Home Solar Experiment

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So I’ve been busy building a new solar array, mostly as a hobby and its been crazy fun. Electrocuted my self twice, but luckily nothing too bad.

I’ll write up some more detail round the build, the metric collection and the things i have learnt over my time.

Keep in mind that NZ is in the southern hemisphere, so its winter as i’m writing this. Low sun hours! Stats publicly available via grafana here – https://grafana.sigtar.com

For now a quick summary of my build below;

Build Details;

  • Solar Controller 1 x EPEver MPPT (Max 30A, 720W @ 24v)
  • Solar Panels 6 x 100W (5.2A 19.25V) – 600W in series & parallel (10.4A x 57.75V)
  • Battery 4 x 6V (US Battery 232AH @ C20) – 24V in series
  • Inverter 1 x EPEver 1000W (Pure sine wave) – 24V DC -> 230V 50Hz AC

Controller Settings;

  • Boost and Equalize duration : 120M
  • Over Volt : 32
  • Equalize Charge Volt : 29.6
  • Boost Charge Volt : 29.2
  • Float Charge Volt : 27.6

Software details;

  • Influx DB – 90 day retention
  • PHP script polling Solar controller every few seconds – parsing results into db
  • and of course Grafana!
  • all docker images on UNRAID server

Whats next?

  • ATS – maximize my solar power with 24hr loads :p
  • Batteries – Switch to LiFePO4 batties (Lead acid suffers from small DOD of approx 50% and voltage drop under under load)
  • Wind – hard to find anything that would work in my urban area. Must retire to the hills before i get into that! ;)

M365 Electric Scooter – must have mods

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I’ve been riding my m365 xiaomi scooter for quite some time now… over its time i have made a few mods to make it a better and more reliable ride…

First – The tyres.


Sticking with pneumatic are best, they are lighter and generally have better grip when they are in good shape (i.e. not plastic). The only downside is the tube puncturing every now and again. The slime you can inject into your trye also is pretty average, it increases weight slowing you down.

To avoid punctures I’ve found best to ensure your PSI is approx 40 – 50 PSI. I weigh about 70Kg, and find 40PSI pretty good.

Also, dont get the cheap tubes from AliExpress, get the slightly more expensive ones, they have a thicker rubber and so far have really lasted. See Amalibay here – https://bit.ly/2KKorBp

Second – the firmware and battery bms

If your lucky enough to have 2nd generation scooter you will not have to worry about the small and easily blown “z-fuse” on the bms. If you have one of the 1st gen scooters you can just replace the bms with a 2nd generation one. Easy enough to find on AliExpress.

Installation will require a bit of soldering and careful workmanship – as the battery can give yo a bit of a jolt if you short it out! (I’ve accidentally done it twice and it can give you quite the fright)

Also your going to want to load a custom firmware. The android app M365_DOWNG is going to be your friend, it can connect to your scooter via Bluetooth. Making the custom firmware has been made easy at this site –
https://m365.botox.bz/

Disclaimer : firmware mods can break stuff, be careful. Ensure you have 2nd gen BMS first!

I’ve started using another app on my android for my 365, it has a much better battery information display – “M365 Tools”. Pretty handy for watching your cell balance across the battery pack. You can see my battery is a bit out of balance at moment, with a difference of 0.042 volts between my lowest and highest cell.

I’m dabbling at installing an active battery balancer so i can auto balance the cells (they seem to fall out of balance some times).

Third – The handle catch

Get some of those rubber “reducers” to go in the hinge gap. Works a treat when its been worn down after extended use. Makes the connection more firm, and stops the horrible squeaking sound. Check them out here – https://bit.ly/2ZVr07e

Mi / Xiaomi Scooter Error codes

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Scooter beeping? – check out these codes for a hint at what might be wrong…

Error codeDescriptionMalfunction part
10Dashboard and control board communication abnormal，check connected cableDashboard、control board
11Motor A phase current abnormal ，check control boardcontrol board
12Motor B phase current abnormal ，check control boardcontrol board
13Motor C phase current abnormal ，check control boardcontrol board
14Throttle hall abnormal，check electric throttle、dashboard and connected cabledashboard 、electric throttle
15Brake hall abnormal，check electric barke、dashboard and connected cabledashboard、electric brake
16Battery change MOS abnormal，check control boardcontrol board
17External battery change MOS abnormal，check control boardcontrol board
18motor hall abnormal，check motor、control board、connected cable.control board、motor
19Battery voltage abnormal，check battery、control board、connected cable.control board、battery
20External battery voltage abnormal，check battery、control board、connected cable.control board、battery
21Battery communication failed，check battery、control board、connected cablebattery
22Battery code failed，change batterybattery
23Battery default serial number，change batterybattery
24System voltage test abnormal，check control boardcontrol board、battery、external battery
25Undefined 
26Flash saving error，check control boardcontrol board
27Control code error，change control boardcontrol board
28Motor driver mos up-bridge short circuitcontrol board
29Motor driver mos down-bridge short circuitcontrol board
30Undefined 
31Program skip error，check control boardcontrol board
32Undefined 
33Undefined 
34Undefined 
35Unit has default serial number，change control boardcontrol board
36Undefined 
37Undefined 
38Undefined 
39Battery temperature sensor abnormal，change batterybattery
40Control board temperature abnormal，check control boardcontrol board、battery
41Exteral battery temperature abnormal，change external batteryexternal battery
42Exteral battery communication error，check external battery、control board、connected cabelcontrol board、external battery
43Exteral battery code error，change external batteryexternal battery
44External has default serial number，change external batteryexternal battery

Brave Browser – another non-ad web alternative?

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 Brave is a web browser that has been about for while, but i only happened across it when it made its way onto the android platform.

It presents another concept which supports web content creators without subjecting viewers to horrendous ads, both in their content and in their speed detriment.

Check their site out here – https://brave.com

Crypto mining failed me (see coin hive here), ads are annoying and more and more likely to be blocked via various plugins and tools. The Brave browser blocks all ads by default and builds up a profile on where you are spending your time on the web. Contributions are then made to the various sites if they are registered to the “BAT” system, which is a way of rewarding the content providers.

My very brief experience so far has been positive, a fast browser which support all my chrome plugins – but with all ad-blocking etc built in. For the extra paranoid it also includes a private mode that utilizes ToR network. Oh and it has a web torrent client built in.

A pretty good summary / review here – https://coiniq.com/brave-browser-review/

Update;

It seems ad’s may be coming to the browser, but so far it looks as though they are “opt-in”. I’ve updated brave link above with referral ;)

time to disable coinhive – hysteria ensues

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See my previous post here – https://sigtar.com/2017/10/13/coinhive-alternative

So the trial of coinhive and associated monero browser mining has come to an end. It seems most corporate firewalls and security appliances detect and block access to my domain just being associated with the coinhive java-script.

Even though i was being a polite net citizen and disclosing it on the site – firewalls with strict polices dont give it a chance. Several public DNS servers have also block listed the site – hopefully this will be undone soon.

There is a lot of fear around the word “crypto” due to the more malicious crypto-locker virus and it seems that coinhive has been associated to similar hysteria and panic.

Note : the amount of “wasted CPU” is trivial as i would only expect people visiting my site to be donating some cycles. i.e. in most cases i wouldn’t expect and entire company / business behind a firewall to browse my website and be under threat of  mass “CPU stealing”