Welding cables onto Wattson PCB to read Color Codes

It was not trivial because of the tiny dots I had to weld the wires to and because of the risk of damaging the PCB / components on the other side by overheating the area, but I managed to do it : Welding tiny cables onto Wattson PCB to be able to read the voltage of each color LED

Before, heating up the soldering iron

I easily put some solder on the 3 dots diagonaly placed on the board (left) and on tested soldering the ground wire (right)

Done, and I was releaved that Wattson still displays everything correctly after that step

It's easier with a good LED light to see the fine details

Now testing color mode: it works too

and I can read voltages :-) (blue & red LED here)

With green now (switched on sevral Grid Tie Inverters for that)

I had to drill a little hole in the back panel of Wattson to fit the cable

I am using a old USB mouse cable, that provides a standard plug with 5 contacts and I need 4 here (ground, blue, green, red), so I put a red label onto the USB cable next to the plug warning that this is not a normal USB plug and should NOT be plugged into a computer for example (that would be bad...)

Reading voltages of blue and red LEDs

The USB plug plugged into a USB outlet and voltmeters leads attached to screw terminals

Voltages are going up and down, because Wattson "glows", it is not a solid color, butI realized that colors are more or less intense dpending on the energy level of the usage and the generation, so I can read the corresponding voltages and deduct what is going on ...

Water heater is on, all red now (very intense = 4.53V here) and blue is 0V

LiFePO4 DIY ESS Update - Opening up Wattson

As you already know, my LiFePO4 Battery Energy Storage & Power Supply System (BESPSS) is still manual, is getting better with a remote controlled step-up power output as shown in my previous post & videos, but I would like to automate it based on Wattson's reading, especially its net power usage (usage from the grid - generation)

If you activate the color feature, the back of Wattson glows RED when power usage is high, PURPLE when it is average, BLUE when it is less than average or small, and GREEN when the generation is greater than usage (you then have a negative reading) 

So this week end, in my attempt to get this color information from Wattson, I opened it to  locate the color LEDs and meseared few spots on the PCB to get the signal for generation mode (= GREEN LEDs on).

After removing the 4 rubbers pads, 4 screws are removed, and the back comes off

Negative reading when generation is higher than usage

I can get a good voltage varying when a LED is lit (between 1 to 4V for glowing effect) which could be used maybe with an Arduino board as an input signal and then some programming to trigger relays activating Grid Tie Inverters ...

No more GREEN light = usage is gnow greater than generation

There are 5 groups of 3 LEDs: RED, BLUE, and GREEN to make the different glowing colors (here PURPLE made of a mix of RED & BLUE)