Monitoring & Controlling a Hybrid Solis Inverter

[MrPablo]

Hi Graham, let me have a look into some workarounds for the modbus issue tomorrow. Maybe some smart person has documented a solution somewhere!

I can also help enhance the NodeRed flow so you can test graphs and other reporting, happy to help.

The maximum discharge current setting isn't used in the auto charging logic, it's just there so you don't have to trudge to the inverter to change it for whatever reason.

[Graham]

My neighbour has a Solax. We are trying to learn node_red together. What depresses me is that his cloud service continues to work while he has a node-red flow running. However, I wouldn't want to swap; I find the Solis is much nicer!

Using your excellent flow as a starting point, I have now added some charts and fiddled about with the dashboard layout. All baby steps but I am enjoying myself. Thank you!

[SonsOfHigSolar]

Dear Mr Pablo,

Thank you for this, it sounds like finally the solution to my problem! I've been trying to get control of my solis 6k hybrid inverter for a few weeks now via the WiFi dongle with solismod/pysolarmanv5 but cannot get it to change any parameters on the inverter despite weeks of trying.

I've ordered the elfin and an ethernet attachment with 4 pin connections and a 4 pin female attachment to go to the COM port on my inverter. I have home assistant running on an RPi4 at the moment. Is there any chance you would be able to help me with how to wire the elfin to the rs485 connector please? Also any information on how to get this working through the automation scripts on home assistant would be really gratefully received as this is my first foray into home assistant and anything of this nature

Thank you for any help you can give,
James

[Moxi]

Have you watched any of Gordon Markus' videos on you tube ?



He appears to have done what some of us here would like to be able to.

I would love to be able to do this myself but I am a complete novice at anything like this and never had success with programming although last time I tried it was BBC basic I think which kinda tells you all you need to know

He's got a series of what looks to me to be interesting and informative videos on this subject.

Apologies if I have got this wrong, I am rushing this morning and haven't properly read through everything

Moxi

[SonsOfHigSolar]

Dear Moxi,

Thank you for your reply! Unfortunately yeah I've already spent weeks messing about with that method and got 99% the way there where I can query the registers on the inverter and get the correct answers back but it refuses to change any settings when I send commands to it

[Moxi]

Ahh sorry to hear that, I only came across it yesterday myself and as I say I am zero experience of Node Red or Pi or home assistant although I have always wanted to be able to do that kind of thing.

Once the kids are at school and the day subsides to its normal pattern I might get some time to have a read through.

I truly hope you find a route to your requirements, and that its easy enough for a numpty like me to emulate

Moxi

[MrPablo]

Dear Mr Pablo,

Thank you for this, it sounds like finally the solution to my problem! I've been trying to get control of my solis 6k hybrid inverter for a few weeks now via the WiFi dongle with solismod/pysolarmanv5 but cannot get it to change any parameters on the inverter despite weeks of trying.

I've ordered the elfin and an ethernet attachment with 4 pin connections and a 4 pin female attachment to go to the COM port on my inverter. I have home assistant running on an RPi4 at the moment. Is there any chance you would be able to help me with how to wire the elfin to the rs485 connector please? Also any information on how to get this working through the automation scripts on home assistant would be really gratefully received as this is my first foray into home assistant and anything of this nature

Thank you for any help you can give,
James

Hi James, more than happy to help! It's a shame I haven't finished my design work on an opensource dongle that runs on ESPhome directly, that would be pretty much plug and play for you.

In the meantime, I'll see if I can grab some of my notes and pictures this evening that show the best approach to wiring it up, etc.

[SonsOfHigSolar]

Thank you! You're a hero. When you get that dongle finished, I'm your first customer

[Moxi]

I will be your second !

Moxi

[MoSTiE]

you can of course use this https://www.waveshare.com/wiki/RS485_TO_ETH_(B) and a comms plug from ebay if you want a hard wired solution, for me at the moment connected to RPi Zero but will be changed to a Odroid C2 which is lying around spare, I have a Solis S5-EH1-6K
Using node-red, influxDB and Grafana