schroederjd
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Based on the specs from the original link, it looks like your BMS has both CAN and RS485 communication ports. Have you tinkered with those at all?
Heltec (JK) 200A Smart BMS with 2A Active Balance
- Thread starter ArthurEld
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ArthurEld
Solar Wizard
You have to pay extra for those capabilities. I have not done anything with CAN or RS485.
I think there are people here who have though.
schroederjd
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Interesting. I was considering purchasing one of the Heltec/JK 2A active balancers (ebay) for my 16s pack. The plan would be to send the voltage data to a microcontroller through the RS485 port, and then have the MCU perform all the protection functions via external relays. Maybe my assumption that these devices come 'pre-loaded' with a RS485 communication protocol is incorrect. I've emailed a couple of the vendors to see if they will provide the comms protocol with the balancer. We'll see what they say.
I've attached the protocol to this post.
As far as I know they come with the capability built in, you just need an adapter to USB or whatever you want to hook it up to.
As far as I know they come with the capability built in, you just need an adapter to USB or whatever you want to hook it up to.
schroederjd
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OUTSTANDING!!! I imagine it will take days, if not weeks, for those vendors to get back to me on this, so you just cut a bit chunk of time out of my decision making process.
Thanks!
https://diysolarforum.com/resources/rs-485-heltec-jk-bms.140/ --> second RS485 document with more details. It's for their stand alone balancer, but the protocol is similar.
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By the way, I'm working on this:
So as soon as I have this finished I'll put the code up to Github which will include the communication code with the BMS.
So as soon as I have this finished I'll put the code up to Github which will include the communication code with the BMS.
ArthurEld
Solar Wizard
I've been trying not to get sidetracked by custom software. But it interests me
I have the JK BMS (2a active balancer model) and I would like to be able to monitor the BMS remotely, I can see no way of configuring alarms and having them emailed/pushed? While I wait for an answer from JK, I was going to leave a phone in my solar cabinet to run the app and remote in to it, but the app only seems to run on my S10 and not my spare S7 edge (Android 8).
My 2 questions;
- Has anyone had success running it on older hardware? I tried Bluestacks 4 and 5 also without success.
- Is there a way to configure alarms to be emailed/pushed in any way?
I'm quite happy with the BMS otherwise.
Cheers
My 2 questions;
- Has anyone had success running it on older hardware? I tried Bluestacks 4 and 5 also without success.
- Is there a way to configure alarms to be emailed/pushed in any way?
I'm quite happy with the BMS otherwise.
Cheers
If you see check my post a few posts up, you can see the BMS has an RS-485 option and the protocol is available. I'm working on integrating it with Grafana, but you could use it to implement anything you want. Grafana also allows email alerts etc. A plus point is that you don't have to rely on a (sometimes flaky) Bluetooth connection.
Am I understanding it correctly, I must disassemble the case to access the port? I do not have any more external ports visible, the temp probes take up the last slot.
I wonder what model you have. Mine has two ports underneath the temperature sensor connector for CAN and RS485.
Should be the same. Check it out when you have time.
Sanwizard
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Mine looks like this. There are two ports below the sensor connections. This is a Heltec 200 amp with 2 amp active balance.
Attachments
Yep that looks like mine, so I'd say I'll have the ports too.
Can we buy the 485 cable or do we need to make one up?
Is the work above using Grafana the only work being done on working with RS485 on this BMS?
Watch Power (MPP Inverters) has a desktop and a phone App for example.
Can we buy the 485 cable or do we need to make one up?
Is the work above using Grafana the only work being done on working with RS485 on this BMS?
Watch Power (MPP Inverters) has a desktop and a phone App for example.
Sanwizard
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There are RS485 to USB cables available on Amazon if your looking to use a PC.
There is also another guy writing some cool stuff for the MPP 5048 line, but its buried in my youtube history somewhere. You might just want to peruse GITHUB.com, as thats where folks upoad their open source code.
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