Overnight or cheap rate battery charging PC configuration including Live Demo.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.ย. 2024
- Utilising EV or cheap overnight electricity rates to charge your inverter batteries with Live Demo!
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Steps:
Login to www.solidcloud.com with the same credentials as your phone app.
Select Overview then Device Tab.
Top right corner, choose Inverter Control button
Work Mode - Self Use Mode
"Allow Grid Charging" - Enable
"Time of Use Switch" - Enable
"Charge and Discharge 1-3" - Add a charge current, plus a timeslot for charging.
Ensure other slots don't overlap it with a different action (e.g. a discharge configured at the same time as a charge)
Sleep tight, sweet dreams and wake up to a charged battery.
Please note that you need one of the following dongles in order to access control.
S3-WIFI-ST, S2-WL-ST, S3-GPRS-ST, S4-W4G-ST, S4-WIFI-ST
DLS-W, DLS-L, DLS-G, DLB-W will not work.
RHI-3K-48ES-5G RHI-3.6K-48ES-5G RHI-4.6K-48ES-5G RHI-5K-48ES-5G RHI-6K-48ES-5G
S5-EH1P3K-L S5-EH1P3.6K-L S5-EH1P4.6K-L S5-EH1P5K-L S5-EH1P6K-L
![เปิดใจ พี่ญา คนรุม หลังทัวร์ลง หนักสุดในชีวิต!! l [Nickynachat]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/2-OJZRtclro/mqdefault.jpg)
Great stuff PK, thank you for the video, Just set it up to run on the Octopus free 2 hour power ups, charged my EV and PV battery for free.
Spot on sir! Wish we got freebies in Leeds. Apparently them big windmills are too far away for us 😞
Perfect timing, saves me standing in a cold plant room to set charge times👍
Glad it helped. Saves me digging in the garage but at least that's accessible reasonably easily.
But it's far more useful for folks with inverters in lofts and suchlike that's for sure!
@@SolisNotSolisnow if only Solis would release a home assistant integration to allow automated setting of the charge times conditionally I'd be well happy... I'll keep dreaming.
It is doable via the API. Or some incarnations of HA integration too, but depends on your dongle model/age/firmware.
@@rdouthwaite
@@SolisNotSolis indeed, I'm monitoring the inverter / batteries via HA, just not got my head around remote setting charge times via HA as yet.
Another extremely helpful and informative video. Thank you.
Thanks David.
Are you able to re-do this video with the latest web page version as an update? Otherwise another great video and glad I don't have to go outside to do this!
Very helpful video! Many thanks. In response to one of the comments you answered the thing that has been bugging me. At least one other video strongly cautions NOT to set values in the discharge time boxes since it will result in the battery exporting to the grid! Your solution seems to avoid that by setting an additional zero value (somewhere?) which makes sense.
I want to do 'peak shaving' but not the Solis version. I'm on Octopus Agile so most of the time I am getting pretty cheap electricity but when I am in the UK my 5kW battery, charged early in the morning, can't carry me through the day - even with a short early pm booster shot. [Perfectly fine while abroad.] So, while in the UK I was looking to mainly run the house from the grid and just use the battery to carry us through the last afternoon/early pm peak tariff period.
The next frontier, I guess, will be having some sort of schedule in SolisCloud - as the tado smart radiator app has - that can toggle between Home and Away. Thanks again. Keep up the good work.
Morning.
If you are looking to not use your battery for a period, i.e. when Agile is cheap during the day and you wish to reserve the battery for teatime when the Agile prices rocket, then set a discharge window to match the time you don't want to use the battery, with a discharge current of zero.
So if you're overnight charging, you might have:
00:00--04:00 - Charge rate 50a (or whatever you need)
04:01 - 16:00 - Discharge. Rate of zero amps.
That will hold your full battery charge until 16:01 when it will start supporting house load.
Many thanks. That is what I have now done so we will see how that works.
I have a further question if you would bear with me.
While the battery is running the house, even when it is full (5kW) turning on an electric kettle - 1.9kw? - triggers the Solis Hybrid into a high pitched error sound and reverts me to grid power. It last for 30 seconds or so, till the kettle settles down, then goes off and I'm back on battery power again. Is this an expected outcome or the result of some inappropriate default settting? If so which? [In a previous life I was a software developer but this app is so poorly documented I feel a complete numpty.] ha@@SolisNotSolis
Thank you this is SUCH a helpful video, it makes the idea of going onto something like octopus agile much more appealing!
Do you know if there's a way of configuring the battery to charge at a specific time, and then withhold power from the house until a certain time? I wouldn't want to charge for cheap overnight but then the battery is flat before peak times
Morning.
On the same window you set the charge slots, you've also discharge slots. Configure a discharge slot at the time you don't want to use the battery and set a discharge current of zero.
So for EG, charge midnight to 4am. Don't use battery until 2pm.
Charge slot - 0000-0400. Current to suit - 50-100A
Discharge slot - 0401-1400. Current zero.
Great video great information 👍
Thankyou!
just set it up Thank you..
Fab. Please do report in the morning!
The setting worked well charged the battery's at 2KW for 42mins @@SolisNotSolis
Excellent news, although I see they've refreshed the layout again today. And that's after I asked if it was "stable" only last week. All the same options there, just moved around a bit.
Presentation is arguably better though.
@@TheTundercat222
are you able to help? I don't have the 'Inverter control' button but when i check my account settings it says i am the owner not a guest. thanks
Thanks ,this is just what I needed ,but your inverter control basic info page looks nothing like mine. I do not have the on/off buttons or that layout. I’m using a windows pc do you think this is why? Or am I on an old version. Thanks for this and other helpful tips.😊
Hi Stuart.
The Web changes release was offered to customers only a couple of weeks ago and then two days later they changed the website. That went wrong so they reverted it, then unbeknown to me they changed it again last week, and I haven't had chance to rerun the latest version yet I'm afraid.
The same menu options are all there but now on the main page all displayed in rows rather than individual buttons.
If you've not figured your way around it, do shout and I'll happily help. And should get the updates done today with a bit of luck.
Great video, thanks. Am I right to assume that if the batteries reach full charge before the end of the time slot that power stops being drawn from from the grid?
Cheers Mark.
Yes indeed, the batteries will stop charging. However the house will continue to run off of cheap rate electric (without depleting the batteries) while the charge window is in effect. Which is perfect for most folks as you might as well run your overnight loads from the cheaper electric than cycling it through the batteries, as there is always a round trip loss in charging and discharging.
Perfect, thank you!
V Welcome sir!
@@markjdelgado
Weve recently moved into a house with a Solis 5 installed and we dont have access to the web or app, installer isnt interested as were passed their 12 month warranty and call out. Is there a way to set this up ourselves or do we have to pay for the installer to come our? Our inverter has an ethernet cable running down does that mean its cloud enabled?
Hi. You can either buy a new datalogger and setup an online account yourselves. or take the data logger and inverter serial number (left hand side of the inverter case, and rear face of the dongle/data logger) and raise a ticket with Solis support to explain the circumstances. They should be able to unlink the devices from the existing account allowing you to add them to a new account.
OK, so it's not too difficult for a well-rounded geek. I think the software is very unintuitive. Hardly consumer - level. Also, my Solis inverter doesn't have that GUI on the front as it's in the loft, and I don't intend to be going up there when I get old!!! I've set it to charge from 0210 till 0450 ( Flux tariff) @ 40A.( I have 3 x Pylontech 3.5 kwh batteries ). I hope that's a sensible starting place. I'll set my alarm for 0300 and see what's happening 😮😮
Good afternoon. I'm going to assume this is an AC coupled charger with (or maybe without) a separate PV inverter in this case, known as a Solis RAI.
The menu structure via the PC / Browser is much the same as the hybrid charger/inverters with a couple of tabs missing relating to the solar function.
And while I concur there is room for improvement, Solis actually updated this the day after I published the video, then had to back pedal on it as there were bugs in the code. However I have seen the update, and it is certainly a little better.
Never the less, normally speaking once you've comitted to cheap rate charging, it would stay in place probably until March and you then only need to jump into the Time of Use switch and disable it, and don't need to remove all the timings and such.
I do think part of the problem is that there are limited countries with cheap overnight (in the markets Solis support) so this has been dragged in for the relatively limited sections of Europe it features heavily in.
Development is ongoing and I'm sure it will improve. And it's a touch easier from the phone app - that video will be coming shortly too.
Thanks for your comments all the same!
@SolisNotSolis Hi, and thanks for your remarks. I come from an electronics background (CCTV). Some of that is pretty dire and usually has to be supported remotely. However, I came across an Italian company with CCTV software, so intuitive that one rarely needed to consult a manual. It can be done! Keep it up !!!
@ammej768 sadly I'm the lowly page moderator for Solis and while we do have discussions and input, they are super constrained on what UK influence and requirements go into it.
Any idea why I see a constant import of 20/40watts on my glow IHD all the time even when the solis is running in self use, the only way to stop it is to force it to discharge manually just above the house base load when it will then go to zero.
It was ok on the eastron 1phase meter, but since upgrading to the eastron three phase meter I have this up to 40 watts all the time (yes its is a three phase supply just didn't have the meter when it was delivered)
CT based meters are sadly never 100pc accurate. Is it possible the CT cables are not tightly twisted throughout? They often come fairly loosely twisted and of bunched together you can get crosstalk that affects the accuracy too
@@SolisNotSolis interestingly these are not twisted at all, they are the official eastron 100/5 with the meter setup as 100/5 0020 for the ct setting in the meter. The meter display shows as an example
L1 00.00
L2 00.17
L3 -00.18 which is the phase the Solis is on, the Solis seems to be pushing just over the load on the phases but yet we still have import.
As I say the only way to get rid of the import is to manually push a discharge.
It’s driving me mad :}
ironic solis seem to have done a refresh of the site and made it save/read with a different layout, same stuff looks different
Indeed they do. And after confirming it was "stable" last week and no changes expected.
Arguably the layout is clearer, but now has some bugs and parts aren't functioning at all. They are aware and actively working on it.
@@dodegkr
@@SolisNotSolis they are currently updating my firmware to hopefully fix this constant 40 watts consumption, not sorted yet
Hi PK Solis, I’ve just had 4 Pylontech US5000 batteries installed in my loft. The problem is they are very noisy when I charge the from the grid overnight. Is there a solution to rectify this problem?
Hi Michael. The batteries are totally silent and contain no noise making elements at all.
The noise you're hearing is probably as a result of the fans in the inverter. They can ramp up quite viciously when under sustained heavy load (such as hours of overnight charging).
You wouldn't be the first person with an inverter mounted on a board that reverbarates exaccerbating the problem either. That is where you need to be looking - at and around the inverter and it's mouting etc.
How do you know if you are a guest or end user if that’s the correct term? the account say owner when I try to read nothing appears to happen even after waiting several minutes? Thanks
Hi. Is that after tapping the littly curly arrow next to the read button? The figures don't appear from just a Read. You must read then click the curly arrow, which is a refresh button for them to display.
@@SolisNotSolis unfortunately I am a read only account, my installer is going to ask if he can make me user account , he is not sure if he can do that , I am using version 4.1.1 so the lay out is slight different but if you look around it’s basically the same just can’t save which is very annoying! As you can imagine sorry my my late reply to your supper quick reply thanks
Mornig Simon.
That means the installer has set themselves up as system owner and remains in control, even if you fall out with them.
More normally I'd suggest the home owner is the system owner and the installer maintains a guest account, should you need some advice.
It's easily enough for them to change it over.
And yes I'm aware they've changed the web layout too - sadly YT doesn't support uploading a replacement video upon this same thread, I'll have to start from scracth.
@@genoano4
Mines showing unsupported command after accepting the disclaimer and re entering password ?
Good morning. Solis are aware of this issue. They updated the web site last night and appear to have some coding errors. I've had it from the product manager this morning that it's top of the developers list to attend to and being worked on as I type.
Thanks for the reply.
Hi Andy. We're back in business again. Log out and close your brower. Or log out of the app, and log back in again, and it's both been reverted to the former version and is now working again.
@@b4ndit74