Special Interest
Publishing Solar River inverter stats using a Raspberry PI computer
belly — Sun, 2013-06-09 17:36
I thought I would document how I managed to get solar stats from my Solar River 5.0 KW inverter (SR5KTLA1 - Manufacture SAMILPOWER) using a mini Linux computer (Raspberry PI) and publishing the data to pvoutput.org. See http://pvoutput.org/intraday.jsp?id=22304&sid=20196 for “my” solar stats.
Acknowledgements
Before providing any details, I would like to acknowledge the following information/people which assisted greatly to get something up and running:
- http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/solar_software - central location for links to solar software and protocols used by various inverters
- http://www.solarfreaks.com/cms2000-inverter-rs232-serial-port-hack-cms-2000-rs232-t271-240.html#p3410 – Provided the “perl scripts” that I used to capture data from a RS-232 connection on the inverter. inverter_monitor_120308.zip provides the downloadable package containing the scripts, etc. A special to the developers who helped to develop the inverter and pvoutput perl scripts. These include (as listed on within the *.pl files)
- jinba @ jinba-ittai.net
- Eric Sandeen
- shell_l_d
- mmcdon23
- nigol2
- slampt
Okay – to obtain information from my Solar River 5.0 KW inverter, I needed a computer with a RS-232 connection (I believe the newer versions of the inverter have wireless capabilities). To ensure the computer was low in power usage and could do the job, I decided to use a “Raspberry PI” computer. These things are great - they are small, fairly cheap and because it runs Linux, it is quite powerful!
Image obtained from "http://element14.com"!
Some useful links for Raspbery Pi’s and various components that was used to build the system:
- I purchased my Raspberry Pi from Element 14 (some various Raspberry PI links)
- Wireless USB dongle (needed to talk to home network via WIFI)
- I had trouble with this USB 2.0 to RS232 SERIAL Cable (needed to connect to solar inverter) - as the system kept "locking up" when the inverter would first start (first light) or when it would stop (ie, no more sun) - http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/USB-2-0-to-RS232-SERIAL-Cable-9PIN-9-PIN-DB9-Adapter-Cord-PDA-GPS-XP-VISTA-/300842105372?ssPageName=ADME:L:OC:AU:3160
- The more expensive USB 2.0 to RS232 SERIAL Cable, in which I have had no issues was a "ATEN UC-232A USB to Serial Adapter". I obtain this adaptor cable from http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=3590&cPath=625&utm_source=googlebase&utm_medium=cse&utm_campaign=export_feed&gclid=CNj-38qN6rcCFUUipQodVnoAkg#googlebase
- Fedora 17 – remix (Operating System used - this is my preferred Linux distribution, but should work with other Linux distributions)
Image obtained from "http://element14.com"!
Setup instructions
With the default image installed (Fedora 17 Remix) and wireless configured to the home network, this provided me with a base configuration to work with.
I had to installed additional packages so the RS232 device could be communicated to and the various applications required.
yum install libserializer.noarch perl-Device-SerialPort conserver conserver-client perl-YAML-LibYAML
yum install perl-libwww-perl perl-AppConfig ntpTo ensure the correct time and date, the ntpd service needs to be enabled. To do this, issue the following commands (ensure you have root permissions to do this):
service ntpd startchkconfig ntpd onntpq -p
Once the correct time is configured, we can download the “solar” software. This can be done by:
wget http://www.solarfreaks.com/download/file.php?id=1010&sid=77ed169611d8e8d83195fff07ef5d11eRename the file to inverter_monitor_120308.zip
mv file.php\?id\=1010 inverter_monitor_120308.zip
Then unzip the software
$ unzip inverter_monitor_120308.zip
Archive: inverter_monitor_120308.zip
creating: solar/
inflating: solar/config.ini
creating: solar/configs/
inflating: solar/configs/config_klne.ini
inflating: solar/configs/config_phoenixtec.ini
inflating: solar/configs/config_samilpower.ini
inflating: solar/create_rrd.pl
inflating: solar/inverter.pl
extracting: solar/MonitorInverter.bat
inflating: solar/pvoutput.pl
inflating: solar/README.txt
inflating: solar/VersionInfo.txtchange to the directory
cd solar
You need to change to configure file to suit the “samilpower inverter”. Overwrite the current config.ini file with the config_samilpower.ini found in the (configs) directory.
cp configs/config_samilpower.ini config.ini
Now, issue the following command and see if you can connect to the inverter (note you will need to issue this command during 5am – 10pm, as these times are set as valid poll times).
perl inverter.pl /dev/ttyUSB0
You should get something like the following
Starting up at 04/06/2013 08:03:27 running on linux ...
Initialise Serial Port... port = /dev/ttyUSB0
Send -> req init inverter: 55aa000000000004000103
Send -> req serial: 55aa0000000000000000ff
Recv <- 55aa0000000000800a5335303131383234313603a8
Send -> confirm serial: 55aa0000000000010b5335303131383234313601032b
Recv <- 55aa00010000008101060188
Send -> req version: 55aa000000010103000104
Recv <- 55aa000100000183403120203436303056312e3030536f6c6172526976657220352e304b5753414d494c504f5745522020202020205335303131383234313600000000000033363030101d
* Version info:
asciiVers=Uª@1 4600V1.00SolarRiver 5.0KWSAMILPOWER ##################
CAPACITY : 4600
FIRMWARE : V1.00
MANUF : SAMILPOWER
MODEL : SolarRiver 5.0KW
OTHER : 3600
SERIAL : ##<Your serial number>##
Send -> req param format: 55aa000000010101000158
Recv <- 55aa00010000018101000183
* Parameter Format:
dataToFollow = hex(01) = 1
9 = 00
Send -> req params: 55aa00000001010400015b
Recv <- 55aa00010000018401000186
* Parameters:
Send -> req data format: 55aa000000010100000101
Recv <- 55aa00010000018014000104090a0c111213161718313233343536373803d8
* Data Format:
dataToFollow = hex(14) = 20
9 = 00 = TEMP = 0 = Internal Temperature
10 = 01 = VPV1 = 1 = Panel 1 Voltage
11 = 04 = IPV1 = 2 = Panel 1 DC Current
12 = 09 = ETOTALH = 3 = Accumulated Energy (high bit)
13 = 0a = HTOTALL = 4 = Working Hours (low bit)
14 = 0c = ETODAY = 5 = Accumulated Energy Today
15 = 11 = MODE = 6 = Operating Mode
16 = 12 = HTOTALH = 7 = Working Hours (high bit)
17 = 13 = ERR_GV = 8 = Error message: GV fault value?
18 = 16 = ERR_GF = 9 = Error message: GF fault value?
19 = 17 = ERR_GZ = 10 = Error message: GZ fault value?
20 = 18 = ERR_TEMP = 11 = Error message: Tmp fault value?
21 = 31 = IAC = 12 = Grid Current
22 = 32 = VAC = 13 = Grid Voltage
23 = 33 = FAC = 14 = Grid Frequency
24 = 34 = PAC = 15 = Output Power
25 = 35 = ERR_PV1 = 16 = Error message: PV1 fault value?
26 = 36 = ETOTALL = 17 = Accumulated Energy (low bit)
27 = 37 = ERR_GFC1 = 18 = Error message: GFC1 fault value?
28 = 38 = ERR_MODE = 19 = Error mode?
Send -> req data as at 04/06/2013 08:03:34 : 55aa000000010102000103
Recv <- 55aa0001000001822800c90ae70025000017b20105002c00000000000000000000002a097d1390044c00019e7800000000073f
* Data:
TEMP : 20.1 deg C = Internal Temperature
VPV1 : 279.1 V = Panel 1 Voltage
IPV1 : 3.7 A = Panel 1 DC Current
ETOTALH : 0 kWh = Accumulated Energy (high bit)
HTOTALL : 6066 hrs = Working Hours (low bit)
ETODAY : 2.61 kWh = Accumulated Energy Today
MODE : 44 = Operating Mode
HTOTALH : 0 hrs = Working Hours (high bit)
ERR_GV : 0 = Error message: GV fault value?
ERR_GF : 0 = Error message: GF fault value?
ERR_GZ : 0 = Error message: GZ fault value?
ERR_TEMP: 0 = Error message: Tmp fault value?
IAC : 4.2 A = Grid Current
VAC : 242.9 V = Grid Voltage
FAC : 50.08 Hz = Grid Frequency
PAC : 1100 W = Output Power
ERR_PV1 : 1 = Error message: PV1 fault value?
ETOTALL : 4056.8 kWh = Accumulated Energy (low bit)
ERR_GFC1: 0 = Error message: GFC1 fault value?
ERR_MODE: 0 = Error mode?
*** WARNING Could not open logfile: /tmp/solar/inverter_S501182416_20130604.csv
Hopefully you are able to connect to the device!
I noticed (on my system anyway) that the “ETODAY” value remained constant from my inverter data output. Also I noticed the value for “MODE” was increasing. It was determined that I need to swap these values around.
I edited the “config.ini” file with the following changes (replace yellow text with green text)
other = "/tmp/solar" # unix/linux
other = "/location_of_solar_directory/" # unix/Linux
I changed the pvoutput command to contain the full path, so it can be used within a cron job.
pvoutput = "perl pvoutput.pl" # to export data to http://pvoutput.org
pvoutput = "/bin/perl /location_of_solar_directory/pvoutput.pl" # to export data to http://pvoutput.org
Swap the “hex” codes for the variables ETODAY and MODE.
[data_etoday]hexcode = "0c"hexcode = "11"multiply = 0.01measure = "kWh"index = -1descr = "Accumulated Energy Today"
[data_mode]hexcode = "11"hexcode = "0c"multiply = 1measure = " "index = -1descr = "Operating Mode"
I changed the number of retries – as I found if it failed once, it would keep on failing. But this isn’t necessary, as a "cron job" would re-run the command every 5 minutes.
reinit = 5 # -1 = infinite num of times (ie dont die)reinit = 1 # -1 = infinite num of times (ie dont die)
PVOutput Setup
- I setup the pvoutput settings per http://pvoutput.org/help.html#api
- I modified the pvoutput.pl file and enter the details for SERIAL_NUM, API_KEY & SYSTEM_ID
Modifying the inverter.pl script
One thing that I did, that others might choose not to do, is I modified the "inverter.pl" script so it wouldn’t continuously “loop”. Given I am using a “cron job” in which will executes every 5 minutes, there was no need for the program to “loop”. The “Yellow” sections were modified with a lead “#”, which commented out that line of code.
#
# The main loop starts here
#
#while (1) {
#
# Request Inverter Data (regular data poll)
#
print "Send -> req data as at " . &getDateTime() . " : " . $config->sendhex_data . "\n";
&setPollTimes();
$hexResponse = &writeReadBuffer($config->sendhex_data,$config->recvhex_data);
&parseData($hexResponse) if ($hexResponse ne "");
&writeToFile();
#
# Export data to http://pvoutput.org
#
if ($config->flags_use_pvoutput) {
if ( &isNextPvoutputDue() ) {
my $date = &getDate_YYYYMMDD();
my $time = &getTime_HHMM();
print "PVOUTPUT as at " . &getDateTime() . " ...\n";
print " ran: " . $config->scripts_pvoutput . " " . ($HoH{ETODAY}{VALUE} * 1000) . " $HoH{PAC}{VALUE} $date $time $HASH{SERIAL}\n";
system ($config->scripts_pvoutput . " " . ($HoH{ETODAY}{VALUE} * 1000) . " $HoH{PAC}{VALUE} $date $time $HASH{SERIAL}" );
&setPvoutputTimes();
}
}
#
# Sleep until next time data needs to be polled (per $config->secs_datapoll_freq)
#
#&sleepTilNextPoll();
#&sleepTilNextPoll();
# } #end while
I changed the location of config.ini to contain the full path, so it can be used within a cron job.
$config->file( "config.ini" ) || die "FAILED to open and/or read config file: config.ini\n";$config->file("/location_of_solar_directory/config.ini" ) || die "FAILED to open and/or read config file: config.ini\n";
runme.sh shell script
I also developed a “shell script” (runme.sh), in which it gather all the data and export the output
/bin/perl /location_of_solar_directory/inverter.pl /dev/ttyUSB0 > /location_of_solar_directory/current.txtcat /location_of_solar_directory/current.txt >> /location_of_solar_directory/output/`date +%d%m%Y`-output.txt
What this script does, is place the output from the inverter.pl perl script to the current.txt file. Additionally, so records are kept, I amended the output to a “date stamped” text file, so a record of daily results can be recorded (to the sub directory “output”).
Scheduling the “gathering of solar data” every 5 minutes using as cron job
Issue the command crontab -e and enter the following record into the “cron” schedule. This will ensure the "runme.sh" shell script is executed every 5 minutes.
*/30 * * * * /location_of_solar_directory/runme.sh
I hope this document is of use to some of you. If you have any comments or feedback - feel free to contact me at : bellfamily <at> gmail.com
