Howto configure Devices and Communication items

WebSolarLog uses Devices and Communication items to contact and communicate with the connected devices.

First you need to creat a communication item in Admin::Communication.
Here you give the item a name and fillout the URI.

Here are some examples for the URI:
Weather device:
http://openweathermap.org/data/2.5/find?units=metrics&cnt=1&mode=json 
This is the url to the OpenWeatherMap API

Inverter device example:
/home/pi/aurora-1.8.3/aurora -l5 -M5 /dev/ttyUSB0
This is the path to the location where Aurora is installed including the timeout, max-runtime parameters and the path to the USB-RS485 converter.

Another example for SBFSpot;
/path/to/SBFspot/bin/Release/./SBFspot
For specific parameter and info/help check the manual of the scripts/program you use.

In all cases WebSolarLog adds the nessesary parameters to the uri.

After that you need to save the item and create a Device in Admin::Devices.

Here you choose which device you want to use and configure it to use the previouse created Communication Item.

Now you could test the config in Admin::Communication, select the Communication item and which device to use and hit “Start Test”.

Log your Delta Solivia Inverter

WebSolarLog is a Webbased Solar logger and compatible with almost every Delta Solivia inverter.

We tested the logger with the following Delta Solivia inverters:

  • Delta Solivia 2.5
  • Delta Solivia 3.3
  • Delta Solivia 5.0

Based on our test results, we can say that WebSolarLog probably work on all Delta Solivia inverters.

If your solar inverter is not in the list above, and you have succesfully tested your Delta Solivia inverter with WebSolarLog, we would appreciate a comment. We then add your Delta Solivia type to the list with tested devices.

If you have any questions, suggestions or what so ever regarding this post, feel free to post on our google support forum:
http://www.websolarlog.com/index.php/help-support/

Data importer for 123solar

Very often we get the question;
I want to use WebSolarLog, but how could i migrate my data?

Based on user input we already introduced the data-importer for 123aurora and now we also made a importer for 123solar.

The data migration tools can be found in the utils folder of WebSolarLog;
/utils/importer.php (for 123aurora)
/utils/importerV2.php (for 123solar)

We also have plans to create a importer for SMAspot, we have no release date for this importer.

Weather Forecast: after rain comes sunshine

Recently we added support for the free “OpenWeatherMap – free weather data and forecast API” to WebSolarLog.

With the data from OWM we can do a lot of cool stuff;

  • Display the current weather conditions
  • Display the weather forecast for X days
  • Solar calculations based on the “real(time)” outside temperature
  • Push your local weather condition to PVoutput
  • Maybe a kWh forecast based on cloud conditions
  • and many many more

How to configure WebSolarLog for OWM:

  1. Go to the Admin
  2. Go to the General tab
  3. Fill the Lat and Long field
  4. Save the General settings
  5. Go to the Inverters tab
  6. Click the button “new inverter” i know it is odd, we do some magic and change the “inverter” into a weather station 😉 )
  7. Give the “inverter” a name, example; “Weather Station”
  8. Change Device Api into “Open Weather Map”
  9. Change Device type info “Weather”
  10. Save the inverter
  11. We are done with the configuration of the Weather station.

From now WebSolarLog will retrieve every 5 minutes the realtime weather conditions for your location based on the location you gave in Admin::General

At the moment WebSolarLog doesn’t show the weather data, but this will change in de near feature.