Using Grott Proxy and Grott Server together

[matthewmcneill]

I was thinking about a setup that would be more effective in isolating commands from the Growatt servers. What I was thinking is that it would be good to chain the proxy and server together. Basically I want to continue to share data to the Growatt servers like the grottproxy does today. However I would like to command the Inverter using grottserver.

Ideally we could take all the commands from the Growatt servers and queue them somehow for manual release through the server, where we could set more fine-grained rules for

• automatic pass-through of commands,
• manual unpacking, review and passthrough of commands following user review
• blocking and preventing commands
• identifying unknown command structures
• redirecting command such as reconfiguring the proxy connection (e.g. server IP address should reconfigure the proxy, but not the shinewifi stick)

Has there been any thinking around this sort of use-case?

M

[johanmeijer]

In the next release (3.0) Grott and Grottserver will be integrated. In principle Grottserver will do al communication but there will be a capability to send the data (passthrough) to growatt. That will be one way traffic (from grott/grottserver to growatt) everything (commands) from growatt will be blocked,

This release is almost finished (alpha version) and is in test phase.

[matthewmcneill]

Oh, super interesting! I'll look forward to testing that.

M

[johanmeijer]

It is comming. Please give me some time.
I might have tried to do to much changes at once and need some additional test and debug time :(

[matthewmcneill]

Keep up the good work, it's really amazing what you have achieved so far. I'm just getting to understand the code a bit as I'm playing with grott running on my home assistant setup.

I will take a look when you publish and perhaps do some documentation of the code as I learn more about the code base.

M

[jmalm]

I am also looking forward to this functionality. I have actually started on an implementation of my own, but will probably wait for yours.

Would you like some help with testing? I have a MOD-10KTL3-XH, with ARK batteries that I'm aiming to control by setting Time-of-Use from home assistant.

[PedroKTFC]

I run Grott and Grottserver separately (admittedly my customised version) and have done so most of the year. I haven't communicated with the Growatt servers for many months. It might be worth you doing that to get it working before the fully integrated version. It's a great learning experience!

[jmalm]

I have used Growatt server a bit, and found that I can control the time of use that way. I have thought about skipping the Growatt server altogether, but I kind of like having that interface available. It also makes it easier to have the manufacturer "truth" easily accessible when developing software to control the inverter.

@johanmeijer, is the 3.0-dev branch available anywhere?

[johanmeijer]

I will publish the 3.0 version in alpha (3.0.0) this week. Grott 3.0 is Grott and Grottserver integrated.

One optie of Grott 3.0 is the server passthrough mode. Grott will act as grottserver but the data is also send to Growatt. The data from Growatt will be blocked totally.

[jmalm]

Great! Looking forward to trying it out.

[PedroKTFC]

For many months I've been running my system using Grott and grottserver. I've recently noticed that the time in my inverter (not my data logger - the two seem to be distinct) has drifted by 2-3 minutes. Is there a way of resetting the inverter's time?

[jmalm]

Alright, now there is an implementation of messages.inverter_put.InverterPutMultipleCommand that should serialize into a working message to send to the server, on https://github.com/jmalm/grott/commits/proxy-api/.

The following should return True, if raw_from_growatt is a raw message to set inverter time, sent from the growatt server:

import messages
messages.deserialize(raw_from_growatt).serialize() == raw_from_growatt

To create a message from scratch:

import messages
messages.InverterPutMultipleCommand(protocol=6, device_id1, datalogger_id=b'abcd123456', start_register=45, end_register=50, values=[24, 11, 27, 12, 39, 10]).serialize()

Out: b'\x00\x01\x00\x06\x000\x01\x10&\x10\x0c\x13PFGsGYwattGrowattGrowattGroZaFt_rdwztxGUo}y\xc3'

NOTE: the year in the command from the growatt server appears to be number of years from 2000. I don't know if putting 2024 instead of 24 will also work.

I haven't tested sending this with grottserver, as I don't have it running currently.

(I realize now, that I shouldn't need to provide end_register to the constructor, since the number of items in values should give that.)

[PedroKTFC]

Great stuff. Using the number of years from 2000 seems to have cured my error! I've now updated my version of grottserver so that when reading all registers it also reads the inverter time registers and, if you use the datetime option with the inverter PUT, it will update the inverter time to "now" when executing the PUT.

[jmalm]

It's funny, because the message that is sent by the inverter, as a response to the message that sets the time, has the full year, 2024! 😵‍💫

[PedroKTFC]

Indeed. That's what stopped me setting the register when I sent the year 2024. Had it worked and the year been 4024 I'd have spotted the issue! 😆

[johanmeijer]

I missed this one It think. Start with a reply on the original question.

Stop/starting grott will update the Inverter time (with the time from growatt if you run Grott standalone, with the time from your server if you run grottserver).

The grottserver API also allow to set invert time to server time with a command:

http put : <yougrottserverrip>:5782/datalogger?command=datetime&datalogger=<yourdatalogger>

[johanmeijer]

Grott 3.0.0 now available in the alfa branche. Please let me know your opinion (discussions #613)

[jmalm]

Awesome! Will check it out and get back to you.

[PedroKTFC]

I've had a quick look at the grottserver code. Unfortunately I can't use that version. My version has diverged quite significantly from yours. In particular, there are a couple of functions I now use that are essential to me, namely: reading the inverter registers (I do this frequently to check what they're set to and to confirm they're set as I want) and setting the triple set of time slot registers (these can only be set as a triple). On the other hand, Grott itself should not present a problem.

[johanmeijer]

@PedroKTFC yes a lot of code has been changed and will change with the next builds (that is why I started a new version).
The good news for now is that I did not touched the HTTPSERVER part yet. So if you have made changes in that area it would easy to fit that to the 3.0.0. build.

[PedroKTFC]

I'm away for a week so I'll look at it when I'm back. Btw, I run it as an HA add-on, is this version available as one or will I have to run it locally to test it?

…

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[johanmeijer]

I do think there is already a HA version yet for 3.0.0 (it is brand new and @egguy does not had time to make this). So you have to test it locally at this moment.

[egguy]

Hi, I will take a look. Do you think the reuse of the -beta branch could be appropriate?

[johanmeijer]

Hi @egguy, if we think the alpha is stable enough we can promote it to beta.
Lets wait a week and then do this if there are no complains ;)

[jmalm]

I've used it a bit, and it seems to be working fine. Thanks for all the hard work that went into this @johanmeijer !

One thing to note: You have to set the growatt server using the IP address (not server.growatt.com), or the blocking doesn't work (it compares IP address and port).

I've added a small functionality to the http server to collect messages sent from the growatt server. It's available on https://github.com/jmalm/grott/tree/collect-messages and works like this:

Start collecting messages from the growatt server (after 10 messages have been collected, no more messages are collected):

curl -X PUT http://localhost:5782/collect_messages?max=10

Get the collected messages:

curl -X GET http://localhost:5782/collect_messages
# Returns a JSON list with the collected messages, both as "raw" data, and parsed, if the message is known. The first of the following is the message to read the values from inverter registers 45 - 50 (inverter date and time).
[
  {
    "message": {
      "type": "InverterGetMulti",
      "send_sequence": 1,
      "protocol": 6,
      "device_id": 1,
      "record_type": 5,
      "_body_length": 36,
      "datalogger_id": "my logger id",
      "start_register": 45,
      "end_register": 50
    },
    "datetime": "2024-12-11T11:37:01.491935",
    "address": "47.254.130.145",
    "port": 5279,
    "from_datalogger": false,
    "raw": "0001000600240105.......1747447726f5a614630fb"
  },
  {
    "message": {
      "type": "Message",
      "send_sequence": 42,
      "protocol": 6,
      "device_id": 1,
      "record_type": 3,
      "_body_length": 3
    },
    "datetime": "2024-12-11T11:37:14.723489",
    "address": "47.254.130.145",
    "port": 5279,
    "from_datalogger": false,
    "raw": "002a00060003010347b799"
  }
]

Stop collecting messages:

curl -X DELETE http://localhost:5782/collect_messages

The parsing of messages is done by a messages module that I think could become something really good to use in the rest of grott. It serializes and deserializes growatt messages. I have been able to figure out quite a few messages, but there are many left to implement.

I plan to use this to map the messages and registers for the MOD 10KTL3-XH inverter, so that I can manage the battery through some automation. For this purpose, the messages that I've implemented already are probably enough. It's basically just the register mapping that's left.

@johanmeijer , if you would like to include it upstream, I would be happy to prepare a pull request. An alternative approach could be to make a separate growatt messages repo (not sure what to call it - I don't think I can/should use "growatt" in the name), that could be used in the grott repo. I think it could simplify the grottserver code a bit.

[jmalm]

Oh, and by the way, I didn't see a need to update anything in Home Assistant. Seems to be working correctly with the Alpha branch. Is there anything specific that I should be looking out for?

[johanmeijer]

I am going to look at it. The HTTP part is the part I have not changed yet.