What is YaS☀️lR ?

YaS☀️lR is an Arduino / ESP32 firmware for Solar Routers, compatible with most of existing and easy to source hardware components.

If you already have a Solar Router at home based on ESP32, built by yourself or someone else, there is a good chance that YaS☀️lR will be compatible.

What YaS☀️lR is not?

YaS☀️lR is not a product and is not packaged with any hardware. YaS☀️lR is only the software layer that will run on the Solar Router of your choice that you will have to build (or already have).

YaS☀️lR Vision

YaSolR is built with this vision in mind:

• OpenSource: anybody can help and participate in the project

• Good development practices, PlatformIO project with versioning, CI, issue management, etc. This is big project and not a simple Arduino project (.ino file)

• Hardware compatibility: supports several phase control systems like Random SSR, Robodyn, many ESP32 boards with WiFi and Ethernet

• Flexible: it is made in a way that you can only pick the components you need depending on the features you want to activate

• Easy to use: The firmware should be easy to install and use

• Harmonic Regulations: The firmware gives the user the ability to monitor and limit the router in order to stay below the levels of harmonic regulations

• 110/230V 50/60Hz: the dimmer implementation and proposed hardware all support both frequencies and voltages

• Statistics, API, Home Automation: Web API, MQTT API, Home Assistant auto-discovery, etc. The router exposes a lot of statistics and information through MQTT and REST API and provides a very good integration with Home Assistant or other home automation systems.

YaS☀️lR Features

🚧 means In Progress

2 Routing Outputs

A routing output is connected to a resistive load and controls its power. Each output is composed of:

• A Dimmer - required - to control the power sent to the load. Example of supported dimmers:

  Robodyn 24A	Robodyn 40A	Random SSR	Zero-Cross SSR
  Phase Control	Phase Control	Phase Control
  Burst Fire Control	Burst Fire Control	Burst Fire Control	Burst Fire Control

• A Bypass Relay - optional - to force a heating at full power and bypass the dimmer, because keeping a dimmer on generates heat. If not installed, the dimmer will be used instead and will be set to 0-100% to simulate the relay. Example of supported relays:

  Electromagnetic Relay	Zero-Cross SSR	Random SSR

• A Temperature Sensor - optional - to monitor the temperature of the water tanker and trigger automatic heating based on temperature thresholds. Supported sensor:

  DS18B20

• A Measurement device - optional - to monitor the power sent to the load. Supported measurement devices:

  PZEM-004T V3	JSY-MK-194T
  can precisely monitor each output independently	can monitor the global routed power (sum of the two outputs) and grid power with its 2 clamps

Each output supports the following features:

• Automatic Bypass: Automatically force a heating as needed based on days, hours, temperature range
• Automatic Dimmer: Automatically send the grid excess to the resistive load through the dimmer (or manually control the dimmer yourself if disabled)
• Dimmer Limit: Set a limit to the dimmer to avoid routing too much power
• Auto calibration: Detect and measure the resistive load to provide more accurate routing and statistics
• Remote output (🚧): Remotely control the router output (dimmer + relay + sensor), in case you need the router control to stay at a place and outputs to be setup remotely
• Statistics: Harmonic information, power factor, energy, routed power, etc
• Independent / Sequential Outputs (🚧): Outputs are sequential by default (second output activated once first one at 100%). Independent outputs are also supported to set them at 50%/50% or 25%/75% for example

2 Relays for additional resistances

2 additional relays can be uses to commute (on/off) a resistive load with a known and fixed power. They can be used to control additional resistances of a water tank, for example to use 3 resistances instead of 1, and activate them in steps based on the excess, as described in the recommendations to reduce harmonics and flickering.

There is no hysteresis on the relays, so they will be switched on or off immediately when the threshold is reached. If you need to activate or deactivate other types of load in a more complex way with some hysteresis, you can use the MQTT, REST API, Home Assistant or Jeedom to query the Virtual Power metric and execute an automation based on this value.

Features for each relay:

• NO / NC relay type
• Relay Threshold: Set a power threshold to automatically switch the relay on/off based on the virtual excess
• Remote relay (🚧): Remotely control relays

Grid Power Measurement

Measuring the grid power is essential to know how much power is available to route. The measurement device needs to support 2-way measurement: positive power when importing, negative power when exporting.

Supported measurement devices:

• JSY-MK-194T: accurate, will also store energy data
• Remote JSY-MK-194T (🚧): Read the measurement from a JSY board remotely
• MQTT: Read the excess power remotely from a remote MQTT topic, for example from a Shelly EM, Home Assistant, Jeedom, etc. This is less accurate but still works and facilitate the building of a router

Thanks to power measurement, the router also provides these features:

• Virtual Excess: Expose the virtual excess (MQTT, REST API, web) which is composed of the current excess plus the routing power
• EV Charger Compatibility (i.e OpenEVSE): Don’t prevent an EV charge to start (router can have lower priority than an EV box to consume available production excess)

Note that the JSY-MK-194T has 2 channels, so it can be used both to measure the grid power but also to measure the total routed power of the router (2 outputs combined). It cannot be used though to independently measure each router output.

Home Automation Systems

The router exposes a lot of statistics and information through MQTT and REST API and provides a very good integration with Home Assistant or other home automation systems. The router can be completely controlled remotely through a Home Automation System.

• REST API: extensive REST API support
• MQTT: extensive MQTT API (with TLS support)
• Home Assistant Integration: Activate Home Assistant Auto Discovery to automatically create a YaS☀️lR device in Home Assistant with all the sensors

Monitoring and Management

• Manual Override: Override anything remotely (MQTT, REST, Website)
• Statistics: Harmonic information, power factor, energy, routed power, grid power, grid frequency and voltage, etc
• Charts (🚧): Live charts displayed for some important metrics
• Restart, Factory Reset, Config Backup & Restore, Debug Logging
• Live Activation: every router component can be activated and configured live without restart
• Health Status: configuration mistakes are detected as much as possible and issues displayed when a component was found to not properly work.
• Pinout Map: 2 pinout maps show the view of configured pins and activated pins, to report issues, duplications or invalid pins.
• Web console: View ESP logs live from a Web interface
• Web OTA Firmware Update: Update firmware through the Web interface
• Stuck relay detection (🚧): If the relay is associated to some known load, the application will try to detect and warn about a stuck relay.
• Temperature Sensor: for router box heat monitoring (Supported type: DS18B20)
• Push Button: Add a push button to restart the device
• LEDs: Add LEDs for visual alerts
• Display Add I2C OLED Display (SSD1307, SH1106, SH1107)

Networking features

• Ethernet & Wifi: ESP32 boards with Ethernet and WiFi are supported (see Compatible ESP32 Boards)
• Captive Portal a captive portal is started first time to help you connect the router
• Access Point Mode: router can work in AP mode without WiFi and Internet
• Admin Password: to protect the website, API and Access Point
• NTP support to synchronize time and date with Internet. If not activated, it is still possible to manually sync with your browser.
• DNS & mDNS: Discover the device on the network through mDNS (Bonjour) or DNS

Pro features

The Pro version is based on ESP-DASH Pro and ElegantOTA Pro, and provides a better Web interface from which the router can be completely configured and managed. The Free version is based on ESP-DASH OSS and is just showing the overview page. The configuration can still be done online through a “Debug Configuration” page.

• Configuration Pages: Configure components directly on website
• Health Page: Show status and potential issues with components
• Management Page: Manage router configuration (backup and restore) and reset, restarts, update
• Pinout Pages: Show pinout mapping and potential issues
• Help and Support: Help and support will be done through a private space accessible by persons who bought the pro version

Alternatives and Inspirations

This project was inspired by the following awesome Solar Router projects:

• Routeur Solaire Apper (Cyril P., xlyric)
• Routeur Solaire offgrid Réseautonome (Sébastien P., SeByDocKy)
• Routeur Solaire MK2 PV Router (Robin Emley)
• Routeur Solaire Mk2 PV Router (Frédéric M.)
• Routeur Solaire Tignous (Tignous)
• Routeur Solaire MaxPV (Jetblack31)
• Routeur solaire “Le Profes’Solaire” (Anthony G., Le Profes’Solaire)
• Routeur solaire “Le Profes’Solaire” (Adapation from Benoit C.)
• Routeur solaire Multi-Sources Multi-Modes et Modulaire (André B., F1ATB)
• Routeur solaire ESP Home (Remy)