I went through similar challenges a while back setting this up with the solar and divert (immersion) options. One thing to be aware of is the app needs the default names “use” “solar” etc, even though It will allow you to enter other names!
I think you are doing this now, so this post may be of limited use, but I though to mention should you create some different names for testing etc.
Thanks Carl. I’ll bear that in mind.
My system does export to the grid but we do not have a meter that measures that. The clamp is in the right place as determined by the Type 2 diagram. I am starting to think I should use Type 1 set up instead.
Is the graph you sent above from the MySolar app?
Yes it is.
Thanks Tim. I think I understand it a lot more now after all the help from yourself and others. The weather here is not good enough for us to be generating more than we use so I suppose I will need to be patient to see any ‘yellow’ bits on my graph.
Thanks agan to you all.
other thing you can do whilst waiting is simulate some signals with loads to check the CTs when I had problems in the early days I used a kettle and a hot air gun, clamping the CT round the cable. Although you do need to have access to the individual conductors. I split a short extension lead see below for example.
The “Type 2” positions for the current transformers implies having the a.c. adapter to give a phase reference so that the direction of power flow can be calculated. You do have this, and did you power it and the emonPi together? If the front end of the emonPi started up without seeing the voltage from the a.c. adapter, it will have assumed you haven’t got one and it will be guessing apparent power using a nominal 230 or 240 V and it won’t be able to determine the direction of power flow. If this has happened (and the symptom is the voltage reported is exactly 230 or 240 V and never changes), you need to shut down and power down the emonPi, then restart it, leaving the a.c. adapter powered. Rebooting the Pi isn’t enough.
The “Type 1” configuration puts the current transformers in positions where it is reasonable to assume the direction of power flow, so the voltage isn’t needed to determine its direction.
Hi Robert
At one point, the vms valued changed but since you mentioned the issue above, I have been watching it and it seemed to be about 230v all the time. I have restarted the system following your instructions and it then read a more variable number around 240. For example is is 239.4 at the moment. My husband tested one of the sockets in our house with a multi-meter and the reading was 220. So not sure what that means.
Hi Tim
Would you please show me a full screen of the graph from MySolar? So I can see the figures at the top and bottom. It might help me understand my ones.
Thanks, Liz
This proves it is reading the mains - it might be out on calibration though. If it was assuming the value, it would be an exact number which never changes because it comes from a fixed value in the software.
Here’s a snapshot for the last 24 hours. It’s dark out, so no solar right now.
(this isn’t an accurate representation, as I also have a battery, but that’s not shown here)
Thanks Tim. Especially for the prompt reply. Unfortunately, I do need some solar on the image. I would like to compare the relationship between your 3 figures at the top to mine. I can’t do one of mine at the moment as it is dark here too!
It might be useful to view the 3 feeds on an ordinary Graph, outside of the app:
(you can also pan and zoom with those controls)
Mine looks something like this: solar is yellow, use is blue, import is red.
You should be able to stack ‘import’ and ‘solar’ to get ‘use’:
If you can’t get your feeds to fit within each other, then there’s something wrong with either how the CT clamps are positioned, or how the input feeds are configured.
Thanks Tim. Here are my graphs. use is yellow, solar is blue and import is red.
I am sure import should not follow the solar reading in that way.
When your generated solar is greater than your household consumption, I’d expect to see the import power to go negative, and yet it is not. I would suggest double-checking that the CT clamp is installed and configured correctly. Maybe @TrystanLea can advise?
This is mine. My ‘mysolar app’ seems to graph Use and Solar, where as yours seems to do Solar and Import/export.
There is an odd discrepency between the two graphs on the right hand side, the top one looks as I would expect with the import line dropping as the solar generation increases . However on the bottom one, when drawn with a fill the import blocking is following the use line, is there a use block still there behind this import block? This effect looks very similar to the solar app screen, though the titling is different.
Perhaps reboot and see if that fixes the processing (Left hand column > Admin > System Info)?
This is because the ‘import’ is stacked on top of ‘solar’, but the import isn’t dropping to (or below) zero as one would expect. The ‘use’ feed is derived from the other two, so will always follow the sum.
True, it’s been a while since I played around with the graphs.
I’d still recommend a reboot – I have a whole SDM input that disappeared but is currently back after a reboot a few days ago.
