Skip to content

☀️ Setting up local access to a Solis Solar Inverter

Abstract

Setting up local access to a Solis inverter

solis_inverter

The problem with a Solis inverter

As energy is expensive in Europe, my goal is to manage my home energy usage as efficient as possible. One aspect of this is managing my solar inverter (and battery). To do this, I am currently controlling the inverter through SolisCloud integration in Home Assistant. For basic usage, this solution is perfect to control my Solis inverter (S5-EH1P5K-L) with a S3-WIFI-ST datalogger. The downside of this solution is that it is using the Solis API. The polling intervals are around 5 minutes, which leaves much to be desired when it comes to smart automations. After looking up multiple possible solutions, I ended up using a couple of RS485 Waveshare modules to hijack the communication between the inverter and the datalogger stick. This guide does an excellent job of explaining how it works and how it set it up. This gave me full local control in combination with the Solis Modbus integration in Home Assistant A bonus of this solution is that I am still able to use SolisCloud.

This blog posts aims to elaborate some of the instructions and show off some images after playing around with it myself.

The hardware

solis_inverter

  • 2X Waveshare RS485 to PoE ETH (B) If you have a PoE switch, this is by far the cleanest solution.

solis_inverter

  • Exceedconn EC04681-2023-BF Male/Female for Solis/Ginlong Inverter RS-485 port I managed to by a set of these on ebay.

solis_inverter
solis_inverter

  • A case I decided to design and 3d print my own fusebox with DIN rail. A little tip: these Waveshare modules have a vertical dimension that is a bit larger than the standard window opening in a fuse box. I had to enlarge my design by another 2-3mm to make them fit.

solis_inverter

  • Your Solis datalogger I have a S3-WIFI-ST, but this solution should also work with a DLS-W, DLS-L and S2-WL-ST.

solis_inverter

Configuring the Waveshare modules

  • The first step is updating the firmware to version V1.486 For this you can follow these instructions.

  • Afterwards, set the settings of each Waveshare module to those described on the github. I gave both my waveshare modules a static IP, making it easier to manage and connecting them into Home Assistant

Putting it together

  • Wire everything together according the the github. The wiring diagram does a good job of showing how to connect everything together. The images below helped me identify the exact pins (there are also marked on the Male/Female interverter connectors) solis_inverter solis_inverter solis_inverter

I used the following wire colors

PIN Wire
1 +5V (Blue/white)
2 GND (Blue)
3 RS458 Data(+) (Orange/white)
4 RS458 Data(-) (Orange)

This gave me the following result:

solis_inverter solis_inverter solis_inverter

Home Assistant integraton

Follow the instructions on the Github page https://github.com/Pho3niX90/solis_modbus

You need to use the IP address of the Wave TCP server