WannabeSolarSparky 10 Posted March 20 Share Posted March 20 (edited) So I am ready to take the next step in my off-grid/on-grid solar adventure.You can view my 1st post here Now to start measuring all this eskom power solar battery stuff. I started by looking at all the inverters and the monitoring software they come with. Mixed results on that, some work ok, some are total crap. Solution - D.I.Y. seems to be the way to go on this too. I have looked at some of the forum posts here and also again a load of youtube videos and power forums. My conclusion is that it is 100% better to D.I.Y. and I have settled on the software, hardware etc on doing this. My first setup is now completed and I can start measuring power consumption from various sensors and get a visual representation of the cost of power from eskom. For now I have started off just measuring eskom main power usage, will be expanding this out from here to start measuring individual circuits and then start bringing my solar production and battery measurements into the mix. Currently the stats above come from the following hardware. 1- Raspberry Pi4 4gig as the main influxdb and grafana server. 2 - Pi Zero W at the main eskom db to do usage measurements 3 - RPIZ_CT3V1 - voltage and current sensor board (attached to pi zero W) This initial setup will be further expanded to add sensors to all the main home circuits individually (Lights, plugs, geyser, stove etc) Extra hardware will be an expanded ac current sensor that can accommodate all the circuits and the extra sensor hardware to measure the solar and battery side. To date all this has cost less that the retail equivalents out there (sonoff effergy eyedro vue etc)and I have more precise control over exactly what and how I can measure everything. And of course I can visualize everything exactly how I like using grafana. If you have any tips or suggestions then do let me know and share your sensoring/monitoring experiences with the community so we can all learn from each other Edited March 20 by WannabeSolarSparky Niel and Go-Solar Electrical 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
iops 10 Posted April 1 Share Posted April 1 Looks awesome! Mind sharing the dashboard JSON? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Durran 3 Posted April 14 Share Posted April 14 It would be great if the dashboard could be shared or published either via JSON or on Grafana too? Anyone manage to replicate the EMONCMS dashbaord on grafana? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
iops 10 Posted April 14 Share Posted April 14 11 hours ago, Durran said: It would be great if the dashboard could be shared or published either via JSON or on Grafana too? Anyone manage to replicate the EMONCMS dashbaord on grafana? I can try giving it a shot, what does it look like? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
WannabeSolarSparky 10 Posted September 15 Author Share Posted September 15 Finally Got around to doing the full Power Monitor Dashboard last night Day 1 - Testing accuracy etc gbyleveldt, tonio and Louisvdw 3 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Durran 3 Posted September 15 Share Posted September 15 4 minutes ago, WannabeSolarSparky said: Finally Got around to doing the full Power Monitor Dashboard last night Day 1 - Testing accuracy etc That is absolutely brilliant!! Can you share the JSON query for it or export somehow so I can try import it? I have tried making kine like this but nowhere NEAR this level and I dont think I will get to this level Quote Link to post Share on other sites
WannabeSolarSparky 10 Posted September 15 Author Share Posted September 15 2 minutes ago, Durran said: That is absolutely brilliant!! Can you share the JSON query for it or export somehow so I can try import it? I have tried making kine like this but nowhere NEAR this level and I dont think I will get to this level There you go. You would need to add some extra plugins to grafana for displaying the gauges. 1 - D3 Gauge 2 - Default Grafana Gauge Power Monitor-1600160263595.json Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Durran 3 Posted September 15 Share Posted September 15 9 minutes ago, WannabeSolarSparky said: There you go. You would need to add some extra plugins to grafana for displaying the gauges. 1 - D3 Gauge 2 - Default Grafana Gauge Power Monitor-1600160263595.json 272.96 kB · 0 downloads Thanks WannabeSolarSpark, Ill definitely give this a bash. Very excited!! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
WannabeSolarSparky 10 Posted September 15 Author Share Posted September 15 Full day running the new dashboard Asic miner started up at 500 watts to use up excess production as the battery bank started the day full, everything above 500watts was running into the battery bank. Now to setup some relays that will start and stop the miner automatically depending on the battery state of charge and available solar production. Rclegg 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
gbyleveldt 38 Posted September 15 Share Posted September 15 Man oh man that looks gorgeous! I need to get my ass in gear and get my inverter driver finished so I can also have pretty graphs. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Rclegg 33 Posted September 15 Share Posted September 15 1 hour ago, WannabeSolarSparky said: Full day running the new dashboard Asic miner started up at 500 watts to use up excess production as the battery bank started the day full, everything above 500watts was running into the battery bank. Now to setup some relays that will start and stop the miner automatically depending on the battery state of charge and available solar production. That's very nice. Might give it ago. I dig the gauges. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
WannabeSolarSparky 10 Posted September 15 Author Share Posted September 15 The cheap gadget (esp8266+dth11+ads1115) that measures the solar voltage amps temperature and humidity. This is the mock-up so far, will be putting it into a nice enclosure with its own power-supply once the calibration is completed and design finalised. introverter 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Rclegg 33 Posted September 15 Share Posted September 15 14 minutes ago, WannabeSolarSparky said: The cheap gadget (esp8266+dth11+ads1115) that measures the solar voltage amps temperature and humidity. This is the mock-up so far, will be putting it into a nice enclosure with its own power-supply once the calibration is completed and design finalised. Hmm, don't you get the solar volts / amps from the inverter? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
WannabeSolarSparky 10 Posted September 15 Author Share Posted September 15 (edited) 5 minutes ago, Rclegg said: Hmm, don't you get the solar volts / amps from the inverter? No I tried that you end up needing to use vendor supplied software and in general they are not too accurate or limited in what you can do with them. I am an opensource fan and a habitual DIY junkie. Edited September 15 by WannabeSolarSparky grammar attempt Quote Link to post Share on other sites
WannabeSolarSparky 10 Posted September 15 Author Share Posted September 15 21 minutes ago, WannabeSolarSparky said: The cheap gadget (esp8266+dth11+ads1115) that measures the solar voltage amps temperature and humidity. This is the mock-up so far, will be putting it into a nice enclosure with its own power-supply once the calibration is completed and design finalised. Here is the sketch for the esp8266, should work with most arduino devices with a bit of tinkering. voltsampstemp_15_september2020_amps_volts_temp_working_rev1.ino Quote Link to post Share on other sites
WannabeSolarSparky 10 Posted September 15 Author Share Posted September 15 Sketch for the battery bank voltage meter. Still to add measuring amps in and out of the bank. batteryVoltage2020june22.ino Quote Link to post Share on other sites
gbyleveldt 38 Posted September 16 Share Posted September 16 Aaaaah ok, I see how you did it, Nice! It’s actually a neat idea to make it easy to implement and vendor agnostic. I’ve taken to hacking the protocol on my inverter in order to get the same data outside of Goodwe’s shitty cloud based api. But as with all projects, I’m a great starter... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
WannabeSolarSparky 10 Posted September 16 Author Share Posted September 16 Had some time today to add the battery charge/discharge info. Also moved things around a bit to make sense for me See updated Grafana JSON and new Solar Sketch with added battery charge discharge code. Power Monitor-1600266455741.json rev1_02_amps_volts_temp__hum_batdisscharge_charge.ino Durran and Deon in ZA 1 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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