April 25, 20206 yr Hi guys, Having some time during Lockdown, I have came up with this simple "controller" for the Axpert inverter with Pylontech batteries. It does not run on a Pi, but on an ESP8266. What do you think: Edited April 25, 20206 yr by JacquesVDM Alignment
April 25, 20206 yr Hi @JacquesVDM, this is great, may I ask how you interface with the Axpert and Pylons. Must be some kind of hat or breakout board? Excellent work BTW...
April 25, 20206 yr Author Hi. Using a Max3232 IC with the ESP. Using RS232 for both the inverter and pylons. I have basically the same thing going on a Pi with some extra features. The reason for the ESP is cost and no SD card that could corrupt. I am busy incorporating logging data to Google sheets, but still a few things to sort out.
May 30, 20206 yr Author Just an update on my "Lockdown project": - Interfaces to 'Blynk': Can see the values and also change settings using the Blynk app on my phone. -Google sheets: records data to google sheets. Interval is adjustable. To get a nice graph: use Grafana. I have installed a local copy of Grafana with the google sheets plugin on my laptop. It just pulls the data in seamlessly. -IFTTT (If this then that): notifies inverter faults, inverter switching between battery/grid and can also notify at specific SOC low and high setpoints. I have setup my IFTTT to send messages to Telegram. Can also send to email. Hope this gives some ideas for you guys out there doing their own inverter interface controller / software.
August 9, 20205 yr JaquesVDM, dis nou 'n Windgat projek! How do you connect the ESP8266 with the inverter? I have read somewhere that the inverter's voltages on the RS232 pins might be too high for the ESP8266
August 9, 20205 yr Author Hi Windgat. Thanks. Configured esp8266 for two serial ports: one standard and one using software serial on the other two pins. I first used Max3232 level shifters to convert from ttl to rs232 , but changed to a normal discrete transistor level shifter after having endless issues with that chips. So for your question: yes, the voltages on the inverter is too high and must be converted. Just an update on the software: have changed the logging from Google sheets to thingspeak now - gives more free memory. Some nice apps for thingspeak on Playstore and can also configure "reacts" on thingspeak to notify me of battery levels, inverter mode etc.
August 9, 20205 yr @JacquesVDM Whats your plans for this project? Is it just for your own use or do you plan to make it available?
August 13, 20205 yr Author Hi Pierre. At the moment it is so customized for the system I have (fixed number of pylontechs / inverter / gauge ranges), that it would not suite everyone. The plan is to have it "universal" with configuring it to the system you have. I also do have a slight problem with it freezing / rebooting from time to time. Once that is sorted I can make it available. The idea at first was to give others (that know some programming) ideas as to what can be done.
November 4, 20205 yr Hi @JacquesVDM, thank you for the clarification. I'm interested in developing something similar for my setup (pylontechs + axpert parallel) and I'm familiar with reading data from these devices. Once you have something you are willing and happy to share please feel free to do so 🙂
March 28, 20215 yr Dear Jacques, would you mind sharing your source? I am working on a somewhat similar project but switched to the ESP32. Instead of RS232 I am using the CAN-bus to interface with the Pylontech (the CAN bus protocol code I wrote also works for BYD and LG RESU batteries) and interface with MQTT which is connected to iobroker. Are you using the async-webserver library? Kind Regards, dk PS: I also sent you a PM
April 7, 20215 yr Nice work. Could you share your code. I am building something similar based on https://github.com/irekzielinski/Pylontech-Battery-Monitoring Waiting for the part to arrive. The idea is to send data over MQTT to HA.
May 25, 20215 yr On 2020/05/30 at 4:36 PM, JacquesVDM said: Just an update on my "Lockdown project": - Interfaces to 'Blynk': Can see the values and also change settings using the Blynk app on my phone. -Google sheets: records data to google sheets. Interval is adjustable. To get a nice graph: use Grafana. I have installed a local copy of Grafana with the google sheets plugin on my laptop. It just pulls the data in seamlessly. -IFTTT (If this then that): notifies inverter faults, inverter switching between battery/grid and can also notify at specific SOC low and high setpoints. I have setup my IFTTT to send messages to Telegram. Can also send to email. Hope this gives some ideas for you guys out there doing their own inverter interface controller / software. You had a productive Lock Down!!! How can i get this on a raspberry pi
May 25, 20215 yr 2 hours ago, Lewis said: You had a productive Lock Down!!! How can i get this on a raspberry pi Note JacquesVDM started the thread by saying it's not for a raspberry pi: On 2020/04/25 at 2:49 PM, JacquesVDM said: It does not run on a Pi, but on an ESP8266. ESP8266 is much cheaper than a Pi, but probably need a bit more skills to get working. The closest thing to this for a Raspberry Pi is probably solar assistant: https://solar-assistant.io
July 15, 20214 yr On 2021/05/25 at 5:40 PM, Denarius said: Note JacquesVDM started the thread by saying it's not for a raspberry pi: ESP8266 is much cheaper than a Pi, but probably need a bit more skills to get working. The closest thing to this for a Raspberry Pi is probably solar assistant: https://solar-assistant.io Thank you. I am now running solar assistant. It's brilliant.
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