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Sofar2MQTT Help

  • 02-09-2023 08:03PM
    #1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 443 ✭✭


    All,

    I setup the Sofar2MQTT hardware, and when I look at the MQTT plugin in HA and listen to all #, I see the following (indicating that the hardware is successfully connected to the MQTT broker).

    Message 1 received on Sofar2MQTT/state at 7:56 PM:{
        "uptime": 9319996,
        "deviceName": "Sofar2MQTT",
        "running_state": 2,
        "inverter_temp": 48,
        "inverter_HStemp": 36,
        "grid_freq": 49.98,
        "inverter_power": 740,
        "grid_power": 30,
        "grid_voltage": 237.7,
        "consumption": 750,
        "solarPV1Volt": 225.8,
        "solarPV1Current": 0.13,
        "solarPV1": 0,
        "solarPV2Volt": 220.2,
        "solarPV2Current": 0.1,
        "solarPV2": 10,
        "solarPV": 0,
        "battery_voltage": 52.7,
        "battery_current": -14.2,
        "battery_power": -720,
        "battery_temp": 24,
        "batterySOC": 96,
        "batterySOH": 100,
        "battery_cycles": 65394,
        "today_generation": 19.78,
        "total_generation": 3791.2,
        "today_consumption": 15.46,
        "total_consumption": 5333.3,
        "today_purchase": 1.03,
        "total_purchase": 3187.1,
        "today_exported": 14.05,
        "total_exported": 2893.8,
        "today_charged": 16.99,
        "total_charged": 1459.2,
        "today_discharged": 11.2,
        "total_discharged": 1333.1,
        "working_mode": 0
    }
    

    My issue is I don't know how to create sensors in Ha and connect this MQTT feed into that.

    I looked at https://gitlab.com/rjpearce/sofar2mqtt repo, and while the instructions are very detailed, I don't have the PI in the middle as my hardware is leveraging the ESP32 setup.

    I'm missing a piece between getting the hardware setup and sensors created in HA. How do I get the sensors connected to the correct topic?



Comments

  • Moderators, Education Moderators, Home & Garden Moderators Posts: 8,313 Mod ✭✭✭✭Jonathan


    If it doesn't support autodiscovery (and it sounds like it doesn't), you'll need to create the sensors manually using yaml.




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 443 ✭✭jasgrif11


    I changed the device's name to "sofar", and I see 48 entities showing up in HA as I included the YAML configurations from https://gitlab.com/rjpearce/sofar2mqtt. in my config file on HA.

    However all the sensors have a value of Unknown. I think its a minor issue, but stumped!

    screenshot_55.png




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 9,475 ✭✭✭10-10-20


    Check Developer Tools for some of those entities and see if what "last changed" is listed.

    image.png




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 9,475 ✭✭✭10-10-20


    Actually, the sensor names in HA are being taken from the file "automations/mqtt-sofar-hyd-ep.yaml".

    image.png


    Try look those up in the Developer Tool.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 443 ✭✭jasgrif11


    @10-10-20 I see a few entities where the state seems ok as in this example.

    screenshot_56.png

    However, most others are reading as Unknown. All would have come from the same Yaml file

    screenshot_57.png




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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 9,475 ✭✭✭10-10-20


    If the data is getting to MQTT but not into HA, then I'm not sure of the next steps as I don't use MQTT that much other than Zwave2MQTT, but that has a optional debug file.

    Any chance you're using this project and it doesn't support the entities that you're looking for?

    Subscribe your MQTT client to:
    Sofar2mqtt/state
    Which provides:
    
    running_state
     grid_voltage
     grid_current
     ...
    


  • Moderators, Home & Garden Moderators Posts: 7,178 Mod ✭✭✭✭graememk


    There's 2 variants of the sofar2mqtt! Something to watch out for.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 443 ✭✭jasgrif11


    Ok I finally got this working (mainly). Yes it was the cmcgerty version that I needed to use and I set everything up as JSON. I have a few questions that I hope others with experience can provide insight on.

    1. When in Self Use mode I have to set a value for charge/discharge. Is this normal behaviour?
    2. I read online that I should change to "Passive" mode sparingly. "warning: this register does not support frequent writes". I believe it has to do with the amount of writes to the EEPROM of the inverter. Is this true?
    3. There is however a "Passive Schedule Management mode" with the following options 0: Spontaneous self-use mode, 1: Manual mode, 2: Schedule mode. Has anyone enabled and used this? This essentially means that the inverter always runs in passive mode.

    I should outline my scenario. I want to be able to manage the charging time based on certain conditions. As an example: If EV is plugged into Zappi and SOC is less than 80% and it's after 12am and before 9am then charge car until SOC is 80%. Once car reaches 80% change Zappi mode to Stop. In parallel charge battery to 100% (during same time window). If the battery is at 100% and car is still charging then disable JKBMS discharge (so car doesn't pull from the battery). At 9am set inverter to Self Use and Zappi to Eco+

    That is just one scenario. I may look at different ones once I move to Smart Meter and on a different tariff.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 443 ✭✭jasgrif11


    Does anyone have a full list of topic queries that I can run with the cmcgerty version?

    In particular i’m trying to figure out sub topic commands for Time of Use mode.

    Rules:0 : Enabled

    Start Time

    End Time

    SOC

    Charge

    Effective Start Date

    Effective End Date

    Weekday Select

    I can enable Time of Use but can’t figure out how to set parameters

    Thanks

    Post edited by jasgrif11 on


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