Well, 2 years seems like a long time for an update. Naturally, an eventful time. I retired from being an exec in the tech industry (yay!). Since building the VoltBarn, have spent time equipping it with a variety of tools, and started learning a bunch of different crafts, in addition to electronics projects. Also gathered a small collection of pinball machines, since the combination of electronics and mechanics fascinated me.

Yes, there really is a VoltBarn!

We installed Solar a year ago. After digging through all the manuals and websites, unfortunately the technology inside inverters and battery chargers is still very primitive. At least 20 years behind what we’d consider modern functionality. The battery chargers (from Midnite Solar) speak ModBus over Ethernet. The inverters (from Outback) spit out a lot of data over the network, but don’t allow any control via the internal network. Well, they do, but only via a proprietary protocol they don’t publish.