Lux ac battery controller

mickyduck55

I am going to see him tomorrow so will see where he has got to..

Ohdaesu

Zarch said:

To add to comments earlier, i've been using these Octolux scripts for a few weeks and they 

You only need something as low spec as a Raspberry Pi..... even a Zero W would be enough.

Amend the rules file to suit and it will charge using Agile (or Go) etc automatically for you at the right time.

Hi had a look at the github page but being very new to the world of pi I'm a bit confused at what to do, do you know of a walk through or guide to do this?
Cheers

martin2020

use this link to download the raspberry pi installer for windows or whatever your using
https://www.raspberrypi.org/software/
 - insert a micro sd card in ya pc and follow instructions to do the image to the card, takes a few minutes at most - insert card back into the pi and it will boot into linux.
then basically follow the install instructions on the octolux githhub page.  it installes thelatest octolux from the command line and other addons.
Theres a config file in their that you edit to add your inverter wifi ip - inverter serial number and number of batteries ect.

EVandPV

I see there's now firmware available on the app for all Lux inverters including the ESS 3.6KW AC coupled units that most of us here have.
Anyone been brave enough to update via the app yet ?

Ohdaesu

martin2020 said:

use this link to download the raspberry pi installer for windows or whatever your using

 - insert a micro sd card in ya pc and follow instructions to do the image to the card, takes a few minutes at most - insert card back into the pi and it will boot into linux.
then basically follow the install instructions on the octolux githhub page.  it installes thelatest octolux from the command line and other addons.
Theres a config file in their that you edit to add your inverter wifi ip - inverter serial number and number of batteries ect.

Thanks for the reply, so the configuration file is the only thing you have to edit? I take it you just leave the pi running 24/7 and it will auto update the charge times.
Cheers

martin2020

Ohdaesu said:

martin2020 said:

use this link to download the raspberry pi installer for windows or whatever your using

 - insert a micro sd card in ya pc and follow instructions to do the image to the card, takes a few minutes at most - insert card back into the pi and it will boot into linux.
then basically follow the install instructions on the octolux githhub page.  it installes thelatest octolux from the command line and other addons.
Theres a config file in their that you edit to add your inverter wifi ip - inverter serial number and number of batteries ect.

Thanks for the reply, so the configuration file is the only thing you have to edit? I take it you just leave the pi running 24/7 and it will auto update the charge times.
Cheers

Yeah pretty much from memory.
yes leave it running 24/7 and it pulls price data at 6pm every day for the next 24 hour period and depending on your soc, no of batts ect it charges at the cheapest slots.   also if apraoching the peak period of 4pm if it thinks you dont have enough soc then it will emergency charge to cover that period. the emergency soc is configurable also

EVandPV

PV now really starting to get going, just had our cheapest 24 hour period of the year, so far.
Our batts were topped up from pv yesterday which got us through until the next Go period. The Pi controller calculated that we only needed a grid charge of 0.8kwh during the cheap period so our import for today so far is about 4p and shouldn't be much more.
The pv just fired up and we still have 8% useable left in the batts. 
So won't be long until the first 24 period running on near enough 100% pv. 👍

mickyduck55

Yes probably time for me to adjust my GO charge rate.. looks like I will be exporting for most of today.. batteries already at 90% How do you use the Pi with GO, I I have read about using one with Agile

TIA

EVandPV

mickyduck55 said:

Yes probably time for me to adjust my GO charge rate.. looks like I will be exporting for most of today.. batteries already at 90% How do you use the Pi with GO, I I have read about using one with Agile

TIA

It uses a script which gets a forecast of what our pv generation will be from Solcast.com via the api and gets the battery soc from the serial cable connected to the pylons then works out how much to grid charge.
The script borrows a couple of lines of ruby code from Octolux to control charging on the Lux but apart from that, it was written from scratch in Python.
It runs on a cron schedule every 15 minutes from 12.30-4.30am.

EVandPV

Just a wee tip for anyone wanting to monitor their Lux from their phone/tablet instead of watching the display on the inverter.
If you connect your phone/tablet to the wifi ssid that your Lux datalogger uses then select 'local connect' on the app, the data updates about every 10 seconds instead of every 2 minutes as the web portal does.
Not quite realtime but it does give you a much better idea of what's happening.