Consumers with Transformerless SMA inverters i.e SMA 3000TL can monitor and upload data to
PVOutput using bluetooth enabled Linux PC's.
NB: Once SMA-Bluetooth is installed enter the command line command:
cd sma-bluetooth-0.17
to go to SMA-Bluetooths program folder location.
Then enter the command:
./smatool --test
You will then see data from the inverter in 5 minute intervals detailing the output of your solar system.
Data can be extracted from SMA solar invertors and stored in mysql databases and csv files.
This data can be uploaded automatically to
PVOutput to display real time output of your system for free.
Hope this information is of some use to any Linux PC users out there.
Installation Debian / Ubuntu Via The Command Line (Konsole)
Pre-requisites Build environment, mysql-server, libbluetooth-dev, libmysqlclient-dev, curl, libcurl3-dev, source code for sma-bluetooth
sudo apt-get install build-essential mysql-server libbluetooth-dev libmysqlclient-dev curl libcurl3-dev
Obtain sma-bluetooth wget
http://sma-bluetooth.googlecode.com/files/sma-bluetooth-0.12.test.tgz OR apt-get install mercurial && hg clone
https://sma-bluetooth.googlecode.com/hg/ sma-bluetooth
Uncompress tar archive {{{tar zxvf sma-bluetooth-0.12.test.tgz cd sma-bluetooth}}}
Compile sma-bluetooth gcc -lbluetooth -lcurl -lmysqlclient -g -o smatool smatool.c (there is currently no configure step)
Use hcitool scan to locate the inverter bluetooth address
Open smatool.conf.new with a text editor Edit this following the instructions within and save as smatool.conf
Run smatool -v If you get bluetooth signal strength only the password is incorrect. (Mine took about 5 save and run cycles before it worked)
Now edit smatoool.conf to add your mysql admin name and password Run smatool -H localhost -D smatool --INSTALL
Add your smatool user to mysql mysql -h localhost -u admin -p mysql > GRANT select,update,delete,insert ON ‘smatool’ TO ‘smatool'@'localhost’ IDENTIFIED BY ‘secret’; Ctrl-D exits
Edit smatool.conf Change your mysql username and password, add in your latitude and longitude.
Run smatool again and your database should now fill.
Running from cron This requires changing the location of smatool.conf in the config file, but doing this didn’t alter anything, nor did specifying the config file on the command line, so a shell script was written
smatool_run
{{{#!/bin/bash
cd /home/user/sma-bluetooth
./smatool}}}
run each 5 minutess from cron using this line in a crontab 0,5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55 * * * * /home/user/smatool_run
Graphing with rrdtool and cacti to Upload data to PVoutput.org
