This will be a great video series Andy, looking forward to the dashboard integration at the end.

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

Yes, there will be a few videos coming in this regards. Doing small steps rather packing it all in one video.

As always, very entertaining and informative, if only we had you as a teacher we might have learnt something at school....

Excited about the upcoming video on Victron installation in HA

Thanks Andy! Waiting for the Victron integration info

Hi Andy, great that you also show how to use the home assistant. I have installed this on a raspi while waiting to see how you will implement the Victron installation. You are my great inspiration. Thank you Andy for your videos and the effort you put into them. I look forward to your next video. regards

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

Thanks a lot. The video about HA integration will come...

@Wirelessinfopuntbe

Жыл бұрын

@@OffGridGarageAustralia When can we expect the follow-up on home assistant? This would be wonderful Andy :) Greatings Jean-Pierre

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

@@Wirelessinfopuntbe Yes, coming, just too many videos to shoot....

@Wirelessinfopuntbe

Жыл бұрын

@@OffGridGarageAustralia I understand Andy; i can wait. All your videos are an added value for gaining knowledge about batteries and solar panel systems. You are a familiar person to me in my living room. Thanks for this Andy.

Hi Andy. Thank you for making a Home assistant integration series.

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

I'm curious myself if this all works together...

You are now my fount of all knowledge! Well, you for solar and @joshuabardwell for drones!

Yes! I just wait to learn about Home Asistant explain simple in Andy style.

Congratulations on this new video series! This looks like a really nice thing. I must say that your face sometimes expressed a bit of panic when you emphasized 'no scripting and no coding' 😅 ... But nothing but admiration for your efforts .👍 Keep it up!

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

Thanks for your feedback. Many people are worried that they have to do a lot of programming and scripting for such things like automation. So, I really try to not include this in any video.

HA is so lovely....and there are so much helpful tutorials on YT. It seems nothing is impossible with HA. For example: I have all data from my JKBMSes integrated in HA. It is wonderful to track every single cell.

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

Yes, the infinite HA rabbit hole 😁

Andy you will love the tailscale plugin, you will be able to monitor everything on home assistant (and other devices) without any complex setups, it just works. I even have a widget on my phone that shows me the power produced and the battery percentage. Yes, i know, feeding the addiction!

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

One step at a time... 😁

Thank you very much for the video, really helpful and unique information

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

Thanks a lot!

Thanks a bunch for this Andy! Much appreciated. I have individual MPPT (dumb) boost converters for each solar panel,. I'd like to monitor each panel's performance. After seeing this vid, I'll be looking for some sort of clip-on or thru-hole DC current sensor that Home Assistant can talk too.

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

Thanks Keith. That would be a very interesting project...

Hi Andy, thanks for all your videos. Please remember when setting up static IP directly in a network device and not reserve an IP for that MAC address in your router. When using the first option there is a possibility that router assign that address to a different device this can happen when one or several devices are reset in you network. So, in my opinion always use reserve IP for that specific MAC address in your router.

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

The problem with reservations are though, If the router breaks down and needs replacement. With static IPs directly in the devices, everything will just work again with a new router. Also, many home routers have a limitation of IP reservations.

@alexsimmons1803

Жыл бұрын

@@OffGridGarageAustralia Except a router being rebooted or replaced may assign that IP address to something else before the Fronius says that's what it wants. It really should be reserved in the router.

@Juergen_Miessmer

Жыл бұрын

If you are not a donkey, you choose an IP adress outside the DHCP range. Reserving IPs in the router is the lazy but 'not good' way: It adds another single point of failure to the system.

@tiloalo

Жыл бұрын

​@Jürgen Mießmer not really. You simply need to backup the reservation list somewhere. Using static ip in the devices is also a failure point, you might assign the same twice and in case of reboot, nothing guarantees that the address will still be available when the device reconnects.

@Juergen_Miessmer

Жыл бұрын

​​​​​​​​​@@tiloalo If the DHCP server stops working for any reason, that stored backup list will not keep the system running. I will never assign a static IP twice. Only fools do that. A reboot will have no affect to the static IP address. This single IP is only used on this one device and it is located outside the available range of the DHCP server. Trust me, im a network professional since decades.

Great video!

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

Thanks a lot!

Congratulations Andy the system fronius and victron is very good working

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

Thanks 👍

Wow, beautiful forward thinking Andy! And so relatively easy explained, without coding. Which will suit most people very nicely. I do wonder, if you don't mind me asking, if you have been a teacher (or of some sort) in a previous life? The ease how you explain it, I guess with some off-camera preparations and decisions what to tell etc, is really impressive; Not too complicated and also not too much details but plenty of information to get one thinking about also considering going down that route. I really look forward to this series, thanks!

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

Thanks a lot for your very kind comment! I was never a teacher but have worked in environment where we have to explain technical processes to normal users. I also have a wife to whom I need to explain technical stuff sometimes 😂 I guess the latter qualifies me making such videos and breaking it down... I never do any scripting for my videos, I turn the camera on and ... this comes out. Editing takes a long time though, especially synchronising screen recording on computer and mobile phone at the same time I'm showing the camera. Thanks again, great feedback. With this, I know it's worth the effort making these videos.

@InspectorGadget2014

Жыл бұрын

​@@OffGridGarageAustralia Your video's and various subjects are quite priceless in my book. (eventhough with my Müller Energy BMS not everything is that applicable to me) I do value the time you put into the editing, it really does show! I therefore donated a few S.P.A.T's, you can't make more videos with a dry throat! ;-) Keep up to good work!

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

@@InspectorGadget2014Thanks a lot for your donation! Prost🍺 And all the best to Hoevelaken.

Thanks Andy

One of the first loads I automated was the pool pump. By using the sunrise and sunset parameters (with offsets) it will automatically adjust the pump's run time with the season. I used to also make further adjustment to pump start time based on availability of excess solar PV but it's not really necessary with the automatic time of day adjustment. I also have HA automations looking after if/when to use supplemental charging of the off-grid battery with excess grid-PV. Needs it at this time of year because my off-grid PV array is small (2.2 kW) while the grid array is 11 kW. As for using the Growatt (I don't use one) and many other inverters which are based on similar architecture as the Voltronic family of inverters (hundreds of them), an alternative which does not require using Growatt's off-shore servers but keeping it all local is to use Solar Assistant (requires a dedicated RPi). Solar Assistant is a bit like the Cerbo is for Victron kit. Then integrate the Solar Assistant with Home Assistant (using the MQTT integration). It works really well and is how my off-grid inverter is integrated with my HA. It's also very fast with second by second live data. SA also integrates the data from my Victron smart shunt.

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, my pool pump needs to run longer in warmer weather to produce more chlorine. So, the day light time is not critical to me. But, I'm sure HA could handle this as well somehow. I'm not too fussed as the pump will run 24/7 in summer anyway. I then have far too much energy to burn.... The third point you make is exactly why people don't use HA. Just by reading this puts most of them off. Additional hardware, additional software, MQTT..., this is all not straight forward and a huge barrier for many. But I understand what you mean 😊

@alexsimmons1803

Жыл бұрын

@@OffGridGarageAustralia To be fair though, most of the Venus OS stuff you've shown over last couple of years (let alone the BMS communications) is much more difficult than hooking Solar Assistant up. I agree, simple is good though. The primary benefit of using SA is it makes the Chinese inverters smart and easy to automate functions and so you can get triple the capacity of Victron for the same price (or pay a whole lot less for the same capacity). Victron is nice kit but it's very expensive and in this off-grid / DIY space many are looking for better value and would like to avoid paying the blue tax.

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

@@alexsimmons1803 good points, thank you.

Hi Andy. I'm new to Home Assistant and have now a RPi4 + raspbee II with HAOS installed and running. I would like to integrate my Victron system thru Cerbo GX into HA. In your video you introduced it can be done easily and will come in a other video. I'm so curies to see how this can be done without coding. Im a big fan of this community and your excellent video's!

Glad I found this one thank you 🙏 I’m guessing you can use the cerbo gx instead of the pi but the same process

Heya, that looks like a very nice app would like to see more of this app

Now that you're into HomeAssistant, you really need to integrate your battery BMSes and have per-cell voltage tracking/stats over time. it realley helped me to manage my 48V battery which is LiFePO4(16s) + NCM(14s) in parallel, sooo nice to see how overall current spreads between the two packs depending of each pack SOC. I use "esphome-jk-bms", very easy to connect and configure! please at least consider it.

@danfitzpatrick4112

Жыл бұрын

The ESP32 chips are fantastic and cheap! I use them as well for my jk-bms. Then you can also go down another rabbit hole and use Grafana and InfluxDB for data base storage and graphs for everything in home assistant as well.

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

Yes, we will get there eventually...

@tanishqbhaiji103

Жыл бұрын

@@OffGridGarageAustralia please make one for the JK BMS without canbus.

@quilmore

Жыл бұрын

@@tanishqbhaiji103 I use esphome-jk-bms too, love it, it uses Bluetooth, not canbus

@tanishqbhaiji103

Жыл бұрын

@@quilmore the new ones have canbus option. And it has always had rs485.

What a good video about home assistant. Keep up the good work!! But please use the standard automations instead of node red. The standard automation options have the future of home assistant and can be shared with blueprints for the greater good.

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

Thanks for your feedback. Ah, right, OK, not sure how blueprints work (like a template maybe?). I'm new to all this myself.... we will get there.

Good i use yaml configuration very simple solution

supergut, danke dir! Ich habs auf einem unraid-Server laufen, Es ist wirklich sehr einfach!

Hi Andy thx for the great informative Vids! - I have the Fronius & BYD battery added to HA ....BUT ...Any chance of a vid on how to use the data? like ... if battery is FULL and Power gerneration is XX,,, turn on shelly switch for Hot Water /car charger / pumps etc ...😇

Hi Andy, do you already know when you produce a video how to connect Home Assistant to Victron devices? Cheers, Gerd

I remember using node red five years ago, which was pretty hard at first. Home assistant is easier nowadays. Rain, 40 mm, did something strange to the system, or was it just the bms I need to replace.

This video surprised me. I thought your Victron stuff was already integrated into Home Assistant.

Seems you could do with a defused sheet of plastic a few feet above solar array...plan? Spreads the solar rays about more than just direct light onto half/two-thirds of array'. (plastic they use in polytunnels)

👍👍

Hi Andy, would you please make a video on how to integrate Victron into HA. I have look on the web but no one can explain it like you ! Thanks

I would really like to know how you connected Victron device to home assistant using the HACs integration because it asks you for the Advertisement key I have spent hours trying to find any simple instructions on how to get it. I bought a Victron Smart battery sense just to get my battery bank voltage on Home Assistant

Andy you will love using the Shelly UNI using the ADC along with a 0-10v water probe, as I use them for my water tank levels that's if you are on tank water

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

I have seen the UNI devices. So much still to explore... Tank levels would be great actually...

Can you make a followup on how you added the kW to the energy dashboard? How do you convert it to kWh?

Hey buddy I just wanted to check with you. But before I buy anything could you possibly point me in the right direction I would like to monitor my EG4 6000 XP on home assistant and I'm wondering if I need solar assistant setup in order to access the data for home assistant so everything is in my dashboard, Thanks for all your content!

If I get my Internet backup, too, I will add the systems together.

don't forget to add my HA integration for solar prediction in the graph ha-solcast-solar :)

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

Hold your horses. One step at a time 😊

Hey Spatman, dont underestimate your audience.... bring out the Node-Red.

4:09 this is the most difficult bit, connecting the inverter to the Wi-Fi LAN. Some inverters have the Wi-Fi reach of 5 centimetres so your phone can connect, but too short to setup a Wi-Fi LAN AP from a home desktop. Is there a HA solution to making inverters reach the Wi-Fi LAN?

You open a can of worms with Hassio, did right with the energy side of things. One day you have to show how to put the inverter info in the energy dashboard and since you have them, devices to monitor individual energy. I bought an esp but use batmon works with more than one bms and no coding, you will loose the connection to them for mobile app but in my case makes no difference since I manage everything in hassio, victron connect still allow to see the battery voltage, A, SOC, etc . If JK Bms gives an error turning it off and on allow to be discover again, smart shunt works every time. Now will wait one more week for the BMS review.

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

I know, I really want to focus on the energy side here with Home Assistant and show some simple automations. Otherwise, the whole topic and theme of the channel may change quickly 😁

Thanks again! It is really essential to have a central data collector and handler. I am using ioBroker and it serves my Gen24 directly and the Fronius web cloud as well, Fronius Wattpilot, BYD, Shelly, Zigbee, utility meter and much more. Did you get a direct access to the Gen24 PV string power?

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

What do you mean by access to the string power? I'm getting the DC string voltage, current and power so far.

@klassichd10

Жыл бұрын

@@OffGridGarageAustralia I am just getting the total PV power combined of all strings and the 2 string currents and the 2 string volatges, but not the power of the individual strings. So, I have to calculate the 2 different string powers by myself. The complete combined PV power ist delivered by the Gen 24. But not the single powers of the single strings.

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

@@klassichd10 ah, right. I have only ones string, so... Can you get it calculate through HA somehow, is that possible at all?

@klassichd10

Жыл бұрын

@@OffGridGarageAustralia I am using ioBroker and currently I am calculating the two string power values by a Java Script which is the way user defined stuff is done in ioBroker (like python in HA). That works all right. In the Web Interface and Solarweb I also can see the two string powers. So, I hoped that there might be an undocumented feature to get the values directly and avoid this calculation. Just as an optimization to reduce calculation power.

Hey Andy. I am curious if you are getting 4kw during overcast winter weather, do you generate anything on a clear night with a full moon?

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

No nothing, the voltage during full moon is far to low for a 48V battery. I probably could hook up a single battery cell charge it during the night from a 14kW solar system 😂 Not sure if there is actually current flowing.

@SurakIII

Жыл бұрын

@@OffGridGarageAustralia If you could charge even one cell, the idea that you could get anything from moonlight is magical. 🙂

@Juergen_Miessmer

Жыл бұрын

I sometimes see e few watts coming from my 4200Wp strings at full moon. But nothing worth to care about ...

HA is so great, but if I use Modbus TCP for Victron I didn't get entities about Critical loads on AC out1. Maybe you can help to get all informations on the Energy-Dashboard

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

Yes, I have the power display for AC out 1 showing on my dashboard. The entity is called vebus out L1 Power.

@matthiasm8648

Жыл бұрын

@@OffGridGarageAustralia but where do you enter this entity? House consumption is a calculated value of difference between Solar production, feed in/out battery and forward energy to grid.

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

@@matthiasm8648 ah, ok. I'll show you in a video. If you want the info upfront, send me an email.

Hello, I'm from Brazil and I've been watching your videos for a long time and I really like your content. I have an Off-Grid system in my house and I really wanted to make a system that could manage all of this, but in my case I only have Chinese inverters without connection to any type of platform I am looking for a solution that can monitor these parameters so that integration with Home Assistant or another manager is possible, does this type of tool already exist? Due to your knowledge, you could do something like that and show it to us on your channel, it would be very useful for many technology and solar system aficionados.

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

Thanks for your comment and watching my videos, Edson. That is a tricky thing. If your inverters have some sort of communication port (CAN or RS2485) it will be possible to get the data out of them and feed them into another system (like HA).

@alexsimmons1803

Жыл бұрын

Edson - if they are of the Voltronic family of inverter (e.g. like the MPP Solar inverters or any number of clones) or the Deye family (e.g. Deye, Sol Ark) then they will work with Solar Assistant. SA runs on a Raspberry Pi can be integrated with Home Assistant. Look it up - it's a game changer for these inverters and make life much easier.

@EdsonAlmeida-sj7zu

Жыл бұрын

Unfortunately the inverters I use in my system are Chinese generics from the 2000w Lvyuan brand, I've already thought about buying inverters from better brands with communication ports. could be attached to these cheaper inverters, I believe that there may even be something like that, but it may require some programming knowledge with Raspberry Pi or Arduino

🐸🐸🐸

3:56 lol

But my sma home manager 2.0 (500 euros hardware module) works great! With SMA products and one obsolete brand of wifi AC plugs. I found four plugs online and bought all the available stock...

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

Oh, dear...

Like# 312

have you used solar to make hotwater?

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

Yes, for the last 6 months.

white clouds r good , black clouds not so

Hey Andy how do you make more power in clouds than pure sunlight? That is just very strange to me incredible though but just very odd. One would think direct sunlight would create more power and clouds would decrease power. Anyway you could make a video to explain this? For idiots like me lol😂

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

Hey Branden. That is due to the shading from the trees I have for 3 months in Winter time. They block most of the sun during the day but with clouds, the light is coming from all sides and I have a huge increase in generation.

@brandenwalrath3012

Жыл бұрын

@@OffGridGarageAustralia ohhh ok that makes sense now! I live in Wisconsin in the USA. It's our summer now. Rather dry one.

Can this be done with USB connection from my MPP-Solar inverter to Rpi?

@OffGridGarageAustralia

4 ай бұрын

No, you need to use RS485 and have the right protocol from MPP. USB will not work.

@paulsharp1712

4 ай бұрын

@@OffGridGarageAustralia ah thanks, my MPP-solar inverter only has usb and rs232 communications

@OffGridGarageAustralia

4 ай бұрын

@@paulsharp1712 What do you run on this Rpi? HA? There is actually an integration for MPP inverters and HA...

@paulsharp1712

4 ай бұрын

@@OffGridGarageAustralia cool, hadn't found that!

First comment 🙂

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

Thank you for your first comment!

second video useful in 2023 after victron ess

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

I should stop making all the other videos then. Maybe useful for you 😉

Moar Home Assistant please 😅

breaking news -- Growatt server is down and peoples on grid growatt invertors have shutdown

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

Why is the server shutting down inverters?

@margarita8442

Жыл бұрын

@@OffGridGarageAustralia not sure but many pissed off

Cover your Mac address please Because some will attack that Mac address They are don't care about the great job your give to others Thanks for your time.

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

What? Someone needs to get in range of my Wifi first and hack that...

Where is the damn snow considering you call it WINTER. No winter without snow.

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

Hahaha, once you live here for 10yrs+, 10° feels like -10°. Well, no snow here but 150km further inland, they have sometimes snow in the morning. And of course the Australian Alps in the south.

@typxxilps

Жыл бұрын

@@OffGridGarageAustralia I'm not sure but have you thought about the integration of SEPLOS BMS into HA ? I still have that older, previous one without BT and think about an upgrade to the BT . Right now I have an outdated intel laptop running next to it to get access and run the changes if needed. I did not need it cause I was able to retrieve the data or at least some from the back through the Growatt API access but , big big big but Growatt is now blocking accounts if you have too many api calls per day or hour and I am the first they shut down for a day or from the noon onwards cause I am running just 5x 4,6 kW Growatt inverter (3 as a surplus system with a battery and 2 as an additional system which is only feeding into the grid for 0,05€ more per kWh). But my call amount is basically 5 times higher then those with just 1 big inverter. And due to the fact that the day starter earlier means that the point of time blocking my account starts earlier and earlier therefore the impact is hurting more and some SEPLOS data might be usefull too cause I am running the system with let's call it shared priorities. I mean I have 3 surplus 'consumers' to use energy that otherwise would be fed in. And so I do not have a rule like first battery, then car and finally now the 270 L in the heatpump water boiler (which also has a heat exchanger needed for the sept - april heating season here. The last one is obviously the last to 'charge' once the warm water is achieved, but it has a PV SURPLUS mode where it is taking surplus energy to heat the full boiler up to 62°C in preparation for the heat exchanger that pumps the energy to the radiators we tend to use in the evening at least till end of may. I am aware of the grott development which is running growatt inverters in a kind of proxy mode and listening to the growatt inverter to growatt cloud communication passively. I am using already such a tool acting as a proxy called evcc developed here to charge the car with surplus only and also the heatpump boiler, which worked quite well, but the official growatt HA integration is still relying on api calls , so I am hoping for the HACs GROTT implementation by also using the stealth or proxy mode to get the data. Otherwise things get complicated cause I need some data for the SurPlus decision inside HA ... which are also in the Growatt app, but out of reach from HA at least from noon onwards.

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

@@typxxilps Yes, we will do this at some stage. One step after another... HA can even wipe your a** if you want to😁

Growatt integration is almost useless. It update the data once every 15 minutes.

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

Ah, right. The Fronius polls data every 1min. And is not cloud based... which is preferable. The Growatt invetrer surely has an internal webserver as well where you could get the data from?

@VasilDomuschiev

Жыл бұрын

@@OffGridGarageAustralia It depends of the model and current configuration. Sometimes there are workarounds...

@alexsimmons1803

Жыл бұрын

@@OffGridGarageAustralia My HA polls Fronius data every 10 seconds.

@VasilDomuschiev

Жыл бұрын

@@OffGridGarageAustralia It depends of the model and configuration. But usually there is some type of workaround.

So you don’t think there is any possibility that the power you are generating is diverted to AI and used against you? You are getting into dangerous territory.

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, OK, I better stop! 😁 Man, that's why I'm off-grid, so no power can escape!!!

Erster!

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

Looks like you're second 🥈

Unless you have an epever all in one inverter, then you have to figure out all the programming yourself. 🙄

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

I wasn't aware that Epever makes such all-in one inverters... Yeah, ok, for such exotic devices it may be a bit hard to integrate them...

@jmpcrx

Жыл бұрын

Yes, i have done it though anyway 😎.

Hi guys

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

🥇again

u got old but not accepting it 😊😊😊

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

Hahaha, yah, that may be the case...

@ProfessorAnkitTomer

Жыл бұрын

@@OffGridGarageAustralia send me some of them 300ah cells also if u have done all of ur experiments with them.

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

@@ProfessorAnkitTomer are you in AU?

@ProfessorAnkitTomer

Жыл бұрын

@@OffGridGarageAustralia no. im in INDIA

@OffGridGarageAustralia

Жыл бұрын

@@ProfessorAnkitTomer arghhhh, that will be very hard to send you some batteries☺️