Windows Desktop Fox Monitor
Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2023 10:08 am
I have attached the application I made to monitor Fox inverters. It makes use of the foxcloud data so it has positives and negatives. Obviously if you can connect directly to the hardware its going to be better if you use something like Home Assistant. Some people find that the setup for these products is quite complicated and really don't need a real-time monitor of the system so this should be an option, assuming you run Windows.
So to install do the following:
Download the attachment.
Extract the contents, you end up with a Windows installation.
Run the installation, it should install everything and make a shortcut on your desktop.
When you first run the system you will have to enter your Foxesscloud credentials. These are:
username
password
device id
The device id can be seen in the url when you are connected to the foxcloud website. So you will see something like this:
https://www.foxesscloud.com/bus/device/ ... ttery=true
the id is the long number after the ?id= section of the url so in this case its:
12345678-1234-1234-1234-1234567890123
each system has a different ID which will match to your username and password.
Once you have entered these values there is a Token button. Press that and it should tell you its been successful, assuming you have put in the correct info. If the system is unable to authenticate it gives a 41807 error, make sure the username and password is correct. If you are successful then press the Address button, it will populate the Plant tab with all the information associated with your system.
Press the Accept button to complete the configuration and you will see an entry in the list. The system runs with any number of inverters, most will only use one.
Close the configuration list window and press the button at the bottom right of the main window. This will allow you to select a configuration, highlight the one you have created and press the Select button. If all goes well that should be it.
The Live tab, which is the default shows the 5 blocks, which are really all I am interested in. You can click on any of these and you will see the chart will change to reflect the daily logs of that item. You can play about with the chart, right click and you can set different types.The data in this tab will update automatically every few minutes so you don't have to press any refresh buttons. The system has this, you will see a menu option saying Last Refresh and showing a couple of times, pressing this will force a refresh. The 2 times are the time it last checked and the time it last got new information, they will be slightly different because although the program will refresh every 3 minutes or so the data from fox is only changed every 5 minutes.
The Summary tab shows a daily total of the solar, net battery, load and grid. The current day entry will update automatically when the live data is refreshed but you are able to set a start and end date and the system will then collect historical data for this period and build the list. You are able to export (print) the list either by pressing the little icon at the top right corner or right clicking on the list. There are various options available.
There is some other stuff in the system you should just play around and hopefully it will become apparent.
I have given this to a number of folk and all but one worked fine. In one case the authentication did not work and currently they are experiencing issues with the live data. All the other users had no issues.
A point that was raised was one of security. The fact that you enter your fox data into the system means that I could potentially get the system to send me your information. This is the same risk you face with all the systems that work the same way and if you have any concerns then I would advise you not to use the program. I wrote this for my exclusive use and only really thought it may be useful when I saw that there are a lot of people that do not have the expertise to setup things like HA, which is a really nice product. Also some people seemed to want to see summaries of solar, load and grid usage and my system does this automatically so I though it might serve a purpose.
Another thing, I have not "signed" this application, which means that it might complain that its of an unknown origin when you install. I would do this if I decided to actually sell the system but have not done it here. Again if you are uncomfortable with this then don't download/install.
Anyway let me know how you get on.
So to install do the following:
Download the attachment.
Extract the contents, you end up with a Windows installation.
Run the installation, it should install everything and make a shortcut on your desktop.
When you first run the system you will have to enter your Foxesscloud credentials. These are:
username
password
device id
The device id can be seen in the url when you are connected to the foxcloud website. So you will see something like this:
https://www.foxesscloud.com/bus/device/ ... ttery=true
the id is the long number after the ?id= section of the url so in this case its:
12345678-1234-1234-1234-1234567890123
each system has a different ID which will match to your username and password.
Once you have entered these values there is a Token button. Press that and it should tell you its been successful, assuming you have put in the correct info. If the system is unable to authenticate it gives a 41807 error, make sure the username and password is correct. If you are successful then press the Address button, it will populate the Plant tab with all the information associated with your system.
Press the Accept button to complete the configuration and you will see an entry in the list. The system runs with any number of inverters, most will only use one.
Close the configuration list window and press the button at the bottom right of the main window. This will allow you to select a configuration, highlight the one you have created and press the Select button. If all goes well that should be it.
The Live tab, which is the default shows the 5 blocks, which are really all I am interested in. You can click on any of these and you will see the chart will change to reflect the daily logs of that item. You can play about with the chart, right click and you can set different types.The data in this tab will update automatically every few minutes so you don't have to press any refresh buttons. The system has this, you will see a menu option saying Last Refresh and showing a couple of times, pressing this will force a refresh. The 2 times are the time it last checked and the time it last got new information, they will be slightly different because although the program will refresh every 3 minutes or so the data from fox is only changed every 5 minutes.
The Summary tab shows a daily total of the solar, net battery, load and grid. The current day entry will update automatically when the live data is refreshed but you are able to set a start and end date and the system will then collect historical data for this period and build the list. You are able to export (print) the list either by pressing the little icon at the top right corner or right clicking on the list. There are various options available.
There is some other stuff in the system you should just play around and hopefully it will become apparent.
I have given this to a number of folk and all but one worked fine. In one case the authentication did not work and currently they are experiencing issues with the live data. All the other users had no issues.
A point that was raised was one of security. The fact that you enter your fox data into the system means that I could potentially get the system to send me your information. This is the same risk you face with all the systems that work the same way and if you have any concerns then I would advise you not to use the program. I wrote this for my exclusive use and only really thought it may be useful when I saw that there are a lot of people that do not have the expertise to setup things like HA, which is a really nice product. Also some people seemed to want to see summaries of solar, load and grid usage and my system does this automatically so I though it might serve a purpose.
Another thing, I have not "signed" this application, which means that it might complain that its of an unknown origin when you install. I would do this if I decided to actually sell the system but have not done it here. Again if you are uncomfortable with this then don't download/install.
Anyway let me know how you get on.