Solar energy and Linux

Re: Solar energy and Linux

cizzi wrote: »

Have any of you heard of what happened to the Linux and solar power project? I had read about it in this article from IBM

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-solarnetone/

http://www.solarlinux.org

No, but I really like the idea of your solarlinux forum !!
But don;'t forget about hydro and wind (etc) linux, too.

boB

Re: Solar energy and Linux

Interesting. Hadn't heard about that before.

I've combined solar and Linux with my systems. Have plenty more I plan to do - one of these days...

Primary interest is in having something that doesn't hold me hostage or lock the data away in proprietary formats. I work with automation systems at work, and it's nearly impossible to avoid vendor lock-in. We even selected a vendor to work with a few years ago specifically because they promoted "open" - but guess what they're doing now... *sigh*

Long as I can get the data into the computer, I can do anything I want with it - so the hardware interface is often my primary obstacle. My Outback system made that nice with the Mate serial connection with published specs (that's actually THE reason I chose it over Xantrex) and more recent products seem to be adding some sort of usable interface. I've also been tinkering with Arduinos and a few other devices for "raw" IO when I get the chance.

So many hobbies, so little time...!

Re: Solar energy and Linux

I don't think Outback has published specs on the protocol used between the various components of the system, you do have to get the Mate interface. A Mate makes it a lot easier to use the system anyway, though! They do publish the specs for the RS232 interface between Mate and PC, it simply sends a constant stream of ASCII strings, one per device attached, in round-robin fashion.

I wrote a Python script that continuously reads from the Mate and sends data to my home automation controller. It can also send the few commands the Mate listens for to change operating states in the system. I recently added finer-grained data logging to it, storing everything in a sqlite db, since the automation system is a bit limited on how far back histories go. Be nifty having detailed data over several years.

Morningstar is good too, I have a SureSine-300 and recently got it talking to the computer (with another Python script). Yet another project I haven't finished yet! I intend to add its data to my monitoring system, the inverter is on a separate 12V solar power system for my ham bench.

If I were to buy a larger charge controller now, my primary interest is in the Midnite Solar one. It has a variety of ways to communicate, looks promising although I haven't looked in detail since I don't need it right now.