LuxPower - Ethernet issue sorted

[Lincs Robert]

Hi,

I thought you might find this of interest. When I added my 2nd Lux unit I decided to replace the Wi-Fi module with the Ethernet dongle which was available then. I have nothing against Wi-Fi - but prefer a wired connection for anything than handheld devices. So existing and new Luxs had Ethernet installed. After a few days I started getting dropouts of data which could only be sorted by unplugging/re plugging the dongle. It was a bit frustrating as the Lux units are in my roof space and require a bit of climbing to get to.

It then dawned on me that I was using long cat5e cables in an electrically noisy environment! Ok, so I could replace the cables with screened ones - or just connect the Lux units to a 10 base T Ethernet hub running at 10Mbps rather than the 100Mbps that was causing the problem.

The solution worked perfectly and I’ve had no dropouts in several months now. As I had a spare/old 10 Mbps hub then it was an essentially zero cost fix as well.

Hopefully this is useful to someone.

Thanks - Rob

[SafetyThird]

Very interesting Rob. Are the Ethernet dongles still available do you know. I’ve not seen them mentioned before.

[Lincs Robert]

Hi,

Yes, I only purchased them few months ago. I got them from Infinity Innovations, I think they were about £70 each. I should add that I also tried placing a 100Mb hub close to the units and that worked fine with much shorter cables - but it suited me better to use the old “free” hub.

Thanks

[SafetyThird]

Interesting, I was going to call them today anyway to ask about a couple of issues with my Luxpower inverter now it's been running for a few weeks, I keep seeing up to 350w being exported according to their display, even at night with no pv generation which I'm obviously not impressed with. I have an ethernet port right next to the inverters as the SMA inverter is plugged into it so only need a small ethernet switch, that is in the spares box somewhere, to connect by wire.

[Swwils]

Interesting, I was going to call them today anyway to ask about a couple of issues with my Luxpower inverter now it's been running for a few weeks, I keep seeing up to 350w being exported according to their display, even at night with no pv generation which I'm obviously not impressed with. I have an ethernet port right next to the inverters as the SMA inverter is plugged into it so only need a small ethernet switch, that is in the spares box somewhere, to connect by wire.

Mine is very accurate, maybe a cracked CT core? There is a hidden offset that lux can change. (Or you can if you have the WiFi dongle).

[Caesium]

There is a hidden offset that lux can change. (Or you can if you have the WiFi dongle).

Don't suppose you have more details here..? I can change individual registers in my inverter just fine, its just a case of knowing which to change and what to

Holding register 116 which I have documented as P_TO_USER_START_DISCHG seemed promising with an initial value of 50, but changing that to 0 and then 100 as a test didn't seem to have any effect. So I put it back to 50

[Oldgreybeard]

As mentioned above, I had to change the hidden offset on my Sofar, as there was about a 50W error from the CT. Been fine since that was set, and to be fair Sofar do document this in the manual,

[Swwils]

There is a hidden offset that lux can change. (Or you can if you have the WiFi dongle).

Don't suppose you have more details here..? I can change individual registers in my inverter just fine, its just a case of knowing which to change and what to

Holding register 116 which I have documented as P_TO_USER_START_DISCHG seemed promising with an initial value of 50, but changing that to 0 and then 100 as a test didn't seem to have any effect. So I put it back to 50

Register 119 but I haven't been able to confirm if it works across all firmwares or models.

[Caesium]

Register 119 but I haven't been able to confirm if it works across all firmwares or models.

Thanks! I'm really curious where you found that

Unfortunately doesn't seem to have any effect for me. It had an initial value of 0, I tried poking a few values in.. 1, 5, 50, 500! (wondered if it might be in increments of 0.1W) and watching my power consumption but not seeing any noticeable difference.

The Sofar manual mentioned above seems a lot more helpful than any Lux manual I've ever seen! I don't think they give any mention to this issue at all.

[Swwils]

It depends what model and firmware you are on. It's in the installer.menu and the register was changed between FWs. Some hyrbids do not have it.