Our entire grid tied homestead is zero energy with only 7 kW of solar (and that includes our mini split for winter heating and charging our electric car) and a ~20 year old, 48 volt outback inverter with flooded and lead calcium batteries which should easily go 30 years with basically no maintenance.
Maybe I'm just an old fuck but what I have works really well and I didn't have to reinvent the wheel either.
On May 18, 2025 7:54:33 AM Michael Morningstar via RE-wrenches <[email protected]> wrote:
Wow, when do we realize that fork in the road we chose to go down may have been the wrong one? I know there's a phrase to describe needing to augment an inverter with a Cerbo, Chargeverter, and Solar Assistant, but it escapes me.Same with the myriad of tinkering, workarounds, and tweaking Manufacture A's inverter to Manufacture B's batteries. There are a lot of smart minds on this list with the technical prowess to make things work, but what happens when someone like me that's let's just say is a "little slower" gets a call to service such a system and the guy or gal that "got it to work" isn't around, or the comet-like manufacture the likes of Growatt or it's equivalent is no more.I know I do more griping on this list than contribute to the knowledge corpus and it's not that I'm a crank, I think. Right now, it's just that I'm sitting on a dozen requests to build off-grid and GTBB systems and I find myself in a paralysis where I can't recommend a single Hybrid inverter, and for my potential off-grid customers, all that I can recommend is a system where I'm stacking two 3-5kw inverters and many settings require a dongle and PC, Victron.So in the first case, this road seems to have lead to an ever increasing techno-cluster fuck, and in the second, it's traced back to where we were several years ago, but not in a good way.Serious question, What is the challenge in building an SW quality inverter and MPPT that plays nice with most all batteries. Conext came close? If it's a feasible proposition, I know people with the means and interest in these things to make it happen.MichaelOn Sun, May 18, 2025 at 6:15 AM William Bryce via RE-wrenches <[email protected]> wrote: SA will combine the SOC if the Communication is working properly with the BMS and the MNS AIO. See attachedOn Sun, May 18, 2025 at 8:28 AM Jason Szumlanski via RE-wrenches <[email protected]> wrote: I will also mention that SA seems to be pulling the SOC information from only the first inverter added to the system, or the one designated as "#1" in SA. It is not averaging the SOC pulled from all three inverters.Another note: I tried the Emulated BMS in SA, and it didn't work. The battery graphs were all wrong, only showing that absolute value for current rather than showing charge and discharge current. The reported SOC stayed pegged at 100%. I went back to using the inverter values, and that is when I discovered the SOC was not dropping fast enough in SA, which led me to the battery aH issue.Jason Szumlanski Principal Solar Designer | Florida Solar Design Group NABCEP Certified Solar Professional (PVIP) Florida State Certified Solar Contractor CVC56956 Florida Certified Electrical Contractor EC13013208On Sun, May 18, 2025, 8:11 AM Jason Szumlanski <[email protected]> wrote: That's not a bad idea. But it is one more thing to potentially go wrong and have to maintain.I just discovered something else with a parallel AIO and SA setup. Really it's more of an inverter issue. The inverters have wildly inaccurate SOC values if you are doing open loop. You have to divide the battery aH setting by the number of inverters you have for accurate numbers, at least on the firmware I have. I noticed on this triple setup that when the batteries were depleted about 80% (20% SOC), that the inverters reported a SOC of 73%. Each inverter only sees the aH that they consume individually and deduct that from 100%.If you are using the inverter values for SOC in SA, you need to set the aH in the inverters to the proportional share of the battery capacity.This is something I believe Midnite needs to fix unless it has already been addressed in a firmware upgrade.Jason Szumlanski Principal Solar Designer | Florida Solar Design Group NABCEP Certified Solar Professional (PVIP) Florida State Certified Solar Contractor CVC56956 Florida Certified Electrical Contractor EC13013208On Fri, May 16, 2025, 9:53 AM Jay via RE-wrenches <[email protected]> wrote:Hi JasonHow about you install a 12v battery charged from the inverter to power the device which would give you back up on backup.On May 16, 2025, at 12:58 AM, Jason Szumlanski via RE-wrenches <[email protected]> wrote: But the upside is it doesn't rely on the cloud, so historical data is stored locally, even in the event of a system shutdown (if you power the Pi device from the battery DC bus). That doesn't do much good if the battery BMS turns off, of course, but it's nice to continue logging data even if there is no Internet connection.Jason Szumlanski Principal Solar Designer | Florida Solar Design Group NABCEP Certified Solar Professional (PVIP) Florida State Certified Solar Contractor CVC56956 Florida Certified Electrical Contractor EC13013208On Fri, May 16, 2025, 12:48 AM Brett Stigile via RE-wrenches <[email protected]> wrote: Overall I like Solar Assistant as well. Be aware it is not cloud based. Sure it stores locally on the Pi, that’s great. But, if the internet is down you are blind. Not supper helpful for remote sites if you can’t look through the data a see if there was a potential issue or if the internet is just down.Brett Stigile Owner/Renewable Energy Electrician 503-317-7950 [email protected] Oregon Sun Wrangler LLC CCB: 240661 License No: 66LRT NABCEP PV Installation Professional Certification #PV 100414-008123On May 15, 2025, at 1:05 PM, [email protected] wrote: Send RE-wrenches mailing list submissions to [email protected] To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.re-wrenches.org/listinfo.cgi/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to [email protected] You can reach the person managing the list at [email protected] When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of RE-wrenches digest..."When responding to posts within the Digest, be sure to restore the Subject: line to the exact original, and please edit out any extraneous lines from the quoted message.Today's Topics: 1. Re: EG4 Praise (Maverick Brown) 2. Solar Assistant and Midnite AIO (Jason Szumlanski) 3. Re: Solar Assistant and Midnite AIO (William Bryce) 4. Re: Solar Assistant and Midnite AIO (Kirpal Khalsa) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Thu, 15 May 2025 08:14:41 -0500 From: Maverick Brown <[email protected]> To: RE-wrenches <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] EG4 Praise Message-ID: <[email protected]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" An HTML attachment was scrubbed...URL: <http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org/attachments/20250515/1d46c98a/attachment-0001.htm>------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Thu, 15 May 2025 11:37:53 -0400 From: Jason Szumlanski <[email protected]> To: RE-wrenches <[email protected]> Subject: [RE-wrenches] Solar Assistant and Midnite AIO Message-ID: <CAE438R-L9F0ka3QyPans-cYtQc3PDmvLK5uR6K5-Oz=wkpe...@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" I just got Solar Assistant up and running with my triple AIO site. It was surprisingly easy. I think I am in data heaven. This is everything I had hoped for from the Midnite Pro app. It consolidates all three inverters' instant and historical data while providing real time individual inverter data as well. I'm not sure if I can get the historical data per inverter, but that is available through the Midnite app anyway, and has little usefulness in a multi-inverter environment. If anyone needs tips on how to get this done, feel free to contact me off list. The short answer is I purchased a preloaded Solar Assistant Pi device directly from Solar Assistant, and three USB to RS-485 dongles from Amazon. I got the Pi device with the DC power supply and connected it directly to my battery bus so it stays on even if the inverters shut down. Jason Szumlanski Florida Solar Design Group -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed...URL: <http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org/attachments/20250515/b8d7966f/attachment-0001.htm>------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Thu, 15 May 2025 12:20:45 -0400 From: William Bryce <[email protected]> To: RE-wrenches <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] Solar Assistant and Midnite AIO Message-ID: <caeqmjp4uqh9gcfght4mkevty71fbfofh4o7gcabuqbrj67o...@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" I highly recommend using SA with ALL Asian inverters. This will remove the chance of a SolArk screen of death bricking and locking you out of your inverter, and also remove any chance of data or setting manipulation from others. With SA, ALL the data is served and stored on the RPie computer locally. On the MNS AIO, you can run the Dongle and the SA at the same time.On Thu, May 15, 2025 at 11:38?AM Jason Szumlanski via RE-wrenches < [email protected]> wrote: I just got Solar Assistant up and running with my triple AIO site. It was surprisingly easy. I think I am in data heaven. This is everything I had hoped for from the Midnite Pro app. It consolidates all three inverters' instant and historical data while providing real time individual inverter data as well. I'm not sure if I can get the historical data per inverter, but that is available through the Midnite app anyway, and has little usefulness in a multi-inverter environment. If anyone needs tips on how to get this done, feel free to contact me off list. The short answer is I purchased a preloaded Solar Assistant Pi device directly from Solar Assistant, and three USB to RS-485 dongles from Amazon. I got the Pi device with the DC power supply and connected it directly to my battery bus so it stays on even if the inverters shut down. Jason Szumlanski Florida Solar Design Group _______________________________________________ List sponsored by Redwood Alliance Pay optional member dues here: http://re-wrenches.org List Address: [email protected] Change listserver email address & settings: http://lists.re-wrenches.org/options.cgi/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org There are two list archives for searching. When one doesn't work, try the other: https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org List rules & etiquette: http://www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htm Check out or update participant bios: http://www.members.re-wrenches.org-------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed...URL: <http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org/attachments/20250515/610bc1b7/attachment-0001.htm>------------------------------ Message: 4 Date: Thu, 15 May 2025 09:50:38 -0700 From: Kirpal Khalsa <[email protected]> To: RE-wrenches <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] Solar Assistant and Midnite AIO Message-ID: <caoe7ivggp1vxyz-82jpd1lzyw7eumdnsw-6ibs-knhjnk4t...@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Does the Solar Assistant work with Outback gear? Kirpal On Thu, May 15, 2025, 9:21?AM William Bryce via RE-wrenches < [email protected]> wrote:I highly recommend using SA with ALL Asian inverters. This will remove the chance of a SolArk screen of death bricking and locking you out of your inverter, and also remove any chance of data or setting manipulation from others. With SA, ALL the data is served and stored on the RPie computer locally. On the MNS AIO, you can run the Dongle and the SA at the same time. On Thu, May 15, 2025 at 11:38?AM Jason Szumlanski via RE-wrenches < [email protected]> wrote:I just got Solar Assistant up and running with my triple AIO site. It was surprisingly easy. I think I am in data heaven. This is everything I had hoped for from the Midnite Pro app. It consolidates all three inverters' instant and historical data while providing real time individual inverter data as well. I'm not sure if I can get the historical data per inverter, but that is available through the Midnite app anyway, and has little usefulness in a multi-inverter environment. If anyone needs tips on how to get this done, feel free to contact me off list. The short answer is I purchased a preloaded Solar Assistant Pi device directly from Solar Assistant, and three USB to RS-485 dongles from Amazon. I got the Pi device with the DC power supply and connected it directly to my battery bus so it stays on even if the inverters shut down. Jason Szumlanski Florida Solar Design Group ______________________________________________________________________________________________ List sponsored by Redwood Alliance Pay optional member dues here: http://re-wrenches.org List Address: [email protected] Change listserver email address & settings: http://lists.re-wrenches.org/options.cgi/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.orgThere are two list archives for searching. When one doesn't work, try the other:https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org List rules & etiquette: http://www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htm Check out or update participant bios: http://www.members.re-wrenches.org _______________________________________________ List sponsored by Redwood Alliance Pay optional member dues here: http://re-wrenches.org List Address: [email protected] Change listserver email address & settings: http://lists.re-wrenches.org/options.cgi/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.orgThere are two list archives for searching. When one doesn't work, try the other:https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org List rules & etiquette: http://www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htm Check out or update participant bios: http://www.members.re-wrenches.org -- Michael Morningstar Morningstar Electric Inc PO Box 1494 Mount Shasta, CA 96067 530-921-0560 CSLB 1116835 [email protected] _______________________________________________ List sponsored by Redwood Alliance Pay optional member dues here: http://re-wrenches.org List Address: [email protected] Change listserver email address & settings: http://lists.re-wrenches.org/options.cgi/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.orgThere are two list archives for searching. 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