Conext Battery Monitor communicate SOC with Solark via Modbus?

Hello All,

I am working at a university lab where we have installed a Solark 8K Outdoor inverter that will be used for research purposes. Previously, we had a Schneider Conext System installed, but we dismantled it in order to update the lab with newer equipment. However, we did keep the Conext Battery Monitor online. As far as we can tell, the Battery Monitor is pretty accurate with reading the State of Charge from the Blue Ion 2.0 battery bank.

What really interests us is that the Battery Monitor has the ability to send State of Charge data to other devices using Modbus. When talking to Solark Tech Support "Representative A" one time, he said that it is possible to have the Battery Monitor send the SOC data to Solark using the RS485 Battery port. Well, a few weeks later, I got ahold of another "Representative B" who said that he has never heard of this being done and that Solark can't offer support on Modbus integration.

Has anyone every tried to do this or can tell me if it is possible? I have the Modbus maps for both pieces of equipment, and I have the Cat5e cord wired , but I am not sure what to do with the programming once the cord gets connected.

There are several of us on the forum that have worked with the Schneider Modbus interface, I believe I can offer some help having some experience interfacing with both Node-Red and Pymodbus.
The basic communication protocol between Schneider devices is Xanbus which is a partially proprietary version of CAN bus. The devices themselves do not have any external Modbus-RS485 capability.

All the Xanbus data is collected by a communication device, InsightHome or Facility. RS-485 and Modbus TCP functions reside inside the communication device. If you were to connect an InsightHome to the Batt Monitor via the Xanbus ports, it would then be possible to read the Modbus registers using Unit ID (Slave) and Holding Register Address.

Note: the InsightHome optional plug in power supply would be needed as the Batt Monitor does not provide power via Xanbus like the Inverter does.

Thank you, my knowledge on the data communication protocols are still pretty limited. As far as I have been led to believe, Xanbus is a communication protocol between Schneider Conext devices, while Modbus is sort of a "Universal" communication protocol for all electronic devices.

I am just wondering why then, in the Conext Battery Monitor manual, they would provide a Modbus map if it really can only communicate via Xanbus. There is an RS485 wiring port directly behind the Battery Monitor that is separate from the Xanbus port.

See link to Conext Battery Monitor manual: https://solar.se.com/us/wp-content/...y-Monitor-Owners-Guide_975-0691-01-01_ENG.pdf

I don't have a battery monitor on my system and assumed it was like all the other devices and didn't have RS-485 built in such that it could be used as a stand alone device. So much for assumptions!!

SoC is at Register 0x0206, is an unsigned 16bit value. Scale is 1 and offset is zero so its a direct read with no math needed.

According to the quickstart guide the RS485 address is 200 by default and its a RW register at address 0x0600. Not sure why Schneider is so inconsistent, I believe the RS485 address is what Modbus documentatioin would call the Unit ID or Slave ID.
Baud Rate 19200
Parity Even
Stop Bits 1
Byteorder LSB first

The above are the default values but can be changed so if you have problems communicating with the device it may be easier to just do a factory reset rather than try and guess what all the parameters may have been changed to. Although with a reset you would have reenter all operating the set up values again.

Let me know how it works out. The Schneider ComBox and InsightHome both have Modbus TCP also which is what I'm using. I tried the RS485, 2 wire connection with a USB to RS485 adapter and got nowhere.

I decided to give up on this method and go with the Blue Ion 2.0/EGauge communication to Solark via Modbus instead. This is a documented method in the Solark Battery Integration guide. I will make another post on that to share my experience once it is set up. Thanks for the info!