isimobile

yebo.
it was cold chilly Saturday afternoon, my pool pump was on, 800watt, wife switch both kids oil heaters on, assume 1000watt each, had the microwave on, 1000watt and then the TV, computers etc, total, approx 4000watt. ... oh wait, tumble dryer was also on.
I run a OpenEnergyMonitor installation with induction based current clamps around every one of my circuits so could go look after the even to see exactly what my load was and from where.
Normally not a problem, battery was full so some load came from there as being inverted, some came off the panels as direct invention, totally just under 3000watt and the balance from the Grid,
We have a "sad" unstable grid, had a voltage fluctuation, big enough that the inverter went into protect myself and house mode, isolating the grid for a second or 2... not realising the load was over it's 3000watt capability, so by the time it cut the grid off, it discovered it was in overload land and shut down to protect itself.
When it came back... the microwave was off, dropping the load by odd 1000watt, making it happy land, needless to say the oil heaters were shut down.
G
 

There is a way to look through the bottom vents and look for a bolt, whether it's the right one. If you see a round-headed bolt, you have one with a manufacturing defect. Ask your installer to have it RMA'd. In this piecure you can actually see the bolt glowing red. It's the wrong material bolt.

 

You won't be the first one. Same happened to @georgelza a few weeks ago.

A very almost chucked a USB-ttl-serial converter in the bin once... only to discover I had accidentally left some process running in the background that periodically tried to talk to any detected serial ports.
That script is also used a lot when debugging something or doing support. You can rip the process out of the serial-starter loop, and run it manually. When done, simply put it back into the loop with the start script.
Something I did not mention last night, which you will also have to figure out in time: Daemontools. Venus manages those services using daemontools. You'll have to create a service directory for it (just borrow one from the others and modify). This then gets symlinked into /service, and the service is automatically started when Venus boots.
But... during firmware updates, your symlink will be destroyed. Not an issue though, Venus will run /data/rc.local at boot, so you can use that to restore the symlink if it does not exist.
Further to that, if you put a file called venus-data.tar.gz (or venus-data.zip) on an sd-card, and put it in the GX while booting, it will automatically unpack this in /data.
With all that information, you can literally build an installer that unpacks your code into /data, and using rc.local, symlink the service into place. Customers install it by putting a zip file on an sdcard, inserting and rebooting. Easy peasy 🙂
Edit: For those who wonder what the hell a symlink is... it's like what Windows used to call a "shortcut"... except the file system handles and file operations transparently, and Unix had it in 1984 already.

Also take a look at this docker image (influxdb + grafana).

You can get the raw data from dbus
Or can also download the data that is send to Vrm from the Vrm portal under advanced menu option. There is a little download icon top right hand side to download data in csv format.
Start here to get access to your Venus device  https://www.victronenergy.com/live/ccgx:root_access. Follow the links in the post.
Also once you have access use this little tool, it will  help you a lot. https://github.com/victronenergy/dbus-spy
Hope it helps, Enjoy!

You can get the raw data from dbus
Or can also download the data that is send to Vrm from the Vrm portal under advanced menu option. There is a little download icon top right hand side to download data in csv format.
Start here to get access to your Venus device  https://www.victronenergy.com/live/ccgx:root_access. Follow the links in the post.
Also once you have access use this little tool, it will  help you a lot. https://github.com/victronenergy/dbus-spy
Hope it helps, Enjoy!

I really want to thank @Jaco de Jongh for coming to help me with this system. He programmed the ESS settings into the Venus GX, and lent me his crimp tools for the MC4, earth lugs and the 35mm cable lugs. He also helped with support and experienced guiding suggestions to help me implement all this. Thanks!

My installation started in June 2019, but the actual process started in February 2019.
The installation:
Victron Multipuls II 48/5000 1xVictron MPPT 150/85 1x Victron Color Control GX 2 x US3000 Pylontech Li-Ion Batteries 16 x 330w Tier 1 Solar Panels 1 x ET112 Energy Meter 2 x Timers for my geysers 1 x "new" Non-essential DB



I chose Victron mostly of what I read here on the forum, and also because I felt the Invertor is the best "value" for money compared to the more expensive "German" makes and cheaper "Chinese" makes and it is extensible if you need it to be. There is probably other makes I could have chosen, but I felt most comfortable with Victron, if that makes any sense.
I started by getting quotes, but I did ask for the same specs, otherwise you cannot compare apples with apples. Also I am not really a DIY type person so I chose to get a installer, but finding one is not so easy. I got some references and eventual decided on cost vs experience, I chose cost 😉, which brought it's own challenges but it was my choice. They had some issues in getting the install 100% but I never felt that they would abandon me, during the process, but my patience was tested a few times.
My aim was/is to, reduce my Electricity cost a month as well as have a backup in the evenings "if/when" we get load shedding again. Yes I know it is still cheaper to use Eskom compared to solar with batteries, but I am willing to pay for that. Where I stay, we pay a sliding scale of 0-600kWh at a cheaper rate, then from 601kWh and up we pay a more expensive rate. So the aim is to try and stay below 600kWh a month. My avg consumption over a 12 month period last year was 890 kWh, with a max of 1330kWh in July. I am also allowed to feedback to the Grid where I stay as an added benefit.
Which brings me to the community here, after asking a question in the "Starting In Solar? Feel free to introduce yourself" section, after struggling with the installer for almost two weeks in getting the finer details correctly setup. @Jaco de Jongh pm me to assist, and offered to come to my house, in getting the install working 100% at not cost! He even phoned @plonkster on a questioned I had regarding battery usage. I just want to again say thank you, to BOTH of them, in assisting in getting it working and explaining it to me in a manner of how it actual works and what I "thought" it is suppose to work like.

 

Its these clear days with high UV. I have a built in UV sensor on the top of my bald head, so I can tell when solar production will be good!

I wish I stayed here. Seems like they have all the rules & regulations sorted out.  

 

Finally - the 3rd Inverter arrived a couple of days ago, together with the two more US3000 bricks:


When adding the batteries into my rack, I tested whether its possible to have more than 8 US3000 bricks in a single BMS group. In the US3000 user guide, there's a limit of 8 bricks per group noted, but I saw that some eshops were listing US3000 as capable of grouping up to 12 bricks. Long story short - I verified that max number in a single BMS group is really 8. When all nine bricks were daisy-chained, the ninth brick was skipped during the startup self-test. So I divided the batteries in two groups, which works fine, of course.

Note: the left rack is empty. These babies are quite heavy and sice the rack is more than 2m tall, it's not a pleasure to raise the brick over the one's head while trying to fit it between the narrow vertical rails.

 
New inverter was "bolted" on the wall and all the communication and current sharing cables rewired. It's a parallel setup with 15kVA combined in a single phase. It's really interesting that despite of the fact that I have AC, DC and data stuffed in a single trunking, it still works! I would say that all the noise and powerspikes would hinder the communication or even kill some sensitive equipment. But, so far so good and I've seen couple of storms here too. Let's see for how long will this setup survive 🤨


 

I guys. I would like to share my schematics and source code for a small project that allows to control/monitor and intergate Pylontech batteries with home automation via WiFi.
Here is a video of this in action:
https://youtu.be/7VyQjKU3MsU

Schemetics and source code:
https://github.com/irekzielinski/Pylontech-Battery-Monitoring/

Hope you find it useful
Cheers,
Irek

BTW, I cobbled together a minimal python hello-world flask app that should install and run from /data. Haven't tested it yet, but it's a start. It includes schedule, so in theory it will be very easy to do all sorts of magic stuff.
At the moment it just says "Hello world", but it has jinja2 for templating, so one could easily extend this into a full blown app. It includes a service directory so it can be started by just symlinking that into /service, but for just development you'd do (assuming you scp'ed the tar file to /tmp):
cd /data tar zxf /tmp/venusflask.tar.gz cd venusflask/service ./run And that starts up a flask server on port 5000 that you can hit with a browser.
See attached.
venusflask.tar.gz

Just as info. The battery's is actually not connected to recommendation. The black(negative) wire from coming from the  inverter should connect to the negative pole on the bottom battery. See illustration below.

I know on two batteries the charge/discharge imbalance might be minute if you keep it as it is, but something like that will drive me crazy eventually and I would end up fixing it.   
 

Here is my suggestion. If enough people ask for it, then maybe it will happen. But you have to ask for it using an official platform, like the Victron community site. Otherwise it's just anecdotal evidence. I hear the request every now and then, but I know literally of less than 5 people who want it...
Second, it's not easy to do. You may think that it is, but the main obstacle is this: The Multi has no DC current measurement (and it's not unique in this sense, many other inverters also don't have it). DC current is estimated from the AC values. In theory the DC power is the AC input power minus the AC output power, multiplied by an efficiency factor (0.9 is assumed), and then the result is divided by the DC voltage and that gets you the DC current. For values above 2A, it's not too far off, but especially under 1A  it's practically noise.
Now imagine someone ask for a max BATTERY discharge of 0A. In other words, he wants to use his PV, but the battery should not discharge at all. Now imagine that due to our inability to estimate the DC current, we "accidentally" discharge the battery slowly.
And this will simply be the case in any system where the PV is DC-tied and you don't have accurate DC measurements.
Now compare the number of people asking for the feature with the number of people who will complain that it doesn't work correctly.
It is far better to let people solve this using their own software platforms... UNLESS enough people ask for it.

He was quite lucky that I had working internet at the time! I Was in a neighbouring country and whatsapp was the only thing we could use. The contention ratio on the nearby mobile tower (that also runs the farmers' WiMAX connections) is too high and during the day it's hit and miss. But we help where we can... 🙂

Very Neat. Well done. I'm Blue with envy!!! Coz I only wish I could offered Blue.
To Power forum Team they are extremely helpful is every way. They are so called a few men apart!!! Very hard to find in today's time.

My installation started in June 2019, but the actual process started in February 2019.
The installation:
Victron Multipuls II 48/5000 1xVictron MPPT 150/85 1x Victron Color Control GX 2 x US3000 Pylontech Li-Ion Batteries 16 x 330w Tier 1 Solar Panels 1 x ET112 Energy Meter 2 x Timers for my geysers 1 x "new" Non-essential DB



I chose Victron mostly of what I read here on the forum, and also because I felt the Invertor is the best "value" for money compared to the more expensive "German" makes and cheaper "Chinese" makes and it is extensible if you need it to be. There is probably other makes I could have chosen, but I felt most comfortable with Victron, if that makes any sense.
I started by getting quotes, but I did ask for the same specs, otherwise you cannot compare apples with apples. Also I am not really a DIY type person so I chose to get a installer, but finding one is not so easy. I got some references and eventual decided on cost vs experience, I chose cost 😉, which brought it's own challenges but it was my choice. They had some issues in getting the install 100% but I never felt that they would abandon me, during the process, but my patience was tested a few times.
My aim was/is to, reduce my Electricity cost a month as well as have a backup in the evenings "if/when" we get load shedding again. Yes I know it is still cheaper to use Eskom compared to solar with batteries, but I am willing to pay for that. Where I stay, we pay a sliding scale of 0-600kWh at a cheaper rate, then from 601kWh and up we pay a more expensive rate. So the aim is to try and stay below 600kWh a month. My avg consumption over a 12 month period last year was 890 kWh, with a max of 1330kWh in July. I am also allowed to feedback to the Grid where I stay as an added benefit.
Which brings me to the community here, after asking a question in the "Starting In Solar? Feel free to introduce yourself" section, after struggling with the installer for almost two weeks in getting the finer details correctly setup. @Jaco de Jongh pm me to assist, and offered to come to my house, in getting the install working 100% at not cost! He even phoned @plonkster on a questioned I had regarding battery usage. I just want to again say thank you, to BOTH of them, in assisting in getting it working and explaining it to me in a manner of how it actual works and what I "thought" it is suppose to work like.

 

What are the specs of those panels? 
I have 18 x 275W using a 250/100 MPPT. and i am very close to the limit.
Oh, wait... i just realised i spec'd the system with more panels and in the process i forgot that i actually bought less panels. Thx to this post i now remember that i have space to add more panels

My installation started in June 2019, but the actual process started in February 2019.
The installation:
Victron Multipuls II 48/5000 1xVictron MPPT 150/85 1x Victron Color Control GX 2 x US3000 Pylontech Li-Ion Batteries 16 x 330w Tier 1 Solar Panels 1 x ET112 Energy Meter 2 x Timers for my geysers 1 x "new" Non-essential DB



I chose Victron mostly of what I read here on the forum, and also because I felt the Invertor is the best "value" for money compared to the more expensive "German" makes and cheaper "Chinese" makes and it is extensible if you need it to be. There is probably other makes I could have chosen, but I felt most comfortable with Victron, if that makes any sense.
I started by getting quotes, but I did ask for the same specs, otherwise you cannot compare apples with apples. Also I am not really a DIY type person so I chose to get a installer, but finding one is not so easy. I got some references and eventual decided on cost vs experience, I chose cost 😉, which brought it's own challenges but it was my choice. They had some issues in getting the install 100% but I never felt that they would abandon me, during the process, but my patience was tested a few times.
My aim was/is to, reduce my Electricity cost a month as well as have a backup in the evenings "if/when" we get load shedding again. Yes I know it is still cheaper to use Eskom compared to solar with batteries, but I am willing to pay for that. Where I stay, we pay a sliding scale of 0-600kWh at a cheaper rate, then from 601kWh and up we pay a more expensive rate. So the aim is to try and stay below 600kWh a month. My avg consumption over a 12 month period last year was 890 kWh, with a max of 1330kWh in July. I am also allowed to feedback to the Grid where I stay as an added benefit.
Which brings me to the community here, after asking a question in the "Starting In Solar? Feel free to introduce yourself" section, after struggling with the installer for almost two weeks in getting the finer details correctly setup. @Jaco de Jongh pm me to assist, and offered to come to my house, in getting the install working 100% at not cost! He even phoned @plonkster on a questioned I had regarding battery usage. I just want to again say thank you, to BOTH of them, in assisting in getting it working and explaining it to me in a manner of how it actual works and what I "thought" it is suppose to work like.

 

Some important learning usage as a newbie:
First thing that I learned is that when your geyser is on and connected on your non-essential load DB, but the Grid is still available, ie no power failure, then it will still use the battery power to operate, if no/some PV (solar) power is available.
Let me explain: Say for instance it is 17:00 in the afternoon,  your PV generation is generating 500w but you have set your Geyser to switch also on at 17:00 to warm the water for two hours to be able to to bath/shower your children etc, and your battery is fully charged from your PV system, your usage will then go to say 3500w for your house , it will first draw 500w from the PV, then it will draw the remaining 3000w form your battery and or Grid, which could means it could draw 2000W from your battery and 1000w from your grid, which in theory can drain your battery very quickly, by 4 kWh, in two hours, then at 19:30 you have a power failure, then you have barely any power left to use. To overcome that you can setup schedule charging in ESS, on your CCGX, which will allow not to use the battery unless there is a power failure. For it to be effective you also need to set the SOC, to a lower value than your current SOC.
I hope this explanation makes sense. (Welcome to correct me if I am wrong)
What I have done is to setup schedule charging to not allow for the battery to discharge when my geyser is switch on and then also late afternoon early evening when you use the microwave and or oven for cooking etc. I fully start using the batteries at 20:45 at night, and so far I have been running my whole house until 05:00 weekdays, 06:00 weekends, in the mornings on battery power, with some reserve left on my battery of about 40%, and then it uses that for the geyser to switch on at 05:00 on weekdays and at 06:00 on weekends. This whole process has taken me about a month to figure out what works best for our household. You would say a month?, yes, because in the beginning the whole household, needs to adjust to using solar and if you have teenagers in your house... then well you have to have, patience...😃
 

My installation started in June 2019, but the actual process started in February 2019.
The installation:
Victron Multipuls II 48/5000 1xVictron MPPT 150/85 1x Victron Color Control GX 2 x US3000 Pylontech Li-Ion Batteries 16 x 330w Tier 1 Solar Panels 1 x ET112 Energy Meter 2 x Timers for my geysers 1 x "new" Non-essential DB



I chose Victron mostly of what I read here on the forum, and also because I felt the Invertor is the best "value" for money compared to the more expensive "German" makes and cheaper "Chinese" makes and it is extensible if you need it to be. There is probably other makes I could have chosen, but I felt most comfortable with Victron, if that makes any sense.
I started by getting quotes, but I did ask for the same specs, otherwise you cannot compare apples with apples. Also I am not really a DIY type person so I chose to get a installer, but finding one is not so easy. I got some references and eventual decided on cost vs experience, I chose cost 😉, which brought it's own challenges but it was my choice. They had some issues in getting the install 100% but I never felt that they would abandon me, during the process, but my patience was tested a few times.
My aim was/is to, reduce my Electricity cost a month as well as have a backup in the evenings "if/when" we get load shedding again. Yes I know it is still cheaper to use Eskom compared to solar with batteries, but I am willing to pay for that. Where I stay, we pay a sliding scale of 0-600kWh at a cheaper rate, then from 601kWh and up we pay a more expensive rate. So the aim is to try and stay below 600kWh a month. My avg consumption over a 12 month period last year was 890 kWh, with a max of 1330kWh in July. I am also allowed to feedback to the Grid where I stay as an added benefit.
Which brings me to the community here, after asking a question in the "Starting In Solar? Feel free to introduce yourself" section, after struggling with the installer for almost two weeks in getting the finer details correctly setup. @Jaco de Jongh pm me to assist, and offered to come to my house, in getting the install working 100% at not cost! He even phoned @plonkster on a questioned I had regarding battery usage. I just want to again say thank you, to BOTH of them, in assisting in getting it working and explaining it to me in a manner of how it actual works and what I "thought" it is suppose to work like.

 

My installation started in June 2019, but the actual process started in February 2019.
The installation:
Victron Multipuls II 48/5000 1xVictron MPPT 150/85 1x Victron Color Control GX 2 x US3000 Pylontech Li-Ion Batteries 16 x 330w Tier 1 Solar Panels 1 x ET112 Energy Meter 2 x Timers for my geysers 1 x "new" Non-essential DB



I chose Victron mostly of what I read here on the forum, and also because I felt the Invertor is the best "value" for money compared to the more expensive "German" makes and cheaper "Chinese" makes and it is extensible if you need it to be. There is probably other makes I could have chosen, but I felt most comfortable with Victron, if that makes any sense.
I started by getting quotes, but I did ask for the same specs, otherwise you cannot compare apples with apples. Also I am not really a DIY type person so I chose to get a installer, but finding one is not so easy. I got some references and eventual decided on cost vs experience, I chose cost 😉, which brought it's own challenges but it was my choice. They had some issues in getting the install 100% but I never felt that they would abandon me, during the process, but my patience was tested a few times.
My aim was/is to, reduce my Electricity cost a month as well as have a backup in the evenings "if/when" we get load shedding again. Yes I know it is still cheaper to use Eskom compared to solar with batteries, but I am willing to pay for that. Where I stay, we pay a sliding scale of 0-600kWh at a cheaper rate, then from 601kWh and up we pay a more expensive rate. So the aim is to try and stay below 600kWh a month. My avg consumption over a 12 month period last year was 890 kWh, with a max of 1330kWh in July. I am also allowed to feedback to the Grid where I stay as an added benefit.
Which brings me to the community here, after asking a question in the "Starting In Solar? Feel free to introduce yourself" section, after struggling with the installer for almost two weeks in getting the finer details correctly setup. @Jaco de Jongh pm me to assist, and offered to come to my house, in getting the install working 100% at not cost! He even phoned @plonkster on a questioned I had regarding battery usage. I just want to again say thank you, to BOTH of them, in assisting in getting it working and explaining it to me in a manner of how it actual works and what I "thought" it is suppose to work like.

 

I wrote-up some instructions for configuring Venus to use the 3.5" SPI touch screen (MPI3501), and put them on the Victron Wiki
https://github.com/victronenergy/venus/wiki/pi-Venus-install-Touch-Screen-(MPI3501--ILI9486-320x480-LCD)
 
May be of use to others here!
The touchscreens are really cheap too!  I only paid 65RMB for mine (R130 ish).