Battery charge setting access

[Paul Wildsmith]

Just today can log in to app and web site but can't access battery settings. Is it me or just part of the 'improvements' Foxess are working on ...

Looks like I'll have to climb into my loft to set direct on the inverter tonight!

[Dave Foster]

No it’s not just you, I get operation timed out when I access the battery settings.

They are supposed to be reversing the change that stopped the energy stats app at the moment, it could be that is causing it - won’t help you for your climb into the loft, go careful

[jsfoxe]

As usual they pick the worst time for this.

I'm on Octopus Agile, so I can arrange battery charge times to hit the cheapest half-hours. (That is now fully automated and was working quite well... at least when their systems aren't broken.) So when their cloud systems break, that costs me money.

Today and tomorrow have plunge pricing on quite a few timeslots - those are about to start shortly and my battery is close to empty. But I can't set it to charge, not even "normally" through the website which is also giving 41203 Operation timed out errors on trying to read or write the charge times. That costs me more money.

(I know the inverter is generally connected and reporting - I can still see utilisation and battery level numbers coming back out of the cloud, just the charge times appear to be broken.)

[Paul Wildsmith]

I've been to in the loft so ok for tonight, also on Agile.

How have you automated? I know you can with HA but I can't be bothered to work out how to do it!

[Dave Foster]

If you have the latest firmware that allows schedules/strategies, some people have reported that setting a force charge in a schedule is still working.

[jsfoxe]

How have you automated? I know you can with HA but I can't be bothered to work out how to do it!

I wrote my own. Mostly a bunch of python. One set to run each day to suck the tariff rate (available 4pm in advance) and consumption data (available 12pm in arrears) out of the Octopus API.

Another bunch of data comes from capturing the inverter->cloud traffic (tcpdump) and dissecting (C++) and aggregating (python) that into useful chunks.

Then more python to talk to the foxess cloud services API. I first read out the current SoC and capacity (from which I can also calculate the upper and lower charge capacity limits) and the two charge time periods. Then a C++ tool to produce, based on the tariff rates over the next day and a bunch of heuristic assumptions about what my usage will be, an optimised set of time periods in which to force battery charging. Those times are compared to the current set times, and if the first two aren't compatible with the current set times, new time periods are written back.

(As an example, just before the timeout errors started happening my last projection generated at 05:30 this morning was "05:30-06:29 07:00-07:29 08:00-08:29 14:45-15:29 21:30-21:44". Obviously setting charge times to that granularity *has* to be automated, you couldn't stand there waiting to program each one in as required!)

A final set of scripts then produce live generation/consumption/SoC graphs, and from the Octopus billable consumption data my actual import/export and effective unit rate and total daily cost, then alternative comparison costs for a) what it would cost on my current tariff but without a PV/battery system, and b) what it would have cost on my previous EDF standard variable tariff.

The sticking point in the above is how I currently access the inverter. Given that it's my equipment sited in my house I would dearly love to just talk to it directly for everything I need. I don't particularly want to wire in a modbus interface and deal with that (though it's not entirely ruled out) - the existing wifi interface *ought* to be sufficient to provide the necessary access, but that's not how it's been designed. My second approach is write a replacement for the cloud server and inject it into the path so that the inverter talks to it instead of fox's servers. That way all my data stays on-site and it's all more controllable. I wasn't in a huge hurry to do that, but given how unreliable they've been over the last few weeks, I may need to step up efforts there.

[jsfoxe]

If you have the latest firmware that allows schedules/strategies, some people have reported that setting a force charge in a schedule is still working.

No, I don't, still on quite an old version, pre-1.50. And given what others have said about the inverter's own power consumption yoyoing and various other bits of functionality (like the wired ethernet port) breaking between releases, and their refusal to publish a changelog, or just provide the firmware releases so we can control for ourselves what version we're running and revert if necessary, I'm not entirely comfortable about taking any update from them. After all, if their cloud services aren't broken, then I already have everything I need.

[RayofSunshine]

How long do we have to put up with this level of incompetence from Fox. Is their a case to take action against the installer?
I also have the same problem with battery settings via the app.
It’s an absolute joke - wishing I had opted for giv energy which seems to operate perfectly with accurate figures and interactive app features

[calum]

The sticking point in the above is how I currently access the inverter. Given that it's my equipment sited in my house I would dearly love to just talk to it directly for everything I need. I don't particularly want to wire in a modbus interface and deal with that (though it's not entirely ruled out) - the existing wifi interface *ought* to be sufficient to provide the necessary access, but that's not how it's been designed. My second approach is write a replacement for the cloud server and inject it into the path so that the inverter talks to it instead of fox's servers. That way all my data stays on-site and it's all more controllable. I wasn't in a huge hurry to do that, but given how unreliable they've been over the last few weeks, I may need to step up efforts there.

So, modbus -> WiFi bridge, and you're done, no?

I'm not seeing how "build your own server infrastructure to spoof the inverter" is the easy option by comparison

Everyone else: If you're unhappy with the state of Fox's cloud infrastructure (or you just want a backup plan for when it's down) then you really do want to look into Modbus and Home Assistant.

[jsfoxe]

Well, it looks like it's started working again some time around 01:15, so I get some of the plunge pricing. Currently forecasting an average unit rate of 4.5p up to 11pm tomorrow.

[jsfoxe]

So, modbus -> WiFi bridge, and you're done, no?

I'm not seeing how "build your own server infrastructure to spoof the inverter" is the easy option by comparison

Well, I'd first have to buy a modbus/wifi bridge, which I don't have.
I'd then have to wire it in to the inverter using a custom non-standard connector (which means buying additional raw bits and connecting them together and trusting that the pinout diagram is true and I can read it properly. That's immediately out of my comfort zone of "plug thing into ethernet/usb port".

The inverter is in an awkward corner of the loft without local power so that would need to be brought in too, and anyway I've read that those modbus bridge things can be a bit temperamental. So in fact at that point I'd be preferring using the wired ethernet port. That was actually my first idea, except on further reading I realise we either can't use that, or can't trust that it remain usable (see firmware), so actually I then fall back to taking the modbus RS485 feed directly - there are existing convenient holes I can reuse that will get me close enough to a raspberry pi into which I can plug either a USB-RS485 adaptor (that goes at the Pi end since RS485 can travel the distance but USB might not) or a much simpler level converter to connect to the I/O pins. If I do the serial port wrangling myself I can be sure it's done right...

And all of that... well, let's just say I'm far less capable on the hardware side of things. I could probably manage it without burning the house down, but I'd probably rather not.

Whereas I can replace their server without even getting up out of my chair. Writing network servers is what I do, so for me that is vastly the easier option.

[Paul Wildsmith]

Lots of interesting info here, thanks!

For me I'll continue my 'enjoyment' seeing the charge times each day until "Foxess works with Octopus" becomes a reality. Until the summer that is when my solar will charge enough on its own.

[Simsimbol]

Still not working properly I don't know when Foxess going to fix it? I think Foxess don't want care after sell service?

[dushan]

hi all, I am getting the same error ' 41203 Operations timed out', when i try to access the battery status.

[TonyDurrant]

I have a fairly new installation, am on Octopus Flux Import and waiting for the Export setup to be completed. A couple of weeks ago (after advice from this community) I was able to set up the inverter for a forced charge between 0200 and 0500 - it has been working nicely.

Now we are seeing a bit more sunshine, and as I don't see financial benefit from export yet, I want to reduce the forced charge period, so that I have space in the battery to put all that nice PV electricity, but I am getting a 41203 Operation Timed Out when trying to access battery settings. It's not working via web interface or app (Mac and iPhone tried).

Am I likely to be seeing the same issue as others in this thread, or is it likely to be my setup? I'm going to see if I can adjust the forced charge setup directly on the Inverter for now, but it is not something that I fancy doing every few days...

[smstark29@yahoo.co.uk]

We have had no end of difficulties since the upgrade around 9th Dec. It is impossible to set the timer to recharge the batteries on my laptop and can't gain any access to the App on our android phones. All devices using up to date software. Our installers have been out and are unable to suggest what to do. Does anybody out there have any suggestions because we're becoming incredibly frustrated with the situation.

[reef]

As mentioned above, it seems the only way to get this working now is using schedules/strategies if you have the newest firmware.

I have mine set to charge 0200-0500 from the grid but don't dare change in case it doesn't work again. The reason I'm wary is I'm getting battery error messages in the app and energy stats which suggests it's thoroughly broken.

It's charging at present but I set the schedule weeks ago before these issues started.

[jsfoxe]

Yup, the last time I was able to access the charge times was 19:40 last night (the 5th), since then just constant 41203 "Operation timed out" errors. I hope I have enough charge to get through the Agile peak hours coming up (my optimizer was *trying* to set a top-up period for round about now, but can't.)

Note that the inverter is still talking to their server, and reporting load data, and you can see that come out the other side just fine (at least through their website), but reading or setting the charge times requires their infrastructure to talk back to the inverter and that is just failing at their end right now. It's a bit perplexing how it can be "half broken" like that.

And of course frustrating that this happens without notice, actually at all (can you imagine if the power companies said "oh, we're just going to do maintenance for the weekend so we're turning all your electricity off"? There would be Questions asked in parliament first thing Monday morning for that...), deeply annoying that with a perfectly functional wifi interface (albeit with some really stupid design decisions) I can't just talk directly to it through an official and supported interface to tell it what to do.

This only-via-the-cloud control philosophy needs to die a flaming death.

[reef]

This only-via-the-cloud control philosophy needs to die a flaming death.

This, 100%.

There should be an option to run locally rather than use the cloud. Its always in the back of my mind that you generally buy an inverter / batteries with the idea of them lasting 10+ years. Will these companies still be around in that time? One would hope so but its a fast changing industry. If the worst did happen, then we're all stuck as you cant do or monitor anything locally, apart from limited things on the inverter panel.

There's the home assistant route I suppose, but as much as I would like to do this the whole modbus thing is a bit beyond me at the moment. I and many others need an idiots guide on this I think!

[Dave Foster]

Whilst Foxess are sorting the cloud problems I can't help much other than to post guidance for setting charge periods through the inverter panel - I hope this is of help.

As the app isn't allowing charge periods to be set, it is possible (but fiddly) to set the charge periods at the inverter panel.

I gather that for those on the latest firmware and using the Energy Stats app it is possible to set schedules to Force Charge - but normal charge periods are timing out.

You can change the charge times at the inverter panel in Settings, Work Mode, Charge Time (the inverter passcode is usually 0,0,0,0).

Set P1 or P2 times to whatever you want (or reset them by setting to 00:00-00:00)

Then make sure it is set to En (enabled) for grid charge, or Dis (disabled) to turn off


Fig 1. Inverter menu structure from the front panel (charge period highlighted)

Fig 2. This is what the charge period settings look like at the inverter panel with charge period 1 (P1) set to 23:30-05:29 and grid charge (En)abled

[jsfoxe]

Well, the slight issue for me there is that the inverter is in an awkward far corner of the loft, the loft space is mostly not boarded for walking on, and my stepladder is too short to make it easy to get up there. And my optimizer tends to generate 4-6 separate charge periods per day, customised to the newly published Agile rates, so it would need reprogramming to match several times a day. That's... not happening.

[TonyDurrant]

Thanks to all those who share my pain for confirming where the issue seems to be. Fortunately, my inverter is in the garage (no visit to the loft needed!) so I have been able to reduce the forced charge for tomorrow to just 45 minute - enough so that I have power until the sun hits my south-facing roof! Solar Forecast says I should generate 16+ kWh tomorrow

I suspect that I can guess the answer, but is there a ticketing system where such problems can be reported to Fox, and open tickets followed to track work being done towards resolution?

[Dave Foster]

There are a couple of options,

There is a ticketing system for faulty hardware https://support.fox-ess.com/portal/en/n ... 0000564485

Or there is a UK service email address service.uk@fox-ess.com

Probably the email address would be best to report issues

[TonyDurrant]

There are a couple of options,

There is a ticketing system for faulty hardware https://support.fox-ess.com/portal/en/n ... 0000564485

Or there is a UK service email address service.uk@fox-ess.com

Probably the email address would be best to report issues

Thanks Dave!

Has anybody raised a ticket yet or is aware of ticket having been raised?

[Dave Foster]

Thanks Dave!

Has anybody raised a ticket yet or is aware of ticket having been raised?

I’m sure they know they have problems, but I haven’t seen a statement (which normally happens when lots of people complain at the same time) - as there are a lot of frustrated users it can’t hurt to keep telling them.