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  • SolarEdge Cellular vs Zigbee

    Has anyone tried this cellular connection for SolarEdge Inverters? http://www.solaredge.com/us/products...cellular-kit#/ I have the Zigbee wireless and like others have issues. Almost every day around noon it drops out and the next morning it is back up and running. For the $ paid to have it, it is annoying at a minimum. I think I could do an ethernet connection but don't really want to open it up etc. My comfort level is low there. (Wondering if I contact SolarEdge if they will switch this out and have my installer do it.)
    Thanks for any input!

  • #2
    I went the hardwired ethernet route. Had my solar vendor do it, but it was easy... I ran live cat5 out to the inverter, they opened up the box and plugged it in, and took away the zigbee.

    I've run cat5 several times before, and had the needed tools; if you haven't, there is a bit of learning curve. That little bit of DIY probably saved me money, but more importantly, my installer had NO FRIGGIN IDEA why anyone would want hardwired ethernet, and hadn't done it in a long time, if ever. I wouldn't have trusted them to run cat5 in my house to my router

    Another option might be to use powerline networking; you can get a pair of powerline ethernet adaptors at your local office store. That gets rid of long cat5 runs and the need for cat5 tools, but the modems fry themselves once in a great while, so it's a little higher maintenance.

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    • #3
      I have a SolarEdge inverter made in 2014. Trying to upgrade to use zigbee. Inverter will not upgrade using card that was sent to me with gateway. Any ideas why ??

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      • #4
        Originally posted by DanKegel View Post
        I went the hardwired ethernet route. Had my solar vendor do it, but it was easy... I ran live cat5 out to the inverter, they opened up the box and plugged it in, and took away the zigbee.

        I've run cat5 several times before, and had the needed tools; if you haven't, there is a bit of learning curve. That little bit of DIY probably saved me money, but more importantly, my installer had NO FRIGGIN IDEA why anyone would want hardwired ethernet, and hadn't done it in a long time, if ever. I wouldn't have trusted them to run cat5 in my house to my router

        Another option might be to use powerline networking; you can get a pair of powerline ethernet adaptors at your local office store. That gets rid of long cat5 runs and the need for cat5 tools, but the modems fry themselves once in a great while, so it's a little higher maintenance.
        My inverter is outside and the router is inside maybe 4 feet below so I think a 10ft ethernet cable max would work. I have a bunch lying around from an old job (before wireless), maybe I should just drill a hole in the house like all the rest of the utilities, open the inverter up and run the cable to the router.... I wonder if I would also need to remove the Zigbee.
        It cost me $500 extra bucks so maybe I just live with the daily latency before I break something. The cellular did look interesting though.

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        • #5
          Originally posted by DanKegel View Post
          I went the hardwired ethernet route. Had my solar vendor do it, but it was easy... I ran
          live cat5 out to the inverter, they opened up the box and plugged it in, and took away the zigbee.
          Here there is an internet dish with cat5 running down the tower to the shed. It goes to a switch acting as a
          booster right by the inverters, then continues underground to the house. Guess a couple cables could run
          from the inverters to the switch, but I think each Fronius requires a very expensive interface card I don't
          want to buy. Don't know what would be required at the house end. Bruce Roe

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          • #6
            Originally posted by Nlittle View Post
            Has anyone tried this cellular connection for SolarEdge Inverters? http://www.solaredge.com/us/products...cellular-kit#/ I have the Zigbee wireless and like others have issues. Almost every day around noon it drops out and the next morning it is back up and running. For the $ paid to have it, it is annoying at a minimum. I think I could do an ethernet connection but don't really want to open it up etc. My comfort level is low there. (Wondering if I contact SolarEdge if they will switch this out and have my installer do it.)
            Thanks for any input!

            I have solaredge equip. and I guess they were orig setup for zigbee... which updates every 15mins.... after a number of months of monitoring going down, my installer came back and installed a cellular connection which I think updates every 4hrs... its been about 4months since its been installed and seems to working ...but for guys who are always online checking (I'm one of em)... it kinda sucks and not what I paid for... but I guess I don't have much of a recourse...the old system had a bug, and they 'upgraded' it...

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            • #7
              Originally posted by paris401 View Post


              I have solaredge equip. and I guess they were orig setup for zigbee... which updates every 15mins.... after a number of months of monitoring going down, my installer came back and installed a cellular connection which I think updates every 4hrs... its been about 4months since its been installed and seems to working ...but for guys who are always online checking (I'm one of em)... it kinda sucks and not what I paid for... but I guess I don't have much of a recourse...the old system had a bug, and they 'upgraded' it...
              you can put in a ticket to have the cellular connection put into high speed mode so you can see live module level data.
              OutBack FP1 w/ CS6P-250P http://bit.ly/1Sg5VNH

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              • #8
                Originally posted by ButchDeal View Post

                you can put in a ticket to have the cellular connection put into high speed mode so you can see live module level data.
                Can both the GSM and CDMA kit be put into high speed mode?
                What is the cost difference between 5 year and 12 year prepaid data plans that come with GSM kit. Is this information available?

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by gcherian View Post

                  Can both the GSM and CDMA kit be put into high speed mode?
                  What is the cost difference between 5 year and 12 year prepaid data plans that come with GSM kit. Is this information available?
                  Yes they both can be put into high speed mode.
                  If you do a simple search for SE-GSM-R12-US-S1 and SE-GSM-R05-US-S1 you should be able to see some basic price differences. the CDMA can not have time added to it so the GSM is superior in that respect.
                  OutBack FP1 w/ CS6P-250P http://bit.ly/1Sg5VNH

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by ButchDeal View Post

                    Yes they both can be put into high speed mode.
                    If you do a simple search for SE-GSM-R12-US-S1 and SE-GSM-R05-US-S1 you should be able to see some basic price differences. the CDMA can not have time added to it so the GSM is superior in that respect.
                    Thank you - I did and do see about 100 dollar difference between the 5 year and 12 year for GSM. Thanks again for the quick response and help - appreciate the same.
                    George

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by ButchDeal View Post

                      Yes they both can be put into high speed mode.
                      If you do a simple search for SE-GSM-R12-US-S1 and SE-GSM-R05-US-S1 you should be able to see some basic price differences. the CDMA can not have time added to it so the GSM is superior in that respect.
                      How do you put it on high speed mode? I called SolarEdge support today and they told me that they couldn't put it in high speed mode because it would use too much data on their plan.
                      https://pvoutput.org/list.jsp?userid=59404

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                      • #12
                        Originally posted by ButchDeal View Post

                        Yes they both can be put into high speed mode.
                        If you do a simple search for SE-GSM-R12-US-S1 and SE-GSM-R05-US-S1 you should be able to see some basic price differences. the CDMA can not have time added to it so the GSM is superior in that respect.
                        I know this thread is a bit old, but this is interesting. My installer defaulted to the 12 yr GSM kit for my install, but I noticed the low data rate. I asked about having it switched over to the high rate option and was told that SolarEdge only allows it for commercial accounts. Might have been a lie, but its the answer I got. So instead I ran an Ethernet cable (I previously wired my house with Cat6 and still had plenty left over on my spool) and connected it to a Wifi bridge in the garage (didn't want to run all the way back to the patch panel). So now the GSM is basically sitting idle and useless. I wish they had talked to me about options at the beginning. Probably could have shaved a bit off my cost.

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by jasonvr View Post

                          I know this thread is a bit old, but this is interesting. My installer defaulted to the 12 yr GSM kit for my install, but I noticed the low data rate. I asked about having it switched over to the high rate option and was told that SolarEdge only allows it for commercial accounts. Might have been a lie, but its the answer I got. So instead I ran an Ethernet cable (I previously wired my house with Cat6 and still had plenty left over on my spool) and connected it to a Wifi bridge in the garage (didn't want to run all the way back to the patch panel). So now the GSM is basically sitting idle and useless. I wish they had talked to me about options at the beginning. Probably could have shaved a bit off my cost.
                          I just did the same. I re-purposed an old wi-fi router I had sitting around as an Ethernet bridge and plugged in an Ethernet cable from the router to the Inverter. Now it is updating every 15 minutes. The cellular card is sitting idle in mine as well.
                          https://pvoutput.org/list.jsp?userid=59404

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