diy solar

diy solar

JuncTek Battery Monitor vs Victron SmartShunt

So I have one of each. A victron and the junctek on two separate installations

Has anyone managed to get the junctek to work with solar assistant?
I managed to rig up an rs485 to usb cable but SA doesn't even recognize anything plugged in.
SA picks up the victron smart shunt nicely though and its now so good seeing the victron battery info within the solar assistant interface.

Trying to get this to work similarly with the Junctek shunt
I did not connected it with solar assistant but i did with home assistant, work pretty well. Connected via Bluetooth.
 
Did you use an RS485 to USB cable/adapter that SA ?
No I didn't. I got an rs485 comms cable from Junctek and I wired a data usb cable to the other end.

Solar assistant don't have a supplier where I am so that will mean buying direct. Meaning it will be costing about a hundred dollars. I might as well just buy another victron shunt for a little extra. Which is what I've done now.
Just waiting for it to be installed
 
I did not connected it with solar assistant but i did with home assistant, work pretty well. Connected via Bluetooth.
Oh that's nice. Didn't know that will work. I'll ultimately be using home assistant as well. But will be feeding the all the info through SA's plugin which looks pretty robust
 
hello everyone, I ask for your help: I bought the KG140F but now it is on my boat about 800 km from me, can you tell me which size of terminals to buy (the size of the hole). The RS485 cable is short, I need it a cable of at least 5 meters which connectors to buy? thanks and sorry for the bad English
IMG_20221202_122037.jpg
Is that what you are looking for ?
I can't mesure the hole cause it's mounted in my box, but those are the screws that were coming with it .
It's 10mm diameter. I used 8mm with a washer cause my lugs were 8mm, reason i got those unused.
 
hello everyone, I ask for your help: I bought the KG140F but now it is on my boat about 800 km from me, can you tell me which size of terminals to buy (the size of the hole). The RS485 cable is short, I need it a cable of at least 5 meters which connectors to buy? thanks and sorry for the bad English
The terminal posts are both M8.

I bought a longer RS485 cable myself, directly from the JuncTek store: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256803801321604.html
 
Honuz thank you for answering me and for your help, I would like to replace the cable with a copper bar (I build everything at home and then I take it by boat), now I just need to know which connectors to buy for the RS485 interface... thank you
The terminal posts are both M8.

I bought a longer RS485 cable myself, directly from the JuncTek store: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256803801321604.html
Wait a sec, we are talking about those :
2022-12-02_165221.png
They are M10 for me, 10mm BUT as i said, i used M8, they kind float into holes but it makes no differences cause i got washers.
 
Tyhe RS485 look like a RJ11 connector, 4 contacts, both RS485 (display and link are the same conenctor)


2022-12-02_165449.png
 
Wait a sec, we are talking about those :
View attachment 122756
They are M10 for me, 10mm BUT as i said, i used M8, they kind float into holes but it makes no differences cause i got washers.
My bad. They are M10. I don't have access to the device and went from memory. But now I remember that it is the same as the Victron Smartshunt.

Tyhe RS485 look like a RJ11 connector, 4 contacts, both RS485 (display and link are the same conenctor)
It isn't a standard RJ11 connector, if I recall correctly. I know the connectors on old land-line phone cords (which I think are the standard RJ11) doesn't fit. I tried that, and ended up having to buy the ones from JuncTek.
 
My bad. They are M10. I don't have access to the device and went from memory. But now I remember that it is the same as the Victron Smartshunt.


It isn't a standard RJ11 connector, if I recall correctly. I know the connectors on old land-line phone cords (which I think are the standard RJ11) doesn't fit. I tried that, and ended up having to buy the ones from JuncTek.
Yea they are pretty big, i remember when i openend the box .. saying to myself .. "This is overkill" ... well since i'm french i said to me "Ils sont vraiment gros ces boulons" ... ;)

MMM maybe you are right, RJ11 is a 6 lanes connector and we only use 4, it's certainly an RJ9 then... RJ9 use 4 connector and it only got 4 lanes.

RJ11-PinoutMale-Connector.png

RJ9-Pinout.jpg


Clearly an RJ11 would not fit, i maybe got an old RJ9 and will try
 
Tyhe RS485 look like a RJ11 connector, 4 contacts, both RS485 (display and link are the same conenctor)


View attachment 122757
It is an RJ9 connector, same as used to connect the handset to the phone base.
Edit to add I could not use a standard phone cable as it only has the 2 middle wires, you need a 4 wire RJ9 connector/cable.
 
Last edited:
OK so I am trying to get this project to work in home assistant - https://github.com/tfyoung/esphome-junctek_kgf
However I feel like a complete moron because I have no idea how to get ESPhome working properly.
I can adopt a D1 mini for example but then it seems to get lost when I try to change the name. Then it won't connect again but it is up when I connect to its IP directly.
Then I have no idea how to add the files from this project or which files I need.
I am losing my $hit over this....it should not be this hard in 2022
God I am so frustrated.
 
The diameter of KG140F and KG160F copper screw is 10mm, and the diameter of KG110F copper screw is 8mm
 
I did not connected it with solar assistant but i did with home assistant, work pretty well. Connected via Bluetooth.
How did you get that working, do you have the code anywhere, or is there something on github I could check out? I'm trying to implement something similar.
 
How did you get that working, do you have the code anywhere, or is there something on github I could check out? I'm trying to implement something similar.
I second that request.

I've been trying the bluetooth connection on the linux side with bluetoothctl. I connect, but shortly afterword it disconnects. I was able to query the GATT characteristics, but still didn't get anything. I added BLE passive under HACS in HA, tried looking for devices, nada.

I found https://github.com/tfyoung/esphome-junctek_kgf/tree/usesetjmpfix/components/junctek_kgf using esphome to rs458, have the parts and flashed it, but haven't connected to the junctek yet as I wanted to try the bluetooth.

On their youtube videos, I saw Junctek mentioned passcode BTG010 as a note. When connecting with the app, it usually search and connects directly but I used phone bluetooth to connect manually with the code and it said "an app is needed".
 
I second that request.

I've been trying the bluetooth connection on the linux side with bluetoothctl. I connect, but shortly afterword it disconnects. I was able to query the GATT characteristics, but still didn't get anything. I added BLE passive under HACS in HA, tried looking for devices, nada.

I found https://github.com/tfyoung/esphome-junctek_kgf/tree/usesetjmpfix/components/junctek_kgf using esphome to rs458, have the parts and flashed it, but haven't connected to the junctek yet as I wanted to try the bluetooth.

On their youtube videos, I saw Junctek mentioned passcode BTG010 as a note. When connecting with the app, it usually search and connects directly but I used phone bluetooth to connect manually with the code and it said "an app is needed".
Yes, you need to use the APP when the mobile phone is connected by bluetooth
It is recommended to use their communication protocol for communication
http:// 68.168.132.244/KH/Manual_en_zx.pdf
 
Mmm, just upgraded the firmware on my KG140F and somehow its now reporting that my battery has 122Ah stored but before the upgrade it was only reading 66Ah. Looks like somehow it has doubled what it thinks is stored. Think I'm going to have to do a complete discharge now just to get the figures back to what they should be.
 
I second that request.

I've been trying the bluetooth connection on the linux side with bluetoothctl. I connect, but shortly afterword it disconnects. I was able to query the GATT characteristics, but still didn't get anything. I added BLE passive under HACS in HA, tried looking for devices, nada.

I found https://github.com/tfyoung/esphome-junctek_kgf/tree/usesetjmpfix/components/junctek_kgf using esphome to rs458, have the parts and flashed it, but haven't connected to the junctek yet as I wanted to try the bluetooth.

On their youtube videos, I saw Junctek mentioned passcode BTG010 as a note. When connecting with the app, it usually search and connects directly but I used phone bluetooth to connect manually with the code and it said "an app is needed".
I'm starting to work on a Junctek plugin for Olen's solar-monitor and I've made a bit of progress.

Follow the adventure here:
https://github.com/Olen/solar-monitor/issues/29

I'm pretty sure I've found a solution. It spits out data continually in varying byte sizes, with hex values as parameter names, with the value (in decimal) before the parameter. ie: 0xBB1204C00240D883EE where C0 (voltage) = 1204 (12.04v), D8 (watts) = 0240 (2.40 watts). It gets messy because sometimes the value is 1 byte, 2 bytes, or 3 bytes depending on size.

Will report back as I make progress. I plan to have this up and running for May long when I take my trailer out for the first time this season... so I'm giving myself a deadline haha
 
Back
Top