question

Trung avatar image
Trung asked

Lorawan / VRM / Data / Charts

Hi there..

I have bought a Lowaran module with the view of seeing my charge controller (CC) data remotely in particular: the Solar Yield (KWh) every hour and also Cumulative Yield for each day however, this is not capture and or presented in the VRM portal?? The Dashboard only shows the Wattage (W) Vs the Voltage (V) of the solar panels at the time of the reading is made. Whilst this is OK, the information is not particularly useful as the W Vs V can change from minute-to-minute depending on the weather. Likewise in the 'Advanced' section (in the VRM Portal), the Solar Charger Summary does not provide any yield information at all. I have selected the Solar Charger PV Yield and again, that only logs the solar panel watts at the time of the reading (not the yield in the last hour in KWh). There are also some other widgets but they provide secondary information to Yield (KWh) e.g.: MPPT State, Battery W, W Vs A and, alarm functions and others..

My views so far are that the VRM portal does not provide much more useful information remotely if that is what you want and for the price of £83 for the unit, it is rather a waste of money. Luckily, I already had a gateway and so I didn't have to purchase that otherwise, it would be another £75 meaning that having spent £150+, you're not getting anything useful!!! Please be aware of the limitations of the Lorawan module and the data that is available.

I rebooted the the module and got connected again to the VRM portal just to see if I am able to pull of any other information.

Please can someone let me know if you have the same limitations and or there is something that I have missed.

Many thanks

LoRaWAN
1 comment
2 |3000
Toggle Comment visibility. Current Visibility: Viewable by all users

Up to 8 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 190.8 MiB each and 286.6 MiB total.

Trung avatar image Trung commented ·

On reviewing the data packets a little further, the frequency of transition is x1 an hour and mine is at around 50 minutes past the hour. Only certain information is transmitted every hour until 23:00 hours: Battery V,A, Solar panel W, V, MMPT State and some others however, the Solar YIeld KWh is not sent every hour - it is only sent once a day at around 4.50pm in my case. The Solar Yield (KWh) data consist of: Total Yield Yesterday and also Total Yield to 4.50pm on any given day.

I do not understand why the the Total Yield for the day is transmitted at 4.50pm for any given day (only) as the solar panels are still generating energy - this information is useful but, it is a bit incomplete. Cumulative Total Yield per hour at part of the data packet would be a lot more useful (along with all the other information). Since the data is available anyway, why not just send it as a part of the data packet??

Surely the Solar Yield information for any system is important as a total and this was the reason why I had purchased the Lorawan module based on the graphical displays it showed that it was able to produce as part of the product information. I feel, the marketing is not met by the technical abilities of this module/the VRM and Victron. I am hoping VIctron is able to provide an update of the information sent so that it can be more useful and complete.

Any comments/feedback are welcomed.

0 Likes 0 ·
1 Answer
Daniël Boekel (Victron Energy Staff) avatar image
Daniël Boekel (Victron Energy Staff) answered ·

Hi @TrungT

Yes Lorawan is limited, it's generally used to check up on a system and battery voltage is usually the most important information.

The data sent per device is in the manual:

https://docs.victronenergy.com/vedirect_lorawan.html#details

2 |3000
Toggle Comment visibility. Current Visibility: Viewable by all users

Up to 8 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 190.8 MiB each and 286.6 MiB total.

Related Resources

Additional resources still need to be added for this topic