USB power supply for Elfin device - do you take this from the wifi slot?

[johnblaine101]

Folks,

Firstly thanks for these great pages! Awesome stuff. Firstly I am new to this so sorry for asking a basic questions.

I have a ELFIN product and managed to get that working with the home Wifi. Im now at the point where i would have to connect it to my FoxESS KH8 inverter. My inverter is outside and not near a plug.

I am just wondering about using the USB power source. The page says to connect this to USB.
I am assuming that means unplugging the Wifi dongle, (I can not see but i guess this plugs into the USB) .
I am then plugging in my USB power to ELWIN cable. Is the WIFI used for anything other that firmware updates and fox cloud? Does anyone have a photo of how theirs looks?

[FozzieUK]

Hi, the first generation inverters had a spare USB port that was used for firmware upgrades, and some people used this to power their device locally - the latest generation inverters do not have this spare port and the Wifi dingle port cannot be used, so unfortunately you will need a local power supply to run it.

Even in the earlier gen inverters with a spare USB port, there were a lot of reports on the Elfin that it did not work reliably on the low power that the inverter USB could provide (and if the data pins were not plugged it could lock up the inverter panel in a firmware update loop).
I believe that most users have moved to a dedicated 1A power supply powered locally.

[johnblaine101]

OK Thanks a lot FozzieUK

[johnblaine101]

Recommendation is external power supply