800 watts of panels, 5.4 kWH of battery*, satellite internet, all I could need for work-from-woods
This was a constant tinkering project, but it always basically worked all summer.
Thursday, October 20, 2022
Hackish Off-grid Weather Station (2021)
In 2020 I noted that you can build a small gadget-charging off-grid solar power system for about $200. In 2021 I deployed it to a spot in the woods of Vermont.
This is largely a tale of what kinda-worked and what I should do better next time.
Friday, October 7, 2022
Victron Energy VE.Direct hackish
I have been increasingly pleased by Solar energy components from Victron Energy. Most of their products have a "VE.Direct" port which is just 5V UART serial at 19200 8N1 (a few older battery module units are 3.3V). If you ask nicely and register at their site they will give you pretty thorough technical documentation of the protocol over that serial port. I've been using this python module for parsing VE.Direct serial port broadcast (status update just sends once a second, this may be all the data you need for many uses).
They have an official $30 VE.Direct USB serial adapter that plugs in to their equipment and Just Works. But I work with embedded stuff to know that those are some pretty cheap commodity parts potentially. So I set up with this USB to UART TTL (5v or 3.3V) module that's $10 for a 5 pack and this JST 2.0 PH cable, and for $3 and some soldering I have my hackish VE.Direct adapter cable. Worked the first time!
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