Have you made use of the selling back to the grid feature? I see they offer 35p per KWh in my area if I sell back to the grid at a certain time (annoyingly in London it's 50p!). Also do you know of any advice as to how I can set it up on windows? I have a old machine that sounds perfect for the task. Thanks mate
@@LivingLifeLuke I'm on Flex with Eco7 for import, but on Agile for Export so I could make money by selling back to the grid at peak times or literally when the sell price is greater than what I paid per unit. The logic for that would be exactly the same as what I did for my automatons that determined when to buy cheaper grid power (take a look at my 2nd video for this). In reality I've not actually got this configured as I've not really had time and literally I export very little and use nearly everything I import/generate/store with my pv & batteries. With that old machine, I'd literally flatten it and just put on the full fat version of HA that is it's own OS as well.
Dec '23 new installation.: appending config_hide to the ip address does not work. It returns "This page isn’t working" I can't see any other way to check which port is open
@gordonmarkus Great video! This will be my first experience of setting up and using HA. One question - can I run the whole thing from a PI, by installing the HA OS directly, or will I need a second PI to utilise Python? I'm going to use a Samsung Tablet as a dashboard display screen, mounted to wall in my house.
Hi, thanks for watching and the comment. I couldn't get it all to run on the same pi and if you run HA in docker then you miss some key features. I don't think HA OS has python available, so you couldn't then run solismod/pysolarman on it as well. I'm happy to be proven wrong though! The other thing to keep in mind is that HA does generate a lot of read/write data so if you're using a micro SD for storage on your pi it will burn it out within a few months potentially. If you can, get HA installed on something with a proper SSD or hard disk.
@@gordonmarkus thanks for such a quick reply! I do have an old desktop machine that isnt used anymore. I could potentially install the OS on that and use the PI for Python? I just wish Solis would let you specify times not used grid or solar, without having to choose one or the other!
@@truttzi That's what I would do. In fact, if you're feeling keen I would get yourself a download of VMWare ESXi 7 and put that on your old desktop, then run HA as a VM on there. That makes it really easy to move to another machine if you ever need to, and with VMWare (even the free license) you can take snapshots of your VM before you do any major changes, so you've got an easy way to get back to where you were if it goes wrong. You could then just use your pi for the python/solismod/pysolarman element, or potentially you could spin up a 2nd VM on your new ESXi host and run ubuntu server or something for the python/solismod/pysolarman elements and then you've only got that 1 physical box to worry about.
I have been them running in parallel although almost never look at Solis Cloud as HA is far superior in every way. My stick is the DLS-W but I have literally today taken delivery of a DLS-L (wired) because I've had occasional wifi dropouts that have caused me some issues.
@@gordonmarkus Hi & Thanks for quick answer. i thought DLS-W + DLS-L are not longer supported by the soliscloud. i have currently the S3-WiFi-ST. and I soldered a cable direct to the RS485 pins on the platine. Problem is somethimes then the stick have problems to the the data from the inverter. i guess it is a termination problem on the RS485 bus.
@@laserjet2003 I can assure you that my DLS-W is still working with Solis Cloud, and I can let you know about the DLS-L when I get round to installing it, hopefully in the next couple of weeks. As much as I don't use SolisCloud, I would have the hump a bit if they withdrew support for those dongles as they're still available new in some places!
I really really wanted to get this working but my data logger's SN is an alpha numeric. The PySolarmanV5 expected it to be an integer. tried changing the config value to a string but it didn't seem to work and just getting time out error. wondering if you have a solution :(
Hi, thanks for watching and the comment. It sounds like you've got a newer (S3) dongle so solismod/pysolarman won't work with that. See if you can pick up an S2 or DLS-W somewhere. Alternatively have a look in the Solis Owners FB group as I think some other people have got solarman to work with the S3 dongle for read access, but not write.
Hi - I seem to falling at the final hurdle on this. I have pysolarman and solismod set up correctly and I can communicate with the inverter. Running scripts gets me data back - stuff like the current time and the amps. MQTT seems to be set up as well, as I can see Solismod appearing as a new client in the MQTT broker logs. However - when I attempt to use the MQTT:publish service in a script as you have done, nothing appears to have changed. I try to publish on the nodered/solis/charge_amp topic, but whatever I set the payload to either doesn't get published, or the inverter is ignoring it as my Amps value never changes fro [0]. Can you give me any hints or help on what I need to look at next?
Hi, thanks for watching and the comment. When you publish the MQTT command do you see anything in arrive on your box running solismod? If you have a screen monitoring main.py do you see the activity? Other things to check, this setup only works with the DLS-W datalogger, if you have S3 logger then it won't work. If you have S2 then use the Solax integration. Let me know how you get on.
@@gordonmarkus hey - thanks for replying. It was an issue between keyboard and chair in this case. Looks like when I was creating my scripts to check the values of certain registers I’d managed to mangle the register# for the amps setting. It was looking at something else and the correct register was being set with the value sent from HA. D’oh! Now I have that sorted out, I can hopefully tie this in with solar forecast and the charge when tomorrow’s outlook isn’t great and it’s the octopus flux overnight cheap rate.
you're welcome, really pleased that you got it sorted. You can definitely write automations to achieve what you're looking for. You could even go one step further with flux and dump the battery back to the grid to make a few £s when the rates are favourable 🙂@@GreatOldOne
Hi, thanks for watching. The format of the example can be found here github.com/jmccrohan/pysolarmanv5/blob/main/examples/register_scan.py just change the ip & serial number to your own details and then I would reduce the register scan range to the individual one that you want to query
I'm a total novice in pretty much everything you mention (python, ubuntu, pi, virtual machines, community store, solarman) so am probably opening a world of pain and frustration even contemplating doing this... so let's start with a simple question: would one Windows laptop do the job? You mention having to have more than one machine but is that just virtual? And to save all the pain, if you've already done it, is it possible for somebody like you to create a virtual machine(s) online that simply require my Solis API code and bingo, I have control? Thx!
Hi Perran, thanks for watching and the comment. You could do all this on a single laptop, and the run something like oracle virtual box to host the VMs on that. I’m not sure if anyone offers a prebuilt VM in the cloud, it’s a good idea but you’d need a VPN to then have that cloud VM access your local network & inverter data logger. I learned all this stuff from others over the last couple of months, so I’m sure you’ll get there. Start by getting home assistant running on something and build from there, and try to enjoy the process
@@gordonmarkus Thanks, Gordon, I'm going to give it a go! You might consider creating a controller in a virtual box... I'm sure 100s or 1000s of people would take it up. At even £1 a month you'd be made 🙂
Hi do you have the yaml config to turn the mqtt from Solis/metrics into sensors.? Iv managed to get solismon working via mqtt but for some reason I can't get solismod to play nice..just won't run.. Debug keeps retuning '0'. This is with the same details as per solismon.
Hi Qasim, I'm afraid that doesn't make any sense. Solarman is what provides the sensors in HA. Solismod on the pi is what translates the MQTT publish from HA into the correct register number that then gets modified on the inverter. The MQTT topics get mapped to the registers in the registers.py file on the pi, then the payload in your MQTT publish command from HA is the value that you're setting on that register.
Hi, can I ask you what data logging stick you have and what firmware version it is on? I have an older DLS-W (which I think is the one you need) but it has no /config_hide page.
Hi, thanks for the comment and watching. I'm not sure exactly what stick it is that I have, but it's running firmware MW3_15_0501_1.18. If you message me via the facebook group (Solis Inverter Owners) then I'd be happy to send a photo or screenshot of my admin page.
@@gordonmarkus Weird - exactly the same firmware version. Must be the same stick. I get 404 page not found if I append "/config_hide" to the URL. However, that aside, the integration appears to be working regardless. I can monitor it all in Home Assistant. I 'believe' the solarman python stuff will work... it doesn't throw an error. I'm just not brave enough yet to make a change to any register setting. I notice in your video you have developed test harnesses that just READS the register values. How do you do this please? It would seem like a good test of this element before I go changing settings. By the way, my stick has a serial number that begins with a "41".
You'd think the solarman Home Assistant integration would monitor the same 431?? registers that the python scripts change? I've had a look at the YAML file and I'm not sure I could guess the RULE for them!
@@wzhpdh01 My logger stick has a '40' serial number. It's been a little while since I set this up, so need to refresh my memory of what I did but the test scripts I have read the various registers after I set them via the MQTT publish service in HA. For example, this script will read register 43141 which is the battery charge rate in amps: """ A basic client demonstrating how to use pysolarmanv5.""" from pysolarmanv5.pysolarmanv5 import PySolarmanV5 def main(): """Create new PySolarman instance, using IP address and S/N of data logger Only IP address and S/N of data logger are mandatory parameters. If port, mb_slave_id, and verbose are omitted, they will default to 8899, 1 and 0 respectively. """ modbus = PySolarmanV5( "", , port=8899, mb_slave_id=1, verbose=1 ) print(modbus.read_holding_registers(register_addr=43141, quantity=1)) # Confirm current charge rate in A (Scaled by 0.1) if __name__ == "__main__": main()
I'm not at all clear on the command flow. You have HA on one computer and something (Linux?) on the rasp pi to run python. There's a yaml file in HA which decides whether to charge at cheap time or not - but what is commanding who in which order and how does HA code talk to the inverter which only understands mqtt or RS485 or.....? As you can tell I'm totally confused. Could you elucidate (hopefully is it not too complex despite my not having an enormous amount of coding knowledge).
Hi, it's all in the video but yes there are 2 machines required. One runs full fat HA, the other runs some kind of linux on which you run the python elements (solismod & pysolarmanv5). Command flow is that an HA automation gets triggered by something, maybe time of day, maybe 'cheap' grid power, maybe state of charge of your battery - it's up to you, the action of that automation is to call a service which will be to publish a value to an MQTT topic. Solismod on the 2nd machine is listening to the MQTT broker in HA, and gets notified of the value that gets published, and then sends it to the relevant register on the inverter to make something happen i.e. charge battery.
...and how is the connection to the inverter made? I understand from other sources that you can't send commands via wifi. You have to tap into the RS485 - or not
In my case the connection is wifi via datalogger DLS-W. That is the only one that works with solismod/pysolarman. If you are plugging direct into the inverter via RS485 adaptor (like waveshare) then you don't need the 2nd machine running python scripts, you can do it all in HA with the Solax integration. There is a lot of useful information in the Solis Owners FB group. You'd do well to have a look in there. @@ricobass0253
I have looked at the Solis Owners FB group. I even joined it, but, I don' t like or get on with FB. It's an amorphous blob that keeps moving. I see a repository of files which might be useful but it looks a pig to search.
Really helpful as I'm about to get a Solis inverter and already have a HA install. One question: why not run the python under appdaemon on HA? I'm using this and the HA MQTT broker to read the level from my oil tank via an API and I would have thought you could do this same with this setup.
Hi, thanks for watching and the comment. I have a feeling I did look at this but couldn't get it working. Feel free to try yourself and share your experience if you can get it working. The Solismod app requires main.py to be running the whole time, and I'm not sure I could get that to happen within my HA VM. It's completely possibly I just couldn't do it though, so if you have more success and it's possible to run everything in a single box/VM that would be brilliant.
@@francisboundy5170 cool, would you be able to put main.py in crontab of HA as well so that it runs on boot as that script needs to be running all the time.
@@gordonmarkus - I think it’s only running all the time so that it can respond to interrupts. Appdaemon is event driven anyway and effectively runs all the time. I will have a play and see if I can hack something together.
Thanks a mil, great video. Could you advise me how to lig in to my datalogger? When I enter IP address of it - it gives me Sign In window with username and password. If I enter my phone app login details - it doesn't accept it. What else could be there?
For me the password for the dongle was set by the electrician. He choose the same password as the WiFi password. Posting this tip here in case it could help somebody.
hello and many thanks for this video. one question : when i try connecting the datalogger from internet explorer, it asks me username and password for that. Tried "admin" &"admin" , "admin"&"123456789", no luck..
Hi, thanks for watching and the comment. It could well be that your installer changed the password then. Can you contact them? Failing that, you might have to do a factory reset on it.
Really struggling to get pysolarmanv5 running on dietpi...and struggling to find anything that helps... I have dietpi running pihole. I installed python3. I managed to install pysolarmanv5 Via the command. I have no idea how to actually run it...
Hi, thanks for watching. You need solismod installed as well, then once you have that confgured and main.py running you can use pysolarman to query the various registers of the inverter.
@@gordonmarkus hi thanks for the response. Solismod has to be run on docker, right? I'm trying to get to grips of that too. Just install them and they should talk?
@@gordonmarkus Iv finally managed to do this with some help from someone off bittech...we really need a specific video for solismod... I have got solismon3 working fine but not solismod
So I'm stuck at the data logger step, when I try to login to the IP address for the data logger it provides me with a username and password prompt but un:admin and pw:admin doesn't work and I can't for the life of me find the un and pw for the logger. I found the older version which states admin admin but looks like it's been updated. Anyone had any joy with this?
Hi, thanks for watching and the comment. What type of logger is it that you have? Is it definitely DLS-W type? If it's an S2 or S3 then the details will be different. Also note that if it's S3 then none of this will work.
@@tomcox9265 the S3 doesn't allow local communication to HA or anything else, only via SolisCloud so it's not great. You could get a 'waveshare' which will allow local access as well as keeping the S3. Take a look in the solis owners FB group and search 'waveshare' for details.
@@chriswilson1853 what does the dongle say on it. The model type will be on the label along with the serial number. It could also be that your installer changed the default password so maybe give them a call to check as well. If you do have an S3 then unfortunately what I've got in the video won't work. There are places still selling S2 or DLS-W for about £70 though (not zerohomebills though as they are a scam site, so avoid them!)
@@gordonmarkus I haven't been able to look yet, the inverter is in the attic which is not boarded and has no fixed ladder etc. admin/123456789 does not work either so I guess it could be either. In the meantime, can I ask, what the reason is that an S3 won't work? Is it that it CAN'T work or is it simply that no one has figured it out yet? It just so happens that a large part of my job involves fiddling about with Linux and network-based equipment and getting them to work, so if there is possibly a way I might be able to find it!
@@chriswilson1853 the S3 won't work because Solis have blocked access to the Modbus registers with it. There's no method for local polling on the S3 and as far as I know it will only communicate with SolisCloud. Feel free to take it on and see if you can write something that can interrogate it and modify the registers, you'd make a lot of people in the Solis Owners Group on FB very happy if you're able to. The one (very small) advantage the S3 offers is that you can ask Solis to enable 'remote control' which will let you program the charge/discharge timers via the app, but compared to HA it's still very poor.
I simply cannot work out how to install solismod! After "git clone", "pip install solismod", I just get "solismod' is not installable. Neither 'setup.py' nor 'pyproject.toml' found". Can anybody help?
I can't remember now if you need to do the pip install for solismod (you definitely do for pysolarmanv5 though). As long as you've cloned the respository to your local machine I think you're good. Then you just need to edit confg/registers.py and config.py with your relevant values, and then kick off main.py
So I have solismod running and paho-mqtt and pysolarman5 installed, I want to test the python side of it, what commands/scripts do I run to test the functionality?
You can view the contents in the same way that you would any other text file, and in the same way that you would have edited config.py or registers i.e with 'vi' or some other text editing tool. You might want to start using 'please' and 'thank-you' in your comments and maybe other people might be more forthcoming with assistance.@@huwpower1
17:50 Have been stuggling to get the solismod python script to keep running, using crontab. @reboot command to start it that works no problem but seems the script crashes after a random amount of time (I suspect when it receives a corrupted MODBUS packet as this seems to happen with these inverters from time to time) It then doesn't restart (because it's only called at boot) Have you had to deal with this at all and if so how did you sort the issue?
Really interesting and exactly where I want to go. I can't seem to get to the extra settings with /config_hide though - I just get an unhelpful ERROR:404 Not Found. I can access the normal settings screen just fine.
