Hi Guys 

I am a total novice and only just getting into Home Assistant/Node Red 🙂 

I am looking for comments/suggestions on my first Flow which I created to switch my pool pump on based on:

• Time - to run starting at 09:00 
• Check Solar Power being generated - more than 2000W 
• Check Battery SOC - great than 50%
• Once my pool is on, check Power & SOC every 10 minutes and switch pool off if not meeting requirements and then retry every  
• Time - turn off at 15:00 

and then to start the whole process again at 09:00 the next day. 

 

 

flows (8).json

I want to use this as a base for creating another flow to cycle through running my heavy loads i.e. geysers, borehole pump etc based on very similar criteria but thought I should start off with something simpler so any comments on how I should go about doing that would also be appreciated.

Looks like it should work - have you tested it yet? You could probably recheck more frequently than 10 minutes as well. My geyser checks every 5 seconds but that is a simple resistive load so no trouble starting and stopping it. 

It would be worth figuring out a way to see how much it has run during the day and maybe force it to run if below a certain amount? Easy with a geyser (temp is too low) but a bit more figuring out to do to determine and work with how long in a day something has run.

Thanks JaseZA, will try it out and see what happens 🙂 

Have also been working on one to manage my geysers and run them in sequence when there is enough solar.

Seems rather complicated and I am sure that there must be a better way of doing the checks on power and battery.

 

flows (9).json

I prefer using the function node - easier to put things together. I've attached part of my geyser control flow - hopefully it makes sense! I'm certainly no pro-coder, most of this is figured out via many google searches!

Using function nodes you can create variables to call in other function nodes - greatly simplifying the number of functions needed. I get all my info from MQTT from a raspberry pi connected to my Kodak VMiii. You could get the info from HA just as easily though. I started with NR before HA hence my system.

geyser_flows.json