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quickstart_pvoutput.md

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Quick Start With PVOutput

If you haven't already, click here to view how to clone this repo and install the service.

NOTE: This program is a supplement to other programs (such as mate or rover) and is not set up to get data from solar devices directly.

Once everything is installed, you're ready to edit the configs. You will cd to the program directory.

cd /opt/solarthing/program/pvoutput

Copy some template config files (pvoutput_upload_template)

cp ../../config_templates/base/pvoutput_upload_template.json config/base.json

Edit base.json

{
  "type": "pvoutput-upload",
  "system_id": 100,
  "api_key": "<YOUR API KEY>",
  "database": "config/couchdb.json",
  "timezone": null,
  "source": "default"
}

If you set timezone to null, it will use your default time zone. Make sure to correctly configure this while setting up your output at https://pvoutput.org. source is the source id of the data and is usually set to "default".

This requires that you set up an account on https://pvoutput.org. This also requires you to set up a CouchDB database.

Advanced Configuration

You can view an advanced configuration here.

{
  // ...
  "join_teams": true,
  "time_zone": "US/Mountain",
  "default_fragment": 1,
  "include_undefined_sources": true,
  "required": {
    "1": ["OutbackIdentifier(address=3)", "OutbackIdentifier(address=4)"]
  },
  "analytics_enabled": true,
  "voltage_identifier": {
    "fragment": 1,
    "identifier": "OutbackIdentifier(address=3)"
  },
  "temperature_identifier": {
    "fragment": 3, "identifier": "DataIdentifier(dataId=1)"
  }
}
  • join_teams normally set to true. When true, the program will automatically join the SolarThing team. Keep this enabled to be on the SolarThing team! (Defaults to false if not defined)
  • time_zone can be used to set the time zone if you want to use a different time zone than the current system time zone.
  • default_fragment usually should never be defined. It's only for users who've been using SolarThing since before 2020.
  • include_undefined_sources usually should never be defined. It's only for users who've been using SolarThing since before 2020.
  • required can be used to make sure that certain data is present before uploading to PVOutput
    • In this case, two outback devices with addresses of 3 and 4 must be present. Both of these devices are being monitored by a device with a fragment ID of 1.
  • analytics_enabled can be set to false to disable Google Analytics
  • voltage_identifier can be used to upload voltage data to PVOutput.
    • In this case, an MX device with an address of 3 on fragment 1 will be used for its inputVoltage (pv voltage).
  • temperature_identifier can be used to upload temperature data to PVOutput.
    • In this case, a DS18B20 sensor on fragment 3 with a data ID of 1 is used

I'm ready to use this for real!

Once your configuration is how you want it, you can go back to the quickstart to enable and start the service.

Join our team!

Here is a link to our team: https://pvoutput.org/listteam.jsp?tid=1528

You can manually join it, or you can set join_teams to true to join it!

Why is this a separate program and not a "database"?

This project is set up this way because it makes future changes easier. If you were to use an advanced feature of this project such as fragmented packets, the only way to upload all of your data to pvoutput would be to do it in one program instead of two. And if your charge controller resets in the middle of the day, (maybe your clock is off or you have wind power) the daily kWh generation won't become off.

This means that you can have multiple instances of SolarThing running and compile data from each program and upload to PVOutput all at once.