Test Solar PV Monitoring Dashboards Using an Open-Source Renogy BT-1 Simulator

Renogy BT-1 telemetry provides useful information for monitoring the condition and performance of a solar photovoltaic system. It can report key values such as PV voltage, current, power generation, battery status, controller temperature, charging activity, and load consumption. These data are important for building dashboards, alerts, databases, and automation systems.

However, developing and testing such a monitoring system normally requires access to real Renogy hardware, including a compatible charge controller and BT-1 Bluetooth module. This can make early development difficult, especially when developers need to reproduce specific conditions such as low battery voltage, peak sunlight, nighttime discharge, or controller inactivity.

My latest open-source project, Renogy BT-1 Telemetry Simulator, removes this hardware requirement.

Application Screenshot

The Renogy BT-1 Telemetry Simulator addresses this problem by generating realistic sample telemetry and sending it as JSON to an HTTP or HTTPS endpoint without requiring physical solar equipment.

The simulator imitates telemetry commonly produced by a Renogy BT-1 module connected to a Renogy Rover MPPT charge controller.

You can manually configure values such as:

  • Solar PV voltage, current, power, and generated energy
  • Battery percentage, voltage, current, temperature, and battery type
  • Controller temperature and charging status
  • Load voltage, current, power, and energy consumption
  • Controller model, device ID, and BT-1 identifier

The application can also calculate PV and load power automatically.

Renogy BT-1 Telemetry Simulator Use Cases

The simulator is useful for testing the Solar PV under various situations:

  • Peak Sunshine
  • Nighttime operations
  • Low battery conditions
  • Heavy loads / light loads

Application Features

  • One-off HTTP Post transmission
  • Periodic transmission at a configurable interval
  • A default two-minute sending interval
  • Live JSON payload preview
  • Transmission logs with HTTP status, response, errors, and request duration

This is useful for testing local development servers, webhooks, staging systems, database storage, monitoring dashboards, and automated alerts before installing physical solar hardware.

Requirements

The application uses WPF and .NET 8, so it runs on Windows 10 or Windows 11. Developers can build it using Visual Studio 2022 or the standard dotnet command-line tools.

The current HTTP client accepts self-signed HTTPS certificates for local testing. This behaviour should not be treated as secure certificate validation for production systems.

Download the Source Code

Renogy BT-1 Telemetry Simulator is available on GitHub:

github.com/mypapit/renogybt1simulator

The project is released under the GNU General Public License version 3, allowing users to study, modify, and redistribute the source code according to the GPL terms.

This project is an independent simulator and is not an official Renogy product.

Morality and Legality of Open Source Code Forking

Free Software (or Open Source Software) aims not only to give the freedom to use software without restrictions, but also grants the user the freedom to modify, enhance and redistribute the modified code to others while simultaneously granting others the same freedom as well.

To this end, commercial companies have benefited from contributions made by online communities from all over the world on Free and Open Source Software, which some of the company gives back.

However there are also some quarters who are not prepared to face the reality of code forking, especially when the fork has the potential to compete with the original software.

Read:

9 GNU/Linux distributions endorsed by the Free Software Foundation

These are the 9 GNU/Linux distribution which are endorsed by Free Software Foundation as it meet the Guidelines for Free System Distribution as outlined by FSF.

The Free Software Foundation also provides a brief explanation behind the reason why some popular GNU/Linux distributions are not included in the lists, which is available here: Explaining Why We Don’t Endorse Other Systems

Debian published Community Patent Distribution Policy FAQ to address software patent risks

Last month, Debian has released the Community Patent Distribution Policy FAQ to educate Free Software developers and distributors regarding patent risks towards Free Software. The FAQ explains the terms associated with software patent such as infringement, liability, contributory infringement, willful infringement, injuction and how to minimize the risks.

debian open logo

For more information – please read the full documentation of Community Patent Distribution Policy FAQ from Debian website

How to save (or mirror) an entire website with httrack in Debian and Ubuntu

Httrack is a tool for copying and saving an entire website in Debian and Ubuntu. Httrack can crawl an online website save each of the pages (including graphic and other downloadable files).

Among httrack features are:

  • Able to continue interrupted downloads
  • Selective download
  • Customizable user-agent
  • Customizable Scan-rules, can exclude files from being crawled
  • Accept cookies
  • URL hacks
  • Tolerant requests support
httrack screenshot

Using ‘httrack‘ is easy, as it has built-in wizard that can guide you through the process of mirroring web sites. The user will be asked a series of question about the URL to be mirrored, the location where the files will be saved, proxy server and the user-agent to be used.

p/s: httrack perhaps is the only open-source website copier/downloader tool available for GNU/Linux operating system. It is efficient and easy to use. The only gripe that I’ve when using ‘httrack‘ is that it does not provide progress feedback (unlike its counterpart in Microsoft Windows) like ‘wget

Public Domain vs Open Source License, which to choose ?

*Note that I’m not a legal expert or an attorney, this is just based on my personal experience and internet search*

There are people who asked me about why bother to release a piece of software or code under Open Source License instead of putting it in Public Domain.

First of all it is a matter of personal choice if write the code or the said work on your own, . But if you release your work under open license (open source or creative commons), you can still retains the copyright (ownership) of the materials that you’ve released. Technically, people who used your work has to adhere to the copyright license terms of your choosing, including freeing you from liabilities if the software is broken or causes harm. Licensing your work will acknowledge you as the owner and those who used your application, and you retain legal rights for your work.

On the other hand — once you have put your work on Public Domain, you will lose your rights on the work, as the work would have no copyright-owner and isn’t protected by copyright law. So people are free to use the materials without any restrictions at all, including to incorporate the material into their work and make it proprietary and subsequently copyrighted it without legal repercussion. You will lose the legal right on your work.

Public domain isn’t a license, it is merely a statement that the software was given to the public and to make things more complicated, some countries disallow public domain material, meaning that the writer will not be protected by the copyright law if the software causes harm to others (the ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY and LIMITED WARRANTY, or AS IS clause).

Remember: Public Domain is not recognized internationally and is not stipulated under Berne Convention and in some countries, the author can’t disclaim moral rights.

Therefore, it is more wise to release the the software under a permissive license (copyright), rather than releasing it under public domain right away.

References
1. Creative Commons vs Public Domain
2. Is Public Domain software Open-Source ?
3. Why the Public Domain isn’t a License?
4. Why public domain release is a bad idea