wpns
Solar Joules are catch and release
That about the METER485 interface? It looks like that's separate, so maybe https://www.waveshare.com/rs485-to-eth-b.htm (which can apparently do MQTT natively) would allow SA/HA integration using COTS stuff?
EG4 6000XP/18Kpv Custom RS485 Dongle Connector
- Thread starter jsmithtx
- Start date
I would rather connect to the internal RS485 port than the external HDMI one, but in general I would like to voice support for getting a direct rs485 connection working with luxpower inverters (I use eg4 6000xp).
A quick comment -- I noticed that with the wifi dongle trying to set 'charge mode' to 'disable' in the inverter settings causes the coms with my inverter (over wif) to time out completely. At first I thought it was just the usual flakey-ness of the wifi connection, but it seems to happen quite repeatably. Setting to any other mode works fine. Also tried the new SA beta firmware (4-16) but got the same behavior. Did you ever notice this?
A quick comment -- I noticed that with the wifi dongle trying to set 'charge mode' to 'disable' in the inverter settings causes the coms with my inverter (over wif) to time out completely. At first I thought it was just the usual flakey-ness of the wifi connection, but it seems to happen quite repeatably. Setting to any other mode works fine. Also tried the new SA beta firmware (4-16) but got the same behavior. Did you ever notice this?
You can do RS485 wirelessly or on wired ethernet. I use EW11's from HiFlying for RS485 comms to two inverters 20m away from the house, they are powered from the mains feed to the inverter and connect to the wifi. At the other end you can use Modbus TCP or another EW11 to convert back to RS485 RTU and then RS485 to USB but they also do a a virtual serial port using software too which I use.
I'm interested in learning more about how you're doing this. I'll be reaching out to you at a later date.
Can somebody point me to the rs485 connector on the 6000xp? it doesn't look like the board diagram above which must be the 18kpv. The board has this green on white lettering referencing P1 and P2 but which of the RJ45 plugs is it talking about? Surely not BatCom or you couldn't also talk to your batteries. Surely not the parallel ports for inter-inverter communication.. The manual references "these two pins" but doesn't say which ones.
Adam De Lay
Solar Wizard
I’m not sure if it’s referencing the top two ports or not.
The “pins” it’s talking about are P1 and 2. Pin 1 on the RJ45 is rs485A and Pin 2 is rs485B.
I know the BattCom can use Rs485.
This post by @marionw seems to suggest the rs485 pins to interrogate the inverter itself are in fact in the battery comms jack. I guess I'll give that a try unless anyone else knows for sure? And does the modbus address have to be set by modbus command? I found a post where it is accessible via the front display on the 18kpv but I can't find any such setting on the 6000xp
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Adam De Lay
Solar Wizard
I’m not aware of any place in the UI/monitoring site for the 6000xp where you can set a Modbus address.
wpns
Solar Joules are catch and release
Sorry, it's not in the 6000XP manual, what are those push-in terminals on the lower right of your picture? In the 18Kpv it's a terminal block below the RJ45 connectors (see g. below):
wpns
Solar Joules are catch and release
Do you even know if you are supposed to have an RS485 meter port?
yes according to section 8.2 above of the manual and the 6000xp modbus manual it has modbus over rs485... they just did a poor job in the manual of explaining where the physical interface is. And it would have been much better to provide direct terminal blocks like the 18kpv vs expecting us to splice it into an rj45 somewhere.
wpns
Solar Joules are catch and release
Does it use the same WiFi interface dongle? If so, look for a recent thread on an HDMI(*) to USB interface someone’s roommate was trying to productize.
(*) Yes, they use an HDMI connector.
You won’t be able to use the WiFi dongle at the same time as the adapter, so be aware of that.
ksmithaz1
Solar / EV Junkie
(g) works fine.
ksmithaz1
Solar / EV Junkie
It's settable on the panel display, mine are set to id's 5 and 6. I'm connected to (g).
wpns
Solar Joules are catch and release
What software are you using to talk to it? I've built something very basic in Python with MinimalModbus that returns some numbers, so I'm pretty sure I have the port (/dev/ttyACM0) and baud rate (19200) right, but the numbers I'm getting don't make any sense, and HotNoob's PythonProtocolGateway crashes. I'm clearly doing something wrong!
