Monitoring & Controlling a Hybrid Solis Inverter

[MrPablo]

Looking at my notes and the fact that you've already bought a connector, here's what I suggest:

• Get a standard network cable, perhaps you have a spare that came with your router or similar.

• Cut one end off, leaving about 8cm of wire from the remaining RJ45 plug.

• On that short length, strip the outer sheath off, approximately 2cm or so.

• The connector you bought has 4 terminals inside, each is numbered. Thread the shortened length through the grommet and nut, then solder the individual wires as follows:
  
  Terminal 1 (+5v) - white/brown wire
  Terminal 2 (gnd) - brown wire
  Terminal 3 (A+) - white/blue wire
  Terminal 4 (B-) - green wire
  
  You can cut off the unused wires.

• Finish assembling the connector, then plug it into the inverter with nothing connected to the RJ45 connector that is left dangling.

• Plug the Elfin EW11 into the RJ45 connector directly, no need to use the 4 terminal adaptor in this case.

After that, it should be much as the guide earlier in the thread. I'll definitely keep this thread updated once I've finished the new dongle design.

[SonsOfHigSolar]

Dear Mr Pablo,

Absolutely brilliant, thank you. I'll get to it this weekend. Does it matter which way round I plug it in? Is there a 'way round' that the plug goes in?? Sorry, as you can tell I'm a newbie to this.

Also, your exhaustive detail covers nodered but do you know how I'd go about connecting to home assistant perchance please?

Again, thank you!
James

[MrPablo]

Hi James, the Node Red flow will actually work as standalone without Home Assistant, at least the version of the flow I have in this thread.

If you're after one that will integrate with Home Assistant then I can tidy up my latest Node Red flow and share it here, it should work out of the box, but I'll check first.

As for the connector, the end that goes into the inverter is keyed, so will only go in one way, same with the RJ45 connector at the EW11 end.

If you get stuck at all, throw some pictures on here and we'll get it sorted out, good luck!

[SonsOfHigSolar]

Dear Mr Pablo, that sounds great thank you. I've been looking and there's a nodered addon for HA so I'll try your flow in there! Yes please do post your flow if you get a chance please, it might mean I can skip making all the normal first timer mistakes!

[MrPablo]

Great, I'll get my personal flow cleaned up and shared here, hopefully tomorrow.

[SonsOfHigSolar]

Mr Pablo! I've got it running (see image)! Thank you so much.

That's with your initial flow from the first page of this thread. I'd love to have more control to get it charging when octopus agile rates are low and when tomorrow's solar forecast is poor etc like you said

Please let me know if that's possible and if your super-flow is available

[MrPablo]

Great work!
I'm still working to tidy up the logic I have, it's grown rather organically, so basically it's an overcomplicated mess - a good opportunity for me to rewrite some logic and test it!

The solar forecast logic I have is OTT for most as it's designed to adjust the Solcast forecast based on local shading. I'll put together a guide for a simpler approach though.
As for the Agile element, have a look at this integration for Home Assistant - https://github.com/BottlecapDave/HomeAs ... opusEnergy
If you can pull in this data, then it should be simple enough to trigger charging based on a threshold. Again, I can help out with that.

[SonsOfHigSolar]

Great, thank you that sounds perfect.

A bit of an aside unfortunately... I had the elfin connected and working fine but then at 11.59pm last night it went offline and it now is refusing to connect to my WiFi. This is what it says when I'm connected to it's AP:



It just keeps saying WiFi state disconnected no matter what I do. So it's now not working at all. I've factory reset the elfin and still no joy do you have any ideas perchance?

Thanks for all your help thus far!

[MrPablo]

Try going into the System Settings, then set the following:

WAN Settings:
DHCP = On
DNS = IP of your router

WiFi Settings:
WiFi Mode = STA
Scan for the network, select then enter the password.

Submit the settings and see how you get on. Good luck!

[SonsOfHigSolar]

Hi, managed to get it connected but by turning DHCP off and manually inputting the IP address, mask, gateway and DNS. The page looks like this now.... it's connected on nodered but keeps timing out. See photos below. Shall I just bin this ew11 and buy another because I've had it working and it's now dead for some reason????