Solar Dashboard Project

Projects related to Solar Power
xion2000
Posts: 71
Joined: Fri Jan 24, 2020 6:02 am

Re: Solar Dashboard Project

Post by xion2000 »

Photo of my SolarDashboard attached
Attachments
SolarDashboard.jpg
xion2000
Posts: 71
Joined: Fri Jan 24, 2020 6:02 am

Re: Solar Dashboard Project

Post by xion2000 »

Reflash done & online update done.
Unit still reboots every few seconds with or without memory card installed and with or without a connection to to charge controller
xion2000
Posts: 71
Joined: Fri Jan 24, 2020 6:02 am

Re: Solar Dashboard Project

Post by xion2000 »

Screen grabs attached
Attachments
Firmware #3.jpg
Firmware #4.jpg
Screen Grab #5.jpg
Screen Grab #6.jpg
Screen Grab #7.jpg
jonathan
Posts: 237
Joined: Thu Feb 01, 2018 1:12 am

Re: Solar Dashboard Project

Post by jonathan »

Thanks. Can I send the replacement to the address I have on file for you? Also no need to send the old one back. But can you cover my postage and the 32GB SD card I'll include? It's $20 total.

Jon.
xion2000
Posts: 71
Joined: Fri Jan 24, 2020 6:02 am

Re: Solar Dashboard Project

Post by xion2000 »

Yes of course, Paypal OK?
101 Mandale Rd, UK
Cheers Jonathan
TripitakaBC
Posts: 19
Joined: Tue Nov 17, 2020 5:12 pm

Re: Solar Dashboard Project

Post by TripitakaBC »

jonathan wrote:
Sat Jan 02, 2021 6:07 pm
Also I'm interested in your use of homeassistant, I think other users were asking about how to integrate it.
I can also help with this as I got mine up and running eventually.

At present, the only way that I believe HA can make use of this data is via an external (to HA) MQTT server that can be set to not require user/pass on published topics. The HA MQTT add-on from the store does require a user/pass combo and the SnekTek Solar doesn't have that facility.

The ideal situation would be to create a facility to have HA read the settings directly but the external MQTT server is a viable workaround for now. There do not seem to be any other add-on/plugins for HA that do what the SnekTek does and I ended up a) finding out about SnekTek and b) purchasing the unit as a result of @xion2000 posts on the HA forums.

Mark.
jonathan
Posts: 237
Joined: Thu Feb 01, 2018 1:12 am

Re: Solar Dashboard Project

Post by jonathan »

xion2000 wrote:
Mon Jan 04, 2021 6:27 am
Yes of course, Paypal OK?
101 Mandale Rd, UK
Cheers Jonathan
Yes, send to jonathan@snektek.com
jonathan
Posts: 237
Joined: Thu Feb 01, 2018 1:12 am

Re: Solar Dashboard Project

Post by jonathan »

TripitakaBC wrote:
Thu Jan 07, 2021 1:14 pm
jonathan wrote:
Sat Jan 02, 2021 6:07 pm
Also I'm interested in your use of homeassistant, I think other users were asking about how to integrate it.
I can also help with this as I got mine up and running eventually.

At present, the only way that I believe HA can make use of this data is via an external (to HA) MQTT server that can be set to not require user/pass on published topics. The HA MQTT add-on from the store does require a user/pass combo and the SnekTek Solar doesn't have that facility.

The ideal situation would be to create a facility to have HA read the settings directly but the external MQTT server is a viable workaround for now. There do not seem to be any other add-on/plugins for HA that do what the SnekTek does and I ended up a) finding out about SnekTek and b) purchasing the unit as a result of @xion2000 posts on the HA forums.

Mark.

Thanks for explaining. Can you elaborate on why one would want to integrate the solar monitoring into Home Assistant, and how that would look to the Home Assistant user? Keep in mind I've never used the software. But I am interested in Home Automation generally.
TripitakaBC
Posts: 19
Joined: Tue Nov 17, 2020 5:12 pm

Re: Solar Dashboard Project

Post by TripitakaBC »

Sure!

Many solar users have remote installs, some are at the cottage or cabin, others like myself just have a farm building that is too far away from mains electricity to make it viable to run the service so we use solar instead. Your online dashboard covers viewing of this data but doesn't allow for automation of other events that could be triggered by the STATE of that data.

In my use case, I use the solar power to run water heaters, LED lighting and door actuators for our large chicken coop. In winter, there isn't really enough light to keep the lights and water heaters on as much as I'd like so I pull the charge data from my system via SnekTek into Home Assistant which then uses the data to control whether the lights and water heaters get turned on and if so, how long they stay on for.

Further, over time, I can figure out how much I need to increase the size of my solar array by through analysis of historic temperature and charge data. I can also screw around with changing the angles of the array if necessary to optimise what I have.

Some of this can be achieved through the online dashboard but Influx and Grafana in Home Assistant is way more powerful AND allows analysis with other sensor data such as temperature and humidity.

In addition, let's not overlook that the home automators, whether via Home Assistant, OpenHAB or one of the other systems, are generally data junkies that love to do stuff just because they can. :-D
xion2000
Posts: 71
Joined: Fri Jan 24, 2020 6:02 am

Re: Solar Dashboard Project

Post by xion2000 »

I have this entry in my configuration.yaml

###########################
### DC SolarDashboard ###
###########################
sensor 7:
- platform: rest
resource: http://192.168.1.87:80/cur_data
value_template: '{{ (value_json["pv.v"] | float -0.0 | float) | round (2)}}'
method: GET
name: SolarDashboard PV Volts
unit_of_measurement: "Volts"
- platform: rest
resource: http://192.168.1.87:80/cur_data
value_template: '{{ value_json["pv.c"] }}'
method: GET
name: SolarDashboard PV Amps
unit_of_measurement: "Amps"
- platform: rest
resource: http://192.168.1.87:80/cur_data
value_template: '{{ value_json["pv.p"] }}'
method: GET
name: SolarDashboard PV Watts
unit_of_measurement: "Watts"
- platform: rest
resource: http://192.168.1.87:80/cur_data
value_template: '{{ (value_json["bt.v"] | float +0.04 | float) | round (2)}}'
method: GET
name: SolarDashboard_Battery_Volts
unit_of_measurement: "Volts"
- platform: rest
resource: http://192.168.1.87:80/cur_data
value_template: '{{ value_json["bt.c"] }}'
method: GET
name: SolarDashboard_Battery_Amps
unit_of_measurement: "Amps"
- platform: rest
resource: http://192.168.1.87:80/cur_data
value_template: '{{ value_json["bt.t"] }}'
method: GET
name: SolarDashboard_Battery_Temp
unit_of_measurement: "°C"
- platform: rest
resource: http://192.168.1.87:80/cur_data
value_template: '{{ value_json["genToday"] }}'
method: GET
name: SolarDashboard_Generation_Today
unit_of_measurement: "kWh"
- platform: rest
resource: http://192.168.1.87:80/cur_data
value_template: '{{ value_json["genMonth"] }}'
method: GET
name: SolarDashboard_Generation_Month
unit_of_measurement: "kWh"
- platform: rest
resource: http://192.168.1.80/cur_data
value_template: '{{ value_json["genYear"] }}'
method: GET
name: SolarDashboard_Generation_Year
unit_of_measurement: "kWh"
- platform: rest
resource: http://192.168.1.80/cur_data
value_template: '{{ value_json["genTotal"] }}'
method: GET
name: SolarDashboard_Generation_Total
unit_of_measurement: "kWh"

Don't think I had to do anything else
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