I am about to buy solar electric and my installer has proposed on Xantrex GT inverter. I'd like to get info from the inverter for use with my home automation system (www.liamsite.net is my house's URL). Ideally, what I need is a text file that is periodically created with info about the system. I could work with other files potentially.

After some research, it seems there are two ways to go. SG view and an RS-232 connection (I'm assuming there's a wiring diagram somewhere to show the pin-out of the inverter), or Xantrex offers a "Xantrex Communications Gateway" which works with a Yahoo widget on your desktop. Integrating to the gateway is non-obvious. Any suggestions out there? Does SG-View produce a text file on a periodic basis?

Much thanks.

The Xantrex gateway is an expensive way ( ~500 bucks ) to gather data and doesn't provide all the information SG-View does. The Xantrex gateway also require yahoo widgets to view the data, I personal don't like this approach.

SG-View is free and its a simple straight thru 3 wire RS232 connection. SG-View has full logging ability to a text file, fully user configurable to any disk or network location. SG-View also has the ability to auto upload via FTP a auto screen capture so remote viewing is simple as viewing the png file. many people have simple web-pages that just display the png file to monitor performance data

If you download from the Xantrex site GT-View, you can read the manual on the feature set, SG-View does everything GT-View does plus has more features and support for the larger inverters ( GT4.0/GT5.0)