Finally playing around with the VRM Dashboard. Pretty nice stuff. Reminds me of some of the dashboards we used to use to monitor data centers. I did not expect this sort of functionality. Left a single LED bulb on all day and all nigiht for a small load (maybe 10W) and collected about a weeks worth of data. Very flexible with lots of useful canned graphs.
AI driving AI. Doesn’t seem to get any smarter or even more interesting. From Conrad Godfrey on the Site Formerly Known as Twitter.
I keep saying that the insurance industry is where capitalism’s climate change denial breaks down. From Grist.
I continue to be impressed with Victrons products, especially their software. I always planned to do some data logging and thought I would have to do a little work to make it happen. Turns out Victron gives you all the pieces you need. I bought a Raspberry Pi zero 2W and flashed it with the free software from Victron to make it a data hub which also uploads to the Victron VRM cloud. Had to buy a USB cable to connect to the Victron controller, but that was really all. Played around on the desktop with a monitor and keyboard set up the WiFi, added the VRM info and moved everything down to the garage. Plugged in everything (monitor, keyboard) but it wasn’t really necessary. It synced with the controller and everything worked as expected. How often does that happen?
i made my site public so anyone can go have a look at my system status. It’s on their VRM share site at Guccione Home Solar. You can also find it on the Victron World site (I’m in Austin, TX).
Click bait from today’s news feed. I like the way the colors even match, though.
Had a Ring of Fire annular eclipse here today. Found out I can easily make these sorts of graphs and even scroll back several days using the Victron software. Getting hard to make the case for more serious data logging (but I will probably do it anyway). Check out the big drop off around noon today.
The recent hailstorm destroyed our roof. The roofing guy said it was one of the worst he had ever seen. We were stuck at the airport but neighbors told us it was golf ball sized hail for about ten minutes. Everyone said it was the worst storm they had even been in. Glad we weren’t home.
i checked my new solar panels, which were horizontal and right out in the open. They took a direct hit but were fine. This didn’t surprise me but it did surprise my neighbor. He seemed to really not believe the storm that dented the heck out of his cars and wrecked roofs didn’t take out solar panels. Told him he could look but he wasn’t interested. I also had a look around the neighborhood. A few folks have rooftop solar. None appeared damaged.
i joked that we should just build roofs out of this stuff. Then I wondered, would that make sense? So just ballparking it my new roof is going to run maybe $10 per square foot. Seems reasonable. But what do solar panels cost? A quick Google says $4 – $10 a square foot. And they will survive the next hailstorm. And make lots of electricity. Why aren’t we doing this?
Want to add some logging capabilities to my solar set up. I originally thought I would have to roll my own, or at least do a bit of python coding, but Vectron offers products to do most of the work for you. I downloaded and ran their Venus OS on my Raspberry Pi 4. Right now I used the Pi as an Ubuntu desktop machine, booting from a USB SDD. I flashed a microSD card, powered down, unplugged the USB drive, inserted the microSD card and turned the power back on. Booted the first time. Changed the “headless” file, rebooted and got the graphical user interface. Played around with the menus a bit. Impressive stuff. It will connect to various pieces of equipment and log data to their VRM cloud. Probably going to replace my Raspberry Pi 4 with a new Raspberry Pi 5 and maybe I’ll use my old Pi 4 for the solar installation. Bought the ve.direct cable and will give it a test soon.
Steven A. Guccione 