The inverter I’m using is the common SG range – In my case the SG700M. The system has a data box are about $40 but as previously discussed this actually has to be plugged in and the software (NTMS) running to be able to receive any data. A little bit of googling found an interesting article on youtube where a guy called Aaron Christophel had looked at these boxes and identified that it’s just a serial bridge and the data is transmitted in the clear. The serial module is actually a $3 LC12S 2.4ghz serial module. He’d even written some demo code for an Arduino (GITHUB) as a POC to be able to retrieve this data

Using this and as the basis I added to the code slightly to use a Hiltec wifi 32 module with a built in screen to display this data. So I now have the key data on a little screen whether i’m on my PC and accessing the software or not!

Very cool!

My next addition to this will be to make use of the ESP32 wifi module and host this data online so I can see what my solar panels are doing from anywhere.

Github