pvsolar Nov 2012 Dick Middleton  GPL-3
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Introduction
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A collection of scripts and programs for collecting reading from pv
solar inverters and storing in a database.

Sboy - reader program in C for SMA SunnyBoy 3800 solar pv
       inverter. Likely to work with other SMA inverters.

Aread2 - reader program in perl for Power One Aurora inverter.  Uses
       CPAN package Device::Inverter::Aurora.

pvsolar - data collection management program.  Schedules readings
	every 5 minutes and stores them to mysql data base.  Performs
	updates at end of day to provide summary and statistics.
	Schedules FIT meter reading submissions. N.B. but doesn't,
	interact with third-party data collection web services.

fernietickle - connects to pvsolar over network and provides status monitoring
	     and some control.

fitmeter.tmpl - email template file for FIT meter reading submissions
update.tmpl   - email template for daily reports to administrator.
pvsolar.sql   - mysql table schema.

Other

A collection of php and javascript programs for retrieving and
displaying retrieved data.

In the web subdir there is enough to get started.  These files have
been editied to remove cruft before uploading.  They have not been
tested in the de-cruft form; there my be typos.

The generation of the html code is site specific.  The code example I
have given should work if placed in the body of a simple page.  The
head needs to include the javascript and stylesheets as required.

Other - (WIP. not released yet)

15-Nov-2012

A result of this work can be seen at http://www.fouter.net/fernietickle.php

Sboy (for reading SMA Sunny Boy inverter)
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See README in sboy directory

Aread2 (for reading Power-One Aurora inverter)
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Takes current reading and exits.  Intended to be called by management
program every 5 minutes.

The data returned looks like:

READINGS: 114: 0.905: 2967.751:

The fields are:

1: A constant "READINGS" which is to give some confidence that the right
string is being parsed.

2: The power being developed at the time of the reading (integer watts).

3: The total energy generated (yield) so far today. (decimal kW.h)

4: The total energy generated in the lifetime of the inverter.  The
inverter's meter.  (decimal kW.h).

5: A comment field (or fields) possibly to contain the name and version of the
program.

pvsolar
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pvsolar is a perl script.  It depeds on a number of contributed
packages. You'll need to make sure the following are available:

 Getopt::Std, JSON, DBI, Proc::PID::File,
 Proc::Daemon, Log::Log4perl, POE, Date::Format,
 Time::Local, Config::INI::Reader, Text::Template,
 DateTime::Astro::Sunrise, Term::Readkey

If they're not part of your distro (they are all in Debian) they can
be obtained from CPAN.

DateTime::Astro::Sunrise needs to be patched - see below.

Configuration is in /etc/pvsolar/pvsolar.conf
Copy email templates to /etc/pvsolar too.

Create mysql data base with appropriate privileges and use schema to
create tables.  Configure access to mysql in pvsolar.conf under
section [dbase].

Configure locn with the latitude and longitude of the solar site.
This is used to compute sunrise and sunset times. locn can be either
expressed in decimal degrees or as degrees and decimal minutes.

Set path of reader program e.g /usr/local/sbin/sboy

Set email options and remember to edit tmpl files with appropriate
email addresses and text.  If email not required then comment out the
whole [email] section.

Set a passcode for use with fernietickle.  This is not really a
security feature it is merely to protect against issuing damaging
commands unintentionally.

Pvsolar must be run as superuser (root).  It won't start otherwise.
Tail /var/log/pvsolar.log to check for errors.

Using logrotate to manage the logfile is recommended especially if a
log level setting more verbose than 'WARN' is used.

2013-07-05 Added check for unlikely sequence of zero readings and send alarm email
           alarm email template added to config

GOTCHAS
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Locale settings are enirely disregarded.

There are other compromises in the design of this program which need
to be addressed to make it generally useful.

fernietickle
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Needs no configuration except to set the host of the running
pvsolar. fernietickle will connect to pvsolar and allows reading of
status and the last few readings. You can also change log level, tail
the log and terminate pvsolar.

Some commands e.g. terminate, need to have passcode as argument:

Command: terminate yesireallymeanit

help will provide info on main commands:

     ? | help       - this message
     ! | status     - show status info
     last           - show last 12 results
     lt | logtail   - display lines from log file
     st | stoptail  - stop displaying log file

     level <p>      - change log level <p> = inc | + | dec | -
     level          - show log level
     all | always | trace | debug | info | warn | error | fatal - set log level

     fit <reading>  - enter fit meter reading
     terminate <pc> - stop server and exit <pc> is pass code 

     exit | quit    - exit program

DateTime-Astro-Sunrise
======================

This module has a problem relating to computing time offsets which
causes it to break if the sunrise and sunset are not in the same day
UTC.  Australia beware.

A patch file with a fix (that I think works) is in sunrise.patch.  It
has to be applied to Sunrise.pm which is part of a perl module.  On a
Debian system it's in /usr/share/perl5/DateTime/Astro.

cd /usr/share/perl5/DateTime/Astro
cat sunrise.patch | patch -p0 Sunrise.pm

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