@batpred 

Thanks. When connecting to the data logger via the Solis Cloud app there is very little information to see.

There is just an RSSI graph and nothing else.

I can see that the polling is set to 300 seconds, but am unable to change that (either my installer or householder account).

@bash 

I raised a ticket with Solis and they increased the frequency of the data upload to soliscloud for my inverter to once a minute. After a month or so it went back to the default.

Personally, I do not find it an issue as this is not impacting the operation of the inverter. But it delayed fine tuning it in the first few days and after any significant change..

@batpred 

Thanks. I have raised a ticket to get it changed to the lowest possible, so lets see what happens.

It isn't a huge issue, but it would be helpful as we sometimes go over the the inverter output limit, especially when our heat pump is installed next week.

It's a shame it went back to 5 minutes though for you, so they probably don't want it too low as it'd add further data storage on their system.

@batpred

Thanks. That now makes sense. Connecting to the datalogger via Bluetooth was very straightforward and does indeed refresh more regularly. It seems a bit random, sometimes 10 seconds, sometimes around 30 seconds.I found out how to connect via Bluetooth using the local debugging option. 

Now there is an option to connect also via WiFi, which would be perfect as I don't want to go to the garage each time.

Unfortunately I can't get it to work, it keeps saying the password is incorrect. I have tried the WiFi password and the Solis Cloud password, but neither work.

Have you tried this way, if so what password was it?

Posted by: @batpred

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You can also connect to soliscloud via a browser

That is how I have been contecting on the laptop but being 5 minute intervals it doesn't show the detail I would like to see.  Last night we were pulling more that the inverter can supply so we were importing a small amount. I would be interested to see how much, for how long, how the inverter shares the power between the phases... but as it only lasted about a minute that isn't captured in all the graphs that are avaliable on Solis Cloud.  It isn't important, but it is all new to me and I'm interested to understand a little more about how the inverter works.

@transparent This is the meter.

The CT's are connected in the top, red arrow, extended with Cat 5 cable. The blue arrow points to two connections labelled A&B and the other end of these cables are connected into the inverter on an RJ45 plug. The connections at the bottom with the pink arrow connect to the main board here

7,8,9 is the meter. 10,11,12 is the Inverter connection to the board. 

The issuse with the inverter importing was because the meter was connected to 6,7,8. There was an RCBO in 9 and I guess he didn't notice or it didn't occure to him that this would mix up the phases of the CT's

The Eastron SDM630 range is known to me.
I have one here, but it's still in the box awaiting a monitoring trial which has yet to start.

Your meter wiring looks correct.

1-4 are wired Neutral, L3, L2, L1  which is right

You have an Auxiliary Supply for the meter itself on terminal 5 & 6.

Terminal 13 & 14 are the RS485 port.
Wires A & B are the correct way around, and should be connected to the inverter using a twisted pair cable.

The other six connection to the CTs look good to me.
Over what distance do those wires run?

I'm not certain whether the second photo is taken after the electricians latest visit or not.

Where is the RCBO which was previously in location-9 and what was it supplying?

What are the upper and lower 3ph Hagar breaker supplying?
And where is their label?!

Have been given a wiring schematic which shows what's been connected to where?

Or has the electrician written the terminals' designations on the door of the 3ph board?

Posted by: @johnnyb

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Last night we were pulling more that the inverter can supply so we were importing a small amount. I would be interested to see how much, for how long, how the inverter shares the power between the phases

I will assume that the inverter continued to draw power evenly across all three phases.

It will be the demand from other household appliances which accounts for which phases were more loaded than the others.

If you're particularly interested to know which phases are carrying more current, then invest in a cheap clamp-meter from Amazon or AliExpress.

Posted by: @transparent

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I'm not certain whether the second photo is taken after the electricians latest visit or not.

Where is the RCBO which was previously in location-9 and what was it supplying?

What are the upper and lower 3ph Hagar breaker supplying?
And where is their label?!

Have been given a wiring schematic which shows what's been connected to where?

Or has the electrician written the terminals' designations on the door of the 3ph board?

The second photo was after his visit on Friday.  It is taken before the front cover was put back on and the notes written in pencil are normally covered up by the front cover. The front cover has the labels on to indentify each breaker. The 3phase breakers, higher one is connected to the meter and the lower one is the inverter. The RCBO that was in 9 will eventually have a myenergi eddi connected to it that will be powering the immersion heater, only added as I already have the eddi from the last house. This is now in the highest position. It might be moved again. 

This board is in the house that I am still fitting out and not yet living in. Breakers will probably be moved around to try and keep the load balanced as much as possible, and I have the 'essential services' board that isn't really in operation yet and will have some breakers moved to it.  I hadn't heard about issue with the netural being overloaded until I read your posts about it, I had only been thinking about keeping the load balanced so we use as little power from the grid as possible.  Being a 3phase inverter the 10kW rating of the inverter is shared across the 3 phases.  It can supply up to 15A to a single phase, but I think once there is a load on 2 phases it can't take one of the phases above 3.3kW. I can see the individual phases on the inverter built in screen and is quite easy to go over 3.3kW on a single phase once using the oven, hob, kettle etc. I will have to discuss with the electrician how we share the load across the phases to keep it a balanced as possible. I can only use the full 10kW if it is shared evenly across the phases. The electrician has also said we can't mix phases in the same room so we would have the potential for 400V between phases, but I think that is only for sockets.

The cable extending the CT's is probably about 10 mtrs long, possibly a bit longer but I haven't checked. Is there a limit for extending them?  I assume it is a lot further than 10 mtrs

The inverter imports the power to charge the battery evenly across the phases but I wondered yesterday if it would try to allow for other loads in the house to keep the grid load balanced but it doesn't.  I took a look at the inverter screens last night when the car was charging and L3 was around 8.3KW with L1 & 2 around 1kW (I only charge the battery at 50amps as it is the rate I found on a Fogstar spec sheet when they give the 8000 cycle count for battery chargers and 50A is more than enough to fully charge the battery on the cheap rate) 

Do you know which of the cheap clamp meters on Amazon, or Ali express, are good to buy?  I would like a 2 input one to monitor the heat pump but never sure what is good or not, especially after reading the reviews.  The inverter shows the overall load per phase but I would like to seperate out the heating to see how much electricity it is actually using.

Feedback on your description above.

I hadn't expected that the Eastron meter would be given its own 3-ph breaker!
Is that because the electrician decided to supply it by using thinner wires, I wonder?

You have a relatively expensive Distribution Board because it's using 'industrial' devices.

Most domestic installations use two or three single-phase boards, which are much cheaper.
It's usually only a heat pump and/or an EV charger which are directly supplied with 3ph.

There just aren't that many 3ph kettles and washing machines to choose from 😉 

Posted by: @johnnyb

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Being a 3phase inverter the 10kW rating of the inverter is shared across the 3 phases.  It can supply up to 15A to a single phase, but I think once there is a load on 2 phases it can't take one of the phases above 3.3kW. I can see the individual phases on the inverter built in screen and is quite easy to go over 3.3kW on a single phase once using the oven, hob, kettle etc.

That's an excellent point to make here...
... and I think it's the first time it's been raised on the Forum.

I'm just tagging another Moderator here to make sure the wider team appreciates the concept - @majordennisbloodnok 

I hadn't anticipated that the 3ph inverter itself would be constrained by uneven current being drawn across the phases.

Many modern inverters are 'transformerless', and use solid-state IGBT devices and clever software to create the sine-wave output.
But if there's a physical transformer then it would suffer the same losses as occur in substations where phase demand is imbalanced.

FWIW many 3ph storage battery installations are actually built using banks of three single-phase units.

Those won't have any issues with delivering different currents to the phases they supply,
and the system design offers greater flexibility and resilience.

Eg a building might have five inverters, with two each supplying a phase, whilst the 5th unit supplies the third phase on its own.

Here's just such an arrangement from the Growatt SPF6000ES installation manual

Posted by: @johnnyb

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Do you know which of the cheap clamp meters on Amazon, or Ali express, are good to buy?

The most popular make of multimeter purchased on AliExpress is Aneng.

Search for Aneng clamp multimeter and you'll get a wide range of products and prices.

I bought model ST209, which has now been supeceded.

Just have a think whether you will ever need a multimeter with the facility to detect the phase rotation.
They'll be more expensive of course, and it's unlikely that a consumer would ever need one.
But now is the time to make that decision.

If you don't need to directly cross-reference phases, then having two separate clamp multimeters will probably be the cheaper option.

Posted by: @transparent

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You have a relatively expensive Distribution Board because it's using 'industrial' devices.

I do, but I didn't realise using 3 single phase boards was an option and the electricians haven't been great on considering my pocket when speccing things.  I would then need 3 separate boards for the 'essential services' as well as I am trying to balance the load across the phases so I'm not sure how much it would save.

I was aware of the inverter having the limit before it was ordered. I don't have space in the house for multiple inverters and I'm not sure having 3 would have helped unless I had gone for three 5kW inverters. I think this would have been quite a lot more expensive, and take up more wall space than I have available without encroaching on house space. The inverter is happy with the phases being unbalanced but the 10kW isn't available on one or 2 phases, only half of it. It seems to me it is like having 3 separate C3.5kW inverters but neater and more compact. The solar electrician has fitted multi single ph inverters before but it sounded like it was in industrial units or farms.

I have about 7.5kW of PV so didn't need a bigger inverter. It was supposed to be an 8kW inverter. That wasn't available in the LV battery version in the UK at the end of last year but the 10kW was. The price to me was the same so we have the larger one. I also wanted one that works with a 50V battery like the Fogstar as these batteries are a lot cheaper than the HV batteries from the more well known companies. I couldn't find a 3 phase inverter that works with LV batteries and apparently it took the solar guy a lot of phone calls to find the Solis one.

I have a clamp meter similar to the one you have included but it doesn't record amps used. I'm looking for something that will record the electricity used over weeks and months. I think @batpred has linked to one he has.  I have seen the cheap ones of this type and wondered if they are reliable and reasonably accurately.

Posted by: @johnnyb

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I have a clamp meter similar to the one you have included but it doesn't record amps used. I'm looking for something that will record the electricity used over weeks and months. I think @batpred has linked to one he has.  I have seen the cheap ones of this type and wondered if they are reliable and reasonably accurately.

Well, the Huawei CT clamps I have are 100amp and 230V.

So even if technically they would read a couple of triphasic live lines, the smartlife software would probably get confused. They are also meant to be supplied from the same power the clamps are reading from 

I did not find similar clamps for triphasic power.

But the Solis meter readings are available via modbus via the Solis so this could be an easy way to get them. In my case, I have the readings available via Home assistant (even if I have not found this setup particularly reliable for uninterrupted charting). 😉

The most common 'standard' for clamps and shunts which read current is that their max output (at whatever current they're intended for) is 75mV.

You can either buy 'cheaply' from suppliers on AliExpress,
or get a certified 'industry level' current sensor from Sonnency in Germany.

The picture below shows a Battery Combiner Board being built with three different approaches to current measurement.
The red arrow points to a Hall Effect current sensor by Sonnency.

As you'd expect, the level of technical support from Sonnency is excellent!