Solar Assistant & Raspberry Pi for MPP Solar, Growatt, SolArk and Many Other Inverters!

I recently received a Raspberry Pi as well as purchased Solar Assistant to monitor and control my MPP LV242 all-in-one inverter. This combination works great! The Raspberry Pi uses low power (less than 15 watts) and is a cost worthy solution to hosting Solar Assistant! I finally have a great setup to monitor and control the MPP LV 2424 remotely. This is hands-down the best alternate and reliable solution to using Watchpower or the Solarpower App software from MPP Solar. Raspberry Pi and Solar Assistant work on many inverters in addition to MPP Solar. Thanks for watching!
➤➤ Raspberry Pi 4
👍 amzn.to/33JWlAT
➤➤ Solar Assistant
👍 solar-assistant.io/
➤➤ OFF Grid - Grid-Assist Shed Playlist
👍 • New Off-Grid Solar She...
➤➤ Lithium Batteries
👍 Use code "armand" to receive a 10% discount at Batteryhookup.com for new and used lithium batteries just like the BYD batteries I used in this project. Awesome deals on batteries here!
© 2021 by Green Mountain DIY Guy. All rights reserved. Affiliate/associate links may be listed in the description of this video. Affiliate/associate links do not increase prices in products listed and financially assist in bringing future content to the channel.

[@NikhilDeshpande-kk1xs]

I request to kindly show full video of mainly connecting Raspberry Pi 4, Inverter and its coding

[@larrybell4599]

Thank you for sharing the overview of Solar Assistant.

[@SetitesTechAdventures]

Thanks for this. I hadn't heard of solar assistant but this seems pretty amazing.

[@GreenMountainDIYGuy]

It really is a game changer for MPP. Thanks for watching.

[@toekie3352]

this looks great. I was looking for something with native datalogging and that could potentially be hooked on an HA setup for my new house. since its a fixer/upper I'm just going for safe and redoing all electrics and adding dedicated LAN to every room and creating a small server hub in the attic. There all the solar stuff will also be housed so i hope i will end up with a neat centralized setup. Going to HA on a small desktop pc. I think a pi with solarassistant next to it would work great. Thanks for this vid gives a good view of how much data you get from it without any external monitoring!

[@GreenMountainDIYGuy]

Thanks, glad the video could help! Good luck with you project.

[@BrilliantDesignOnline]

Very interesting, Thanks. Merry Christmas from snowy Montana 🙂

[@GreenMountainDIYGuy]

Merry Christmas brother!!

[@danieltimisan6820]

you can use victron smart shunt for monitoring batteries, solar assistant will read the victron

[@williamuria4048]

Gracias por el video, me soluciono la vida, ahora a implementar

[@AveRage_Joe]

Love it! Great video!

[@GreenMountainDIYGuy]

Thank you! Happy Holidays!

[@jtr82369]

Thank you for this overview, I have had nothing but issues with the Growatt WIFI dongle and the inability to connect direct to my Windows 7 laptop... I will be trying this for sure

[@GreenMountainDIYGuy]

Awesome!

[@nikhildeshpande9989]

Can you make video on how you connected the batteries, inverter and microcontroller and later to Dbms with a digital visualizer (not physical one)

[@woodzyfox4735]

this seems great! But what about using a USB Hub can i hook up multi units?

[@M4V3RiCkU235]

When I saw that you can link a BMS /Inverter to a computer via an RS232 cable and not just only a smartphone...I was - But why a static computer with Windows on IT?! Why not a...RasparyPI - something small and more portable with low energy consumption ?! 30 minutes later I ended with this. Great video!

[@GreenMountainDIYGuy]

Thanks for watching. I love Soalr assistant on the Raspberry Pi!

[@edrobinson1871]

Hard to believe they didn't build any sort of backup mechanism into it. If your SD card gives up, you lose all historic data. No option to export, backup, import data etc. sadly. I will likely move to home assistant because of that.

[@dmk1802]

great video

[@GreenMountainDIYGuy]

Thanks!

[@jacek-jan]

Theoretically PY-PV devices can work with raspberry pie computers... But I have no idea, how to connect raspberry to any two-way power meter.

[@offgridmgtowhomestead2520]

I've been trying to get mppsolar to share their canbus mapping with me. Might just give this a try, and maybe this can be used a field server to convert to modbus. Hmmm

[@GreenMountainDIYGuy]

Let us know how you make out!

[@cristianferaru11]

So, after I saw your video, I went ahead and bought and installed this equipment. I currently have two 12 kw Growatt inverters. One of my inverters doesn’t communicate with the batteries and I’m getting fault code 61. I have two questions 1. Will I be able to edit and tell the inverter the correct voltage of the batteries? 2. Will I be able to connect two inverters to this one solar assistant? Thank you?

[@JSadeiu]

Thanks for posting this. Concern about being able to remotely monitor my set up has kept me from pulling the trigger on MPP vs Growatt. I don't like having to rely on growatt's servers to monitor my system. This might be a good solution. Why did you choose the Hybrid LV2424 vs the regular LV2424?

[@GreenMountainDIYGuy]

Thanks. Good point about going through Growatt or anyone’s else’s servers. That’s kind of the heart of why many use a Raspberry Pi and being able to be your own server. I went with the MPP hybrid only because it was a few years newer and I thought that might be useful in the long run. I do not I use the grid-tie function as my permits do not support this. Good luck with your system!

[@allanrussell353]

Hi Joe. I have just moved away from a Growatt inverter and have now installed a Deye inverter. The difference is like day and night. The Deye is way more user friendly and you can actually set your own parameters unlike the Growatt where you are stuck with what every is set up by them. The user interface on the Deye is also much more user friendly. I have just purchased a monitoring system from Solar Assist and await its arrival.

[@pam8352]

how did you connected the raspberry to the rs232 (rj45 plug) on the inverter?

[@624x787x2008]

Can you explain what is meant by "The Final Step was connecting the power supply to a USB 'A to B' cable from the Rasp Pi to the Inverter". Are you talking about powering the Raspberry Pi from DC rather than the typical AC USB power supply. I'm thinking the Pi needs a USB cable to communicate the data with 2424 and also a USB cable to provide power to Pi. Thanks for posting this, its awesome

[@GreenMountainDIYGuy]

TJ, good question. I went back and reviewed. I did connect a power supply and then plugged in a USB A to B cable to communicate form the Raspberry Pi to the inverter. The Pi in this video is being powered throught the USB C input from a AC to DC wall converter. Check out my latest video where I power the Pi using a buck converter. Thanks for watching.

[@royamberg9177]

Interesting. Wish I understood computer stuff better

[@Scat.original]

Where did you get those battery bus bar in a box?

[@smartfalcon717]

It is a good video, If you have 6 inverters in parallel would it be possible to have them all monitored / control through the only one raspberry pi ?

[@GreenMountainDIYGuy]

That's a great question, not sure, I think you can only do parallel inverters per raspberry pi. I would recommend you contact Solar Assistant.

[@luqmaanhansa3905]

Yes it will automatically pickup all the inverters even with one cable to one inverter.

[@thinkpink1958]

Thank you very much for your post. Do you know if this soft for Raspberry is suitable for a European grid of 220 Volts ac. ?. It support Fronius Inverters ? Thanks in advance

[@GreenMountainDIYGuy]

Yes, you would just need to use a transformer like the one in this link if you are running off AC. amzn.to/3FQXGnD

[@rahsomali]

Software doesn’t care what model you’re using either 110v or 230v. So it should work fine

[@mikeq5664]

Great video, so much so I went and bought a Rapi and solar assistant as well.. really like the analytics. Just have had one Issue and maybe you have ran into this too. I'm away from my system during the day and the batteries ran down to where my Hybrid LV2424 stopped Inverting and it says it's in stand by. The system never shuts down and it let's the solar recharge the batteries BUT it's not Inverting... just says it's in "stand by" Any way you can turn the Inverting function back on remotely from solar assistant ? I tried to change the parameters on the batteries and such but no Luck.

[@GreenMountainDIYGuy]

Hmm, are you sure the LV2424 is NOT is standby mode? Make sure the "ON" button on the bottom of the inverter.

[@frikkiescheepers8097]

Can anybody supply or direct me to a short video on the "Power" tab please. I want to see what remote settings are possible

[@jimmyjackson9090HVAC]

just found this! I use it on my 2 Growatt inverters way easier to get running never could get the growatt wifi sticks to work

[@ravijain1194]

Which batteries are you using with your GroWatt Inverters? I'm looking at GroWatt inverter with Pylontech batteries and Solar Assistant? Wondering if you have that set up?

[@jimmyjackson9090HVAC]

@@ravijain1194 i made my battery with 280ah cells with batrium BMS so my battery dosent show on solar assistant

[@GreenMountainDIYGuy]

Right on!

[@MoizCOUK]

i have an ornage pi pc+ will this work on that ?

[@ThomsonLHS]

I may have missed it, but how did you connect the Raspberry Ali to the charge controller? I didn’t see that in your video. The charge controller has a RJ45 connection, does it need a RJ45 to USB connector?

[@GreenMountainDIYGuy]

USB A to B. Raspberry Pi (USB-A) and the the MPP Solar Charge Controll/Inverter (USB-B). No RJ45 needed. Thanks for watching.

[@abelramos8983]

Hey Boss, can you run both the inverter and BMS on the Solar Assistant/Raspberry?

[@GreenMountainDIYGuy]

No, only the inverter. There is some monitoring capabilities through solar assistant as I'm running a new JK BMS with new batteries now.

[@GreekSIMRACING]

I want to build DIY battery 16S 48v with JK BMS, growatts SPF 5000es does not communicate with this BMS, can i get it work with solar assistant and raspberry pi? Someone recommended with Jk BMS to try Solar assistant,does it gets data from BMS?

[@GreenMountainDIYGuy]

Yes, Solar Assistant pulls the data from the JK BMS. Head over to Solar Assistant make sure the specific Growatt is inverter is supported. Good luck moving forward.

[@diysolaradventures7894]

Can u change the background color or color interphase graphics in Solar Assistant ?

[@GreenMountainDIYGuy]

I do not believe so, a dark mode would be great.

[@diysolaradventures7894]

@@GreenMountainDIYGuy yes the dark mode would have been perfect for this program

[@josepagan832]

greetings, My inverter is a Megarevo 10k What model of Raspberry Pi do you recommend?

[@GreenMountainDIYGuy]

Orange pi is you want to do a visual interface.

[@florinmng4545]

Hi, did you manage to add the Midnite controller? Can the Midnite controller be added?

[@GreenMountainDIYGuy]

Midnight controller?

[@florinmng4545]

@@GreenMountainDIYGuy Yes Midnite Clasic 150

[@GreenMountainDIYGuy]

@@florinmng4545 There's no Midnight 150 Classic Charge Controller on my system.

[@bimmers323ci]

any update on solar assistant

[@GreenMountainDIYGuy]

Still working great. Glad I had it because if helped to catch a big problem with my battery bank. More to come on that...

[@450kman]

Being able to view data and change settings online leaves me wondering how hard this would be for someone to hack.

[@GreenMountainDIYGuy]

I'm not too worried. I'd rather have a single device on a local network than being hooked into a large company solar monitoring service.

[@450kman]

@@GreenMountainDIYGuy Don't get me wrong, this software is miles ahead of what Growatt offers, but if it's online, it's susceptible to being hacked. IIRC, if you are located in the US, SA's server is located in the US, which I consider better than Growatt's China based server. Still leaves me wondering about security ...

[@brainardsolite2221]

is it for free?

[@DanBurgaud]

How much is the license? $200++?

[@GreenMountainDIYGuy]

At the time of purchase it was around $50 US.

[@paulweiler2456]

Get a sol-ark

[@GreenMountainDIYGuy]

$$$$$$