Adding a second Inverter

[themmerle]

Hi All,

Did anyone of you add a second Sungrow inverter to HA? Should this not be possible by modifying these three files? "secrets.yaml", "modbus_sungrow.yaml" and "dashboard.yaml". Am I on the "woodway" ;-) by thinking that "secrets.yaml" should also contain Address and Port of the second inverter an reference "modbus_sungrow2.yaml". Am I correct thinking that Sensor Name sould always be unique and Sensor Address always reference the second inverter? Are there any more changes or additions to make? I would like to get your ideas before I start messing with those files and screwing my HA integration.

What is your take on this?

Thank you so much for your thoughts.

Kind Regards - Thomas

[reesaroo74]

Thomas,
I've just managed to get my two inverters sensors and inputs setup.

I have a SH10RT and a SH10RS. We have three phase and it splits at our meter box to run two three phase boards, one for the house and one for our garage/granny flat (also runs the hot-water and the pool pump). The RT is setup in the garage, and the single phase is setup at the main meter box up at my shed. We were originally going for two RTs, but our installer worked out that we would have had a problem using an RT to drive the house, because each phase would be limited to 18A ALL THE TIME. It's just how the EMS breakers work.

Anyway, I think we've clamped the wrong three phases at the RS up at the shed so my load readings are cactus (they are getting the feed in coming back from the Garage RT). Once I get that sorted, I will be able to check what I need.

So steps to get you up and going if your inverters are NOT setup in a master slave ...

1. Setup your secrets.yaml with 6 lines (duplicate the three already in there and give the copies a unique id. Because my systems are independent (not master-slave), I have kept the ports as 502 and the slave ids as 1 - just the ip addresses need to be pointing to the individual inverters.
   

2. Make a duplicate of the modbus_sungrow.yaml file for the new system and update the sensor ids and give the inputs unique ids.

Before I started, I took the original modbus_sungrow.yaml file and split it into two files (both in the 'integrations' folder).
garage_modus_sungrow.yaml
and
garage_templates.yaml

'garage_modus_sungrow.yaml' only includes the first block under the header:
modbus:

(p.s. you can name the file anything you want as long as it is in the integrations folder).
'garage_templates.yaml' contains the templates and automations ... so everything after and including:
# 'virtual' template sensors for better readability
template:

Now make any copy of each of those two files and rename then so you know that they are for your second inverter.
I went with:
shed_modbus_sungrow.yaml and shed_templates.yaml

Then the fun begins. Get a good text editor like Notepad++ or even better, get a nice text comparison tool (I've got access to a few that you need to pay for, but pretty sure there will be a good free one out there).

In the second files, do a search and replace on the secrets entries:
sungrow_modbus_host_ip etc. >>> replacing the ip address, port and slave ids with the new ones you created for the second system in the secrets.yaml.

Then do a search and replace on:
unique_id: sg_ >> and replace it with something unique, like:
unique_id: sg_shed_

You probably should change the names (in the second instance ... if not in both) so you can work out which one is which later.

---

Search and replacing on the templates, inputs and automations is a bit more tricky.

In the second *templates.yaml file that you created, start by doing the same unique id SAR that you did above.

Then, I'd probably drop the two modbus files into the 'integrations' folder and restart HASS before you continue.

Jump into the 'Developer tools' 'States' page and checkout what the names of the sensors are that have been generated (assuming that you have connected to each of the inverters).

Do a Ctrl-F on that page and look for one of the sensors that should have been created (like running_state).

Given that the sensors in my modbus files had unique names, I didn't expect the whole *_2 thing - but you get what you get.

Go and get a coffee and enjoy the next hour of your life. You are going to need to rip through and update all of the sensor. and binary_sensor. entries and point them to the HASS instances that are generated.

Finally, you need to sort out the inputs and automations.

Another custom SAR here: set_sg_ >>> set_sg_shed_ (you get the picture)

And another one here: automation_sungrow_ >>> automation_sungrow_shed_

Good luck!

[reesaroo74]

@themmerle One thing I forgot to mention. That original screen shot of the modbus.yaml files is old. The name that you put in there at the top is VERY important.

You will need to search and replace all of the instances of hub: SungrowSHx with what ever you put in there for the two systems in the respective templates files.

That way your actions will point to the correct inverter.

[reesaroo74]

@themmerle a couple more things ...
Once you're up and running with the two inverters, you'll need to update your energy page:

Click on the Energy dashboard:

Add your second instances:

Then you can play with your dashboards:

I've taken the ones from @mkaiser and tweaked them for the two systems.

[themmerle]

WoW - Thank you so much for detailing that out and letting me know. For me, its a challenge, that I am up for. You are mentioning, that this is only for SH10 NOT in paralell mode? Why is that?
thx - Thomas

[reesaroo74]

I think it will work, but you will need to change your slave ids. I'm not sure how to get the slave ids yet. My system only got up and running on Friday, so I haven't even been granted access to iSolarCloud by my installer yet. I'm hoping there will be some info in the app.

Check out #16.

I'm in the process writing some C# code to tidy up my yaml files (parsing from the original in Martin's code base). I think I'll end up going back to a single file per system.

Keep an eye on this branch.

[reesaroo74]

https://github.com/reesaroo74/Sungrow-SHx-Inverter-Modbus-Home-Assistant

[reesaroo74]

@themmerle I've just run into this beauty:
https://community.home-assistant.io/t/template-sensor-unique-id-is-ignored/485206

The unique_id is not the entity_id. That make what I am doing pretty hard. As I've only been running for a few days, I think I might kill all of my sensors/entities etc and start again (dropping all my history).

But first I need to match up my unique id and name a bit better

[bleughb]

I'll add that a 'second' inverter if you're using an SG series is 'easy' -
Just need two instances of the modbus.sungrow YAML
and two entries into the secrets.yaml

each renamed to be unique
and also ensure each sensor ID is unique (I add a _2 to the end of every one)
I'm running two SG5.0RS inverters perfectly here

[bagbag]

How are your SGs connected? Over WiNet-S, if yes, over WiFi or LAN? Or are the inverters directly connected over LAN without something in between?

I dont get any values with my SG converter, while the SH works fine (LAN on second port).

[reesaroo74]

@bagbag I have an SH10RT (three phase) and a SH10RS. The three phase has a separate RJ45 port (that I use for modbus connection) but the RS single phase only has the wifi dongle so I have to connect using the piggyback RJ45 in the wifi dongle for a wired connection. I found that if you DO NOT connect the wifi dongle to your router via wifi, but instead connect via the RJ45, it seems to do a better job at handling both the iSolarCloud data push and modbus connections than when I had a wifi and Ethernet connection through the same dongle.
It is a WiNet-S2 dongle though (in my SH10RS).

[matthewbayard]

@bagbag I have an SH10RT (three phase) and a SH10RS. The three phase has a separate RJ45 port (that I use for modbus connection) but the RS single phase only has the wifi dongle so I have to connect using the piggyback RJ45 in the wifi dongle for a wired connection. I found that if you DO NOT connect the wifi dongle to your router via wifi, but instead connect via the RJ45, it seems to do a better job at handling both the iSolarCloud data push and modbus connections than when I had a wifi and Ethernet connection through the same dongle. It is a WiNet-S2 dongle though (in my SH10RS).

Is your system still running? I'm trying to setup my sg10rs on HA.

[tdgnhrdt]

Hello,

i would like add a second inverter, too. I tried the suggestions from this thread, but unfortunately it does not work. I used Notepad++ to manipulate the modbus YAML, i did the following;
I replaced "unique_id: sg_" with "unique_id: sg_2_" and changed the attributes in the modbus file an in secrets.yaml. One differerence to the descriptions above is, I added "_2" in the middle of the unique_id, thats easier to manage with search&replace. I changed the template and automation section in the same manner as described above.
I copied the new modbus to the integrations dir in HA and restarted, but the new entities do not show up in HA.
Any ideas?

Thank you
Thomas

[tdgnhrdt]

In the meantime i was able to add the new entities from the second inverter. Shame on me, i used ".yml" instead of ".yaml" for the suffix. But now most if the new entities are unavailable, but thats another issue, it seems to be related to the SG-type of the inverter.

[Pirx63]

Hello,
I have another issue. My PV-System consists of a SH10RT with a battery connected and another SG7. All together they are collecting energy from 4 strings. To access the Sh10RT works very good with M.Kaisers integration. The SG7 has no second Rj45 connector and I tried the IP addresses found in my fritz box router, but I cannot get any information from the SG7. And the worst is, I am not sure, whether the SH10RT collects and adds the data of both to delver cummulative data for e.g. the delivered energy to the grid.
Any ideas?

[reesaroo74]

@Pirx63 I have two units and they are NOT setup as master slave arrangements (I'm not sure how common that is). I doubt that you would be in master slave either, and if you aren't, you will not get cummulative data from the units. If you are in master slave, I can't comment.

Two questions:

1. Are you able to see the SG7 on iSolarCloud.
2. Is the SG7 and SG7RT or SG7RS?

If you answer yes to the first question, it will definitely have an IP address, and I assume it will have the modbus capability of my SG10RS. Mine shows up with no logical name in my connected devices on my router, so it was a case of trial and error. Maybe get the schneider electric modbus tester and start pinging ports.

https://www.se.com/in/en/faqs/FA180037/

Grab an ip address from your router's dchp table that you suspect might be the wifi dongle, stick it into the tester app. Change the starting register to 5000.

Hit Read.

You might need to try a few times, because you might get a few errors. Remember it is pushing data to iSolarCloud regularly.

You might get this, or a socket error a few times, so try at least 5-10 times.

If you get no error when you click Read and you get something like this ... you have hit the jackpot.

From the SunGrow doco ... port 5000 is the device type

The reason for the second question is this:

My SG10RS (single phase) has only one comms port - the wifi dongle. However, if you screw off the last cap of the dongle, there will be an RJ45 port in the end. I would recommend not using that, because when I did, the wifi was pushing data to iSolarCloud and the RJ45 connection (separate adapter) was getting push and pulls from me in Home Assistant. I don't think the comms module liked that much, because I was getting drop outs about every 4 days. I am now using the wifi adapter for modbus, so it is now controlling the push to iSolarCloud and the HA commands from modbus ... and it seems to be doing a better job. It has dropped out once in about 15 days.

But also this:

In the Sungrow doco, it explains that some port functions are not available if you connect via the ethernet cable through the wifi dongles.

I didn't quite understand this ... I thought it meant that you could never get those port functions from the wifi dongle on my SG10RS. But I have disconnected my ethernet cable and am using just the wifi ... and now I am able to get access to those port readings.

[tdgnhrdt]

I have one SH Inverter and one SG-Inverter too, most of the entities from this integration do not seem to work with the SG-Inverter. The SG-inverter is connected via Ethernet through the Winet-S-Dongle. As an alternative i am using "Solaranzeige", here i can monitor nearly the same data as from the SH-inverter, so the modbus-Registers must be (nearly) similar to the SH-Registers

[anaiche1]

Hello tdgnhrdt, I have nearly the same setup like you include a SBR128 Battery and a DTSU666 Smartmeter. Did you found a solution for your Implementation?

[tdgnhrdt]

Hi anaiche1, not really... I am now using a simple integration which was provided in photovoltaikforum.com (see https://www.photovoltaikforum.com/thread/200076-sungrow-und-homeassistant/?postID=3568608#post3568608)
Thats working for me. But you have to configure additional helpers beause the second inverter has an influence on several values.

[anaiche1]

what do you mean with "helpers"?
I have worked a lot on my integration in the last few days and have almost reached the same values as in the Sungrow Cloud. However, I'm still not completely satisfied.
I've also discovered the photovoltaic forum and read up on it.
I suspect that because the SG inverter doesn't have its own LAN interface, it is pulling the values via the SH.
However, I can read the temperature cleanly from the SG, which again speaks against my actual theory.

[Gnarfoz]

Helpers are things like custom sensors based on other sensors, scripts, etc.: https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/#helper