pd Axpert
Embedded Files
Use a Raspberry Pi to monitor your Axpert solar inverter
The software is intended for the home user that would like to monitor the state of one or more Voltronic Power / Axpert solar off-grid inverters via a wifi network using a mobile phone or tablet and a Raspberry Pi ® computer. Turning your Raspberry Pi into a wifi data logger module for your inverter.
Features include:
Solar panels input Watt, Amp, Volt and efficiency.
Battery percentage, voltage and charge current.
AC load in Watt and percentage.
Live interactive graphs.
Monitor multiple inverters.
Data Logger.
Live JSON data streaming.
Setup Instructions
1. Download an operating system for Raspberry Pi
You can use any Debian based operating system for your Raspberry Pi. We recommend using Raspbian OS Lite. Download from here.
2. Write operating system to a SD card
We recommend using Etcher (macOS, Linux, Windows) or dd Utility (macOS, Linux) to write your operating system image file to a SD card. Easy instructions ‘how to’ can be found here.
3. Setup Wifi connection
If your operating system has a desktop installed, connect to your Wifi network and make sure it auto connects on boot. If you are using Raspbian Buster Lite have a look at these instructions step 3 and 4, to enable SSH and your Wifi network.
4. Connect Raspberry Pi to Axpert inverter
Connect the Raspberry Pi to the Axpert inverter with the USB cable supplied with the inverter.
5. Install pd Axpert Server software
Download and install the pd Axpert Server software on the Raspberry Pi. Download using the link below :
6. Install the pd Axpert Monitor app
The pd Axpert Monitor app is available in the Google Play Store.
Google Play and the Google Play logo are trademarks of Google LLC.
7. Use the pd Axpert Monitor app
Make sure your mobile device is connected to the same wifi network as your Raspberry Pi. Then open the pd Axpert Monitor App and after a few seconds it should auto connect to the first inverter detected.
NOTE: If the inverter is not detected on the USB port during startup the Pi will reboot after 5min and try to re-connect.
Notes
The pd Axpert Server software will work on any Raspberry Pi or similar small computer that supports wifi and bluetooth. We recommend the Raspberry Pi model 3A+, 3B+ or 4. The model Zero W is not recommended.
The pd Axpert Monitor App should work on any Android phone/tablet with Android 6 (2015) or later installed. We tested on Android 7, 9 and 10
The solution should work with several Axpert solar inverter models as they share the same underlying code. We will support as many models possible in future versions.
The Inverter model we used for the development work is a Mecer branded : Axpert SOL-I-AX-1MEX-12.
Inverters in parallel have not tested or integrated at this point.
You can monitor multiple inverters running the pd Axpert server software on the same wifi network.
All inverter data is currently logged / saved on the Raspberry Pi every 5 sec. The JSON data file is located at /opt/playbackdesign/pd-axpert/pd-axpert.json.
The data is also available from the Raspberry Pi via a JSON Rest API, once connected on the wifi network, a data stream from the inverter is available via : http://raspberrypi.local:5009/data. The data can be stored to a local or online database for analysis.
The pd Axpert Server log file can be found at /var/log/pd-axpert.log
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