Comparison with other Solar Routers¶

YaSolR is the most efficient Open-Source Solar Router firmware available. There is simply no match.

About the author¶

YaSolR is developed by a professional software engineer with more than 20 years of experience in low level systems and concurrency. As a highly skilled ESP32 / Arduino Core developer, Mathieu (GitHub Profile) has made countless ESP32 projects and written several blog articles related to ESP32 development. He is specialized in solar routing / diversion and libraries around electricity and network management for ESP32 / Arduino.

Amongst them:

Beelance: Autonomous and remotely connected weight scale for beehives
Home Assistant Solar Router
MycilaDataLogger: ESP32 firmware to connect an ESP32 to an existing ESP32 to view the Serial logs including crashes and stack traces remotely through a web interface
MycilaDimmer: ESP32 / Arduino Library to control TRIAC, Random SSR, Voltage Regulator with DfRobot DAC or PWM
MycilaDS18: ESP32 / Arduino Library for Dallas / Maxim Temperature Integrated Circuits
MycilaESPConnect: Simple & Easy Network Manager with Captive Portal for ESP32 supporting Ethernet
MycilaHADiscovery: Simple and efficient Home Assistant Discovery library for Arduino / ESP32
MycilaJSY: Arduino / ESP32 library for the JSY1031, JSY-MK-163, JSY-MK-193, JSY-MK-194, JSY-MK-227, JSY-MK-229, JSY-MK-333 families single-phase and three-phase AC bidirectional meters from Shenzhen Jiansiyan Technologies Co, Ltd.
MycilaJSYApp: Arduino / ESP32 Web Application for JSY devices
MycilaMQTT: A simple and efficient MQTT/MQTTS client for Arduino / ESP32 based on Espressif API
MycilaPulseAnalyzer: ESP32 / Arduino Library to analyze pulses from a Zero-Cross Detection circuit
MycilaPZEM: Arduino / ESP32 library for the PZEM-004T v3 and v4 Power and Energy monitor
MycilaSafeBoot: MycilaSafeBoot is a Web OTA recovery partition for ESP32 / Arduino allowing for a bigger application partition
MycilaShutterSpeedTester: ESP32 firmware to measure camera shutter speeds
MycilaTaskManager: Arduino / ESP32 Task Manager Library
MycilaUtilities: PID algorithm, utils stuff for Arduino / ESP32 like Time, String functions, CircularBuffer, etc
MycilaWebSerial: WebSerial is a Serial Monitor for ESP32 that can be accessed remotely via a web browser
Shelly Pro Solar Router
YaS☀️lR (Yet another Solar Router)
and many more you will find on my (GitHub Profile)...

I am also actively maintaining the well known Async WebServer libraries called ESPAsyncWebServer as part of ESP32Async organization with the help of the Arduino Core and WLED leads:

AsyncTCP: AsyncTCP is a library for ESP32 Arduino that facilitates the use of TCP connections in an asynchronous way
ESPAsyncWebServer: WebSocket, SSE, Authentication, Arduino Json 7, File Upload, Static File serving, URL Rewrite, URL Redirect, etc

Quality of development¶

YaSolR is built as a professional Open-Source project on GitHub: https://github.com/mathieucarbou/YaSolR and makes use of the best development practises in terms of project infrastructure and continuous integration.

YaSolR is not built with Arduino IDE and *.ino files: these are typically used by inexperienced programmers who want to quickly create a proof of concept. Arduino IDE and *.ino files are not suitable for a serious project and cause a lot of issues that inexperienced programmers are unaware of.

If you see a big project developed with Arduino IDE and *.ino files, you can be sure that the code quality is poor and that the developer lacks experience, which will lead to a bad experience for you as a user and also in terms of project maintenance.

Correct ISR Management¶

YaSolR is the only Solar Router firmware built with a focus on correct ISR (Interrupt Service Routine) management, ensuring that all critical operations are handled efficiently and without conflicts.

A Solar Router needs to trigger the SSR or TRIAC at a precise moment, on the order of microseconds. To do that, some functions need to be placed in what we call IRAM (Instruction RAM) to be executed directly from RAM and not from flash memory, which is much slower, and to avoid being impacted by any flash operation.

Inexperienced developers simply annotate their ISR methods with ARDUINO_ISR_ATTR or IRAM_ATTR thinking they will be executed from RAM, but that alone is not sufficient. A lot more work is required, and the correct approach is usually only known by experienced developers who understand how to properly manage ISRs and validate their behavior with an oscilloscope.

How to test if your router is correctly handling ISR¶

Connect an incandescent light bulb to the output of the router (ideally it would be an oscilloscope instead)
Activate the routing and manually set the duty cycle to different levels (like 25%, then 50%)
At the same time, do a constant refresh with caching disabled (in developer mode or with cmd+r) of the web interface to make the router serve the web files from flash at the same time it is routing
The light must not flicker at all, or just barely. If it does, it means that the flash operations are interfering with the ISR execution with which are signs of a bad ISR management, which can lead to an inefficient routing.

Correct Zero-Cross Detection¶

YaSolR is the only Solar Router firmware using an advanced library to analyze ZC pulses to remove any spurious effects and find the correct 0V crossing point, which is crucial for the efficiency of a Solar Router.

Other routers simply trigger at the rising edge of the pulse, which can happen way before the actual 0V crossing point, leading to an inefficient routing.

YaSolR uses MycilaPulseAnalyzer and MycilaDimmer, the only 2 existing libraries correctly making use of this technic to find the right moment of the 0V crossing, as you can see here. This allows a more precise routing for higher and lower duty cycle values.

How to test if your router is correctly reading the ZC pulses¶

Connect an incandescent light bulb to the output of the router (ideally it would be an oscilloscope instead)
Activate the routing and manually change the dimmer gradually from 0 to 100% and observe the light behavior
The light should transition smoothly from 0 to 100% without any flickering or sudden changes in brightness. If you see flickering or sudden changes, it means that the router is not correctly analyzing the ZC pulses and is likely triggering at the wrong moment, which can lead to an inefficient routing.

No Flickering with Phase Control¶

YaSolR is the only Solar Router firmware that can guarantee no flickering on the load when the routing is active, which is a common issue with other routers that can cause power spikes and inefficient dimming.

Thanks to MycilaPulseAnalyzer and MycilaDimmer, when used with a good ZCD module, YaSolR will produce a stable power output with no flickering.

Oscilloscope Tested¶

YasolR is the only Solar Router firmware extensively tested with a 4-channel isolated oscilloscope to ensure that the triggering of the SSR or TRIAC is done at the right moment and with the right timing.

YaSolR is built on proven libraries for the dimmer control:

MycilaPulseAnalyzer: ESP32 / Arduino Library to analyze pulses from a Zero-Cross Detection circuit
MycilaDimmer: ESP32 / Arduino Library to control TRIAC, Random SSR, Voltage Regulator with DfRobot DAC or PWM |

These libraries are the result of years of development and testing with an oscilloscope to ensure that the triggering is done at the right moment and with the right timing, which is crucial for the efficiency of a Solar Router.

Speed and reactivity¶

For a Solar Router to be efficient, the adjustment to the grid power must take place as fast as possible after the measurement arrives on the system. This implies

a fast measurement speed (the faster the better)
a fast adjustment speed (the faster the better)

YaSolR is the only router capable of taking about 20 measurements per second, processing them to adjust the power to the grid at least 3 times per second, and doing all of this with a very low latency.

Other routers usually react each second or even every 2 seconds.

PID algorithm with filtering¶

YaSolR is the only solar router firmware using a PID algorithm with filtering to control the routing, that you can tune with a live view and supports many options to decide how the PID triggers and which PID algorithm to use.

Other solar routers usually don't provide a PID system or tuning view with as many options as YaSolR.

50 / 60 Hz Frequency Support¶

YaSolR is the only solar router firmware supporting both 50 Hz and 60 Hz frequencies, with frequency auto-detection.

Other solar routers usually only support 50 Hz, which can be a problem for users in 60 Hz countries.

12-bits resolution with LUT table¶

YaSolR is the only solar router firmware using a 12-bits resolution (0-4096) with a 200 values power LUT table to precisely control at a Watt level a load of more than 4000W. It also does interpolation within the LUT values to be even more precise.

Other routers usually rely on the RobotDyn library which only supports a 0–100 range with a very small and imprecise power LUT.

Resistance Calibration¶

YaSolR offers a resistance calibration feature to calibrate the resistance of the load, which is required to have a precise control at a Watt level.

Harmonics Analysis and Control¶

YaSolR is the only solar router firmware including mechanisms to help you visualize and lower harmonics to comply with regulations.

Huge Hardware Support¶

YaSolR is part of the rare routers to support big voltage regulators with DAC control, which are more efficient and generate less heat than SSRs, and are becoming more popular in the Solar Router community.

YaSolR supports a wide range of hardware, making it compatible with most existing Solar Router builds.

This includes:

ESP32 boards: ESP32-DevKitC, ESP32-S3-DevKitC-1, Olimex ESP32-GATEWAY, Olimex ESP32-POE, T-ETH-Lite ESP32 S3, Waveshare ESP32-S3 ETH, WT32-ETH01, and many more
Ethernet: Multiple boards with native Ethernet support for a more reliable and stable connection
Dimmers: Random SSR (Phase Control & Cycle Stealing), Synchronous SSR (Cycle Stealing), RobotDyn 24A/40A, Voltage Regulators with DAC
Grid measurement devices: JSY-MK-163/193/194/227/229/333, PZEM-004T v3/v4, Shelly EM, MQTT, Victron Modbus TCP
Temperature sensors: DS18B20 (Dallas 1-Wire)
Displays: SSD1306, SH1106, SH1107 I2C OLED
ZCD sources: Dedicated ZCD modules (Daniel S.), RobotDyn built-in ZCD, JSY-MK-194G integrated ZCD, BM1Z102FJ IC

Other routers are usually tied to a specific hardware combination and require significant modifications to support different components.

Ethernet Support¶

YaSolR is one of the few Solar Router firmwares supporting Ethernet, providing a more reliable and stable network connection than Wi-Fi alone.

Ethernet is especially useful in environments where Wi-Fi signal is weak or unstable, and it eliminates any risk of disconnection during critical routing operations.

MQTT, REST API and Home Assistant Integration¶

YaSolR provides first-class support for MQTT, a REST API and Home Assistant auto-discovery, making it easy to integrate the router into any home automation system.

Other routers usually offer limited or no support for these integrations, requiring manual configuration or additional middleware.

Remote JSY Support¶

YaSolR supports remote JSY meters through MycilaJSYApp, allowing the measurement device to be placed far from the ESP32 board and connected over the network.

This is particularly useful when the electrical panel is in a different room or when the router needs to be close to the load.