Hi .. I have a Deye inverter 50m away from the main dwelling and wish to connect via a Solar Assistant Pie. The range is way too far for ordinary WiFi, too costly for a long range WiFi system, and a cable is just way too difficult to implement.

Question .. Is the data from the serial port slow enough to consider some other form of low cost wireless link such that the pie can be placed in the main dwelling near to the fibre router?

Hi @BigC

You could use a TP Link wifi extender over powerline, they work well as long as you have them both on the same circuit. 

https://www.takealot.com/tp-link-wpa4221-kit-300mbps-av600-wi-fi-powerline-extender-start/PLID91201962 

Will give you wifi at your inverter and I assume that you have a power cable from the inverter 🙂 

Then you just run the Raspberry Pie at the Inverter 

Otherwise you could get one of the ESP32 solutions which can get powered from the inverter and that will connect to the inverter directly. 

 

Thanks @Sc00bs

Looks like the answer to a maidens prayer. I will report back once I've tried this . . . Ciao

Good luck @BigC , let s us know how it goes please 🙂 

Hi @Sc00bs .. Apologies for the long delay .. The client went for the 45m of cat5 cable, so sorry .. no feedback. However, what did happen is that the 40m extension for the CT for the Deye inverter has proven to be problematical. Readings of load power on the inverter and on Solar Assistant are negative by a small amount .. once loaded the readings look normal. To test the connection I did the following:

1. Removed the CT from the incoming grid cable .. problem remains
2. Disconnected one leg of the CT at the inverter .. problem remains
3. Reversed the polarity of the CT .. problem remains, although readings of load power are now negative.
4. Disconnected both legs .. problem solved

Despite this problem the inverter continues to export power back to the CT normally. I expect there is some low level interference in the long CT circuit.

Did you use shielded  cable? 

No .. just twisted pair. Seems that I should have used a shielded cable, or maybe even cat5 with the 4 pairs all in parallel (sort of) which would have been a better 'twisted pair'. Given the effort of burying the cable (in conduit) and pulling in more expensive cable, I am hoping the client will live with problem.

The other option is to use a digital energy meter to do the job of the ct, at those lengths that's what the manufacturers recommend. There are some specific eastron and chnt models that are compatible.