# Solareco ESPHome implementation

There is possible to easily promote all values from Solareco regulator, which are served in ascii format via UART on **P1BT/LAN** connector (baudrate 115200) to your Home assistant assistant server.

ESP8266 ([chosed NodeMCU v3](https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004893534216.html)) will make a really simple implementation together with [ESPHome](https://esphome.io/).

### First implementation
Firstly you need to install ESP home to your Home assistant instance. There are multiple ways how to do that, the official is [here](https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/esphome/).

When is your ESPHome extension installed to your home assistant server, connect NodeMCU board via USB to your computer and click on ***+ new device***. Fill the name **solareco-meter**, choose **Esp8266** and new card with "solareco-meter" should appear in your ESPHome extension. Click on **Edit** == code editor will show up. **Copy the encryption key, and passwords. Than take example code from [src/solareco-meter.yaml](src/solareco-meter.yaml), inset all the keys and password you copied from previous step and paste the whole code back to the editor. Than click to Save and Install**

After the installation you will see your sensor online, but not serving any data.


### Implementation with Solareco HW
To be able to get your data from Solareco, you need to connect already prepared device with the **P1BT/LAN** pin header.
- Solareco device having 5V logic on mentioned LAN connector. We will use 5V VCC to power up pur NodeMCU and one extra **PNP transistor for level shifting (feel free to use different type of level shifter)** of the UART TX signal from 5V to 3V3 which ESP is compatible with. Example of the PNP level shifter:

![pnp simple level shifter](img/pnp.png)

-   - Connect VCC from LAN connector to **VIN** pin on your NodeMCU
-   - Connect GND from LAN connector to **GND** pin on your NodeMCU
-   - Connect TX from LAN connector to level shifter mentioned earlier and its output to pin **D7** on your NodeMCU

All the values from the UART should appear in your Home assistant as a new device. The values are updating every ~15s (possible to set in .yaml file)

![sensor otput](img/ha_output.png)