Finally I got the data from the SolaX inverter with a wifi dongle in HA without using the SolaxCloud. My objective is to avoid sending data to China and read all the data direct from the inverter by means of the official SolaX HA integration (https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/solax/.).
If you happen to have the latest firmware (in my case 2.033.20) you need to set up a reverse proxy like NGINX on a Raspberry Pi. It sounds so basic but its not simple. In this write-up, I have copied, borrowed and pasted the steps and tricks invented by @Marvo2011 and many others.
Here we go. Your SolaX inverter is most likely already connected to your local network. First you need to cancel this connection by deleting the chosen SSID network, Save and reboot. The SolaX menu should now look like this:
The SolaX inverter allows only one connection. We will use this to connect to the Pi.
Raspberry Pi
Now we need to prepare the Raspberry Pi (RPI) and install NGINX. First we need the RPI software and repositories to ensure to be up to date.
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
Install NGINX
sudo apt-get install nginx
Start NGINX
sudo /etc/init.d/nginx start
Find the RPI IP address:
hostname -I
By default, NGINX creates a test HTML file in the web folder. This default web page is served when you browse to http://localhost/ on the RPI itself, or http://192.168.2.48 (whatever the RPI IP address is) from another computer on the network. You should be able to browse to the default web page either on the RPI or from another computer on the network and you should see the following:
So you’ve made it this far and you now have an NGINX server running. Let’s set up the reverse proxy part and direct it to the Solax by the following steps:
Create:
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/solax.conf
and add
server {
listen 80;
listen [::]:80;
location / {
proxy_pass http://5.8.8.8;
}
}
We need to remove the default NGINX page (thnx @Davosje ) at two places:
cd /etc/nginx/sites-enabled
sudo rm default
cd /etc/nginx/sites-available
sudo rm default
Now do a link with the following command:
ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/solax.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/solax.conf
and check if all is ok:
sudo nginx -t
If all is OK you get this response:
nginx: the configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok
nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test is successful
Reload NGINX to tell it that the configuration has been updated:
sudo systemctl reload nginx
The RPI must now find and connect the SolaX inverter:
sudo iwlist wlan0 scan
This will list all the wifi networks visible to the RPI. Hopefully the inverter will show up like:
wlan0 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: D2:BA:E4:00:00:00
Channel:6
Frequency:2.437 GHz (Channel 6)
Quality=44/70 Signal level=-66 dBm
Encryption key:off
ESSID:"Wifi_SWXXXX"
Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s
24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
Bit Rates:6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s
Mode:Master
Extra:tsf=0000000000000000
Extra: Last beacon: 19789040ms ago
Now it is time to tell the RPI to connect to the SolaX:
sudo nano /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
Add this to the file
network={
ssid="Wifi_SWXXXX"
key_mgmt=NONE
}
Do a reboot
sudo reboot
and check if the RPI is connected:
ifconfig
You should see something like
eth0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
inet 192.168.2.48 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.2.255
inet6 fe80::f97:8eee:af7b:8a40 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x20<link>
ether b8:27:eb:73:0a:38 txqueuelen 1000 (Ethernet)
RX packets 179880 bytes 21637177 (20.6 MiB)
RX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 frame 0
TX packets 3461 bytes 684911 (668.8 KiB)
TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0
lo: flags=73<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING> mtu 65536
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 255.0.0.0
inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128 scopeid 0x10<host>
loop txqueuelen 1000 (Local Loopback)
RX packets 50 bytes 6417 (6.2 KiB)
RX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 frame 0
TX packets 50 bytes 6417 (6.2 KiB)
TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0
wlan0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
inet 5.8.8.9 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 5.8.8.255
inet6 fe80::d15b:af12:c12d:cbf7 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x20<link>
ether b8:27:eb:26:5f:6d txqueuelen 1000 (Ethernet)
RX packets 3255 bytes 461123 (450.3 KiB)
RX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 frame 0
TX packets 4283 bytes 580912 (567.2 KiB)
TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0
The wlan0 is connected to the SolaX (5.8.8.9) and eth0 to the local network (192.168.2.48).
Go to the RPI, in this case 192.168.2.48 and you will see the SolaX inverter menu.
Time to notify HA.
sensor:
- platform: solax
ip_address: 192.168.2.48
After a restart enjoy the new SolaX sensors directly from your inverter
Have fun!
