My Sunsynk 8Kw & data collection setup

[Sc00bs]

I have an 8Kw Sunsynk inverter installed with 24 x 455W panels & 2 x 6kw/hr Bull batteries.

Due to a number of my high load devices being connected to DB Boards in my cottage & stables, I was unable to make use of the essential/non-essential splits on the Sunnsynk Inverters and have been on a journey to connect to the inverter so I can control all my high load devices with Home Assistant & Sonoff eWelink connected breakers and switches.

My connection to my Inverter is now up and running, thanks to Bloubul7's Flow's and all the information that everyone has posted, has been a huge help and I wouldn't have been able to get it working without all the information you guys have provided. I must admit that there has been a HUGE learning curve on Hassio/NodeRed/InfluxDB/Grafana and I probably have enough knowledge right now to be classified as dangerous, lol.

I am only using the Modbus Read & Inverter Monitoring Flows but they were a great starting point to get everything up and running  and relatively easy to add any extra data that you want to collect from the inverter to it. 

I did find that when I enabled all of Bloubul's flows, while I was figuring out how everything worked, some of the settings on my inverter changed to switch it to a "loadshedding" mode where the batteries stayed at 100% charge, not sure what was the cause or if it was even related to the flows but am only using the two flows mentioned earlier now. Perhaps something to do with the switching of the inverter when it detects load shedding on the Eskom website. In any case, not serious and was easy to just switch it back again.  

I am running everything on an Intel Nuc i5 which seems to be more than capable  and have Hassio/MQTT/InfluxDB/NodeRed all running on it with other integrations for my Sonoff gear, my Paradox house alarm and my CCTV system.

I am using a USB-RS485 connector which I purchased from https://www.robotics.org.za/RS485-MINI?search=rs485  for R38

 

Was pretty simple to connect up using a T-568B wired ethernet cable, I wired it orange/brwn&white - A, Orangewhite/brown - B, not sure if you need both connections going to A&B but it works so not going to worry about changing anything

 

One thing that I am concerned about is the system slowing down over time due to the size of the database increasing at a rather rapid rate (sampling data every 3s). I did notice that Bloubul7 was saying that his original Raspberry Pi system came to a crawl after a week of use and suspect that this was probably as a result of the database getting to large for the Pi to handle comfortably.  I understand that InfluxDB is able to rationalise it's data as time progresses and as it does not seem necessary to have per second data kept foreveer I am going to try and get the consolidation of the data, as it ages, on my box sorted out so as to keep it running snappily.

Has anyone else had any experience with slimming down the influxDB database over time? 

My next challenge is going to be to set up some Flows in NodeRed to switch on/off my connected Sonoff devices based on the Grid Power connections status/Battery SOC/Solar incoming power. 

My first Dashboard in Grafana, still working on my Grafana skills 

 

These two threads have been hugely helpful in getting everything working.

sunsynk_modbus - no chinese.docx

[Sc00bs]

Looks like down sampling the collected data is going to be the only way to keep the database manageable over time 

 

[Energy-Jason]

Great Displays!

[Sc00bs]

Thanks Jason, just getting started on the Grafana dashboards so still watching lots of Youtube video's  

Have also decided to just dump data older than 7 days so to keep the size of the database under control

 

[Sc00bs]

My latest Dashboard

 

 

 

 

[Bloubul7]

Hi Scoobs,

Well done, below is my current Grafana Dashboard to give you some ideas.

[Bloubul7]

On 2021/04/05 at 9:33 AM, Sc00bs said:

I did find that when I enabled all of Bloubul's flows, while I was figuring out how everything worked, some of the settings on my inverter changed to switch it to a "loadshedding" mode where the batteries stayed at 100% charge, not sure what was the cause or if it was even related to the flows but am only using the two flows mentioned earlier now. Perhaps something to do with the switching of the inverter when it detects load shedding on the Eskom website. In any case, not serious and was easy to just switch it back again.  

 

That is correct, I use the Loadshedding flows to alter the inverter settings to be more conservative during loadshedding periods.  The settings are stored to the local file system on your operating system.  This however needs to be enabled in the Node Red configurations.

 

On 2021/04/05 at 9:33 AM, Sc00bs said:

One thing that I am concerned about is the system slowing down over time due to the size of the database increasing at a rather rapid rate (sampling data every 3s). I did notice that Bloubul7 was saying that his original Raspberry Pi system came to a crawl after a week of use and suspect that this was probably as a result of the database getting to large for the Pi to handle comfortably.  I understand that InfluxDB is able to rationalise it's data as time progresses and as it does not seem necessary to have per second data kept foreveer I am going to try and get the consolidation of the data, as it ages, on my box sorted out so as to keep it running snappily.

 

My slowdown was resolved by upgrading to a Raspberry Pi 4 with a M.2 drive.  This is a bit of overkill, but I know that my data is safe.

[Sc00bs]

Thanks Bloubul7, I couldn't have done it without you .

 

Any chance you could share the JSON file for your Dashboard, looks awesome and I would be interested in having a look at it? 

 

How have you set up your data retention for InfluxDB?  I set mine to only keep 7 days worth. Am wondering what the best way is to consolidate the data so I can keep a less granular record. At the moment my NUC is handling it no problems and would like to keep it that way. 

[Bloubul7]

Mine has been set to indefinite and haven't had any issues.  Need to log in and check the database size just for interest sakes.

The JSON is attached hereto.  

Sorry I couldn't help more actively during your setup, work has been crazy for the past 6 months (can't moan during the current economic state).   One interesting new Node Red feature I have seen recently is a Whatsapp integration.  This could be quite useful to set up a couple of warning flows and have the system send you a Whatapp message should they be triggered. 

SunSynk-1617804388751.json

[esawyja]

Hi All,

I had 2 x 5KW Sunsynk Invertors installed recently and I'm relatively new to Solar. I download the SolarMan app, but I'm not impressed with it. I think I will go the same route as what you guys did. I know Raspberry Pi's as I use them every day in my job. Just a couple of questions, if you do not mind please.

I'm confused on the connection 

Quote

Was pretty simple to connect up using a T-568B wired ethernet cable, I wired it orange/brwn&white - A, Orangewhite/brown - B, not sure if you need both connections going to A&B but it works so not going to worry about changing anything

I take it I would need 2 of them, one to the master and one to the slave? Do they connect in place of the dongle? Or where would they connect to the inverters?  

Edited April 9 by esawyja

[Sc00bs]

Not 100% sure Esawja, according to the video that Keith from Sunsynk posted on linking Sunsynk's, the inverters are connected using the Modbus connection

My guess that you should be able to query the second inverter using the RS485 connection on the master but based on some posts I saw on the forum that may not in fact be the case, so you would have to try it out. I suppose the big  question is, do you actually need to even connect to the slave, can't you get all the data from the Master, my understanding is that all the settings are setup on the master, so it should have all the data?

I would set it up on the master first and see if there is anything that you are missing or if the data doesn't make sense. Worst case scenario you have to have a seperate connection to the second inverter and a seperate set of flows for data acquisition from the 2nd inverter. 

Good luck 

[esawyja]

Thanks Sc00bs, but where do you plug in the cable on the inverter? Do you perhaps have a picture of the plugin?

[Achmat]

17 minutes ago, esawyja said:

Thanks Sc00bs, but where do you plug in the cable on the inverter? Do you perhaps have a picture of the plugin?

You should open the front panel on the inverter and find two LAN ports marked as CAN and RS485. 

[esawyja]

Thank you!

[jacauc]

Hi @Sc00bs, I tried following your wiring instructions, but I am still a little unclear which 2 pins of the ethernet cable should be wired into the rs485 converter? Can you advise the pin numbers and which pins (A/B) they connect into the converter? 

 

Does it mean that both wires 2&7 connect to A and both 1&8 into B? 

Any help would be much appreciated 

Edited May 17 by jacauc

[Iiceman]

10 minutes ago, jacauc said:

Hi @Sc00bs, I tried following your wiring instructions, but I am still a little unclear which 2 pins of the ethernet cable should be wired into the rs485 converter? Can you advise the pin numbers and which pins (A/B) they connect into the converter? 

 

Does it mean that both wires 2&7 connect to A and both 1&8 into B? 

Any help would be much appreciated 

yes thats correct.. ..2and7 joined and connected to A etc..

[Sc00bs]

100%  correct, I wired wires 2&7 to A and both 1&8 into B and it works. Not sure if it is necessary to have both wires connected but I did and it works so not inclined to try the other way  

 

Good luck, let us know if you get stuck 

[jacauc]

@Bloubul7 @Sc00bs

 

I'm about to get started with this as I got my RS485 converter recently. Is there a central repository somewhere (such as github) with the latest json, dashboards or useful content?

 

Thanks again!

[Sc00bs]

Nope, sorry, have you seen the other thread 

 

[jacauc]

I have yes, really helpful stuff everywhere!

Would you mind sharing json for your latest grafana dashboard?

Edited May 18 by jacauc

[Sc00bs]

Here it is, my Grafana skills are still a work in progress  

Solar Dashboard-1621372657287.json

[Denarius]

Hi @Sc00bs Are there any settings required on the inverter to be able to read modbus via the Deye 8kW RS485 port? Currently I'm not getting a reply.

[Sc00bs]

On 2021/06/10 at 8:07 PM, Denarius said:

Hi @Sc00bs Are there any settings required on the inverter to be able to read modbus via the Deye 8kW RS485 port? Currently I'm not getting a reply.

Hi D

No settings on the Inverter. 

Are your Node Red flows working? 

Make sure you disable the write ones otherwise you will end up overwriting your Inverter settings. 

If you are polling your RS485 adapter correctly then it is probably something to do with the connection to the inverter. 

How have you got it connected up? 

[Sc00bs]

My heavy load cycling flow is now working pretty well in my Home Assistant/Node Red setup and I have simplified my initial one to make it easier to maintain. 

I am using the EZ-Timer pallette in Node Red and all my sonoff devices are running in HASS to provide connectivity into Node Red. 

I am using Din Rail mounted Ewelink/Sonoff compatible breaker switches for my geysers & borehole which do power monitoring so I can tell when my geysers thermostats have reached temp & kicked out. These are available locally as well but are quite a lot more expensive (R720 each last time I looked)

The node red flow checks production from the inverter to make sure I have power available and have charged the battery sufficiently, it will then cycle through the connected loads one by one until they have all completed their cycles after which it will send me a Whatsapp message to tell me it is  completed.

Still a work in progress but definitely getting there  

I still have my timers running on my geyser to just make sure I have hot water incase node red doesn't work for some reason (I have had wifi connectivity issues to the breakers from time to time)

flows (11).json

[jacauc]

Looks good!

General note: I'm busy simplifying a lot of my HA Node Red flows for easier management so simplification and untangling the connectors is fresh in my mind.

You may find it much neater to use "link in" and "link out" nodes, even if it is on the same flow. Small sections where steps are repeated can be reused with msg parameters passed to them.

But function over form I guess