How did you get your EG4 6500EX Wi-Fi to work

[Dinobot248]

Another newbie question.

I finished setting up the EG4 6500 and connected one battery for a mock setup.

I know it’s a royal pain to get the Wi-Fi to work / connect on the EG4 6500. Been at it for over an hour.

I can get to the step of providing my Wi-Fi name and password but when going to the next step, the inverter cannot connect and establish a connection. I get the familiar diagram with the 4 big red X’s

Please share any tips on how you got it to work.

 

[Zapper77]

Another newbie question.

I finished setting up the EG4 6500 and connected one battery for a mock setup.

I know it’s a royal pain to get the Wi-Fi to work / connect on the EG4 6500. Been at it for over an hour.

I can get to the step of providing my Wi-Fi name and password but when going to the next step, the inverter cannot connect and establish a connection. I get the familiar diagram with the 4 big red X’s

Please share any tips on how you got it to work.

Are you using your phone Hotspot?
Is your router blocking new connections?

 

[Samsonite801]

Another newbie question.

I finished setting up the EG4 6500 and connected one battery for a mock setup.

I know it’s a royal pain to get the Wi-Fi to work / connect on the EG4 6500. Been at it for over an hour.

I can get to the step of providing my Wi-Fi name and password but when going to the next step, the inverter cannot connect and establish a connection. I get the familiar diagram with the 4 big red X’s

Please share any tips on how you got it to work.

If your router in the house has 2.4 and 5 GHz combined (use same SSID for both frequencies), there is usually an option to split them into separate SSIDs, and for me I find better chances of connecting devices (especially older legacy 2.4GHz clients) to these type of N-routers when they are split band.

Example...


Instead of SSID:

MyHomeNetwork



Split, it might look like:

MyHomeNetwork_2.4_GHz

MyHomeNetwork_5_GHz

 

[Dinobot248]

Router is set for DHCP. The 2.4 and 5 ghz have different names. I was connecting to the 2.4 ghz ssid.

Not to hijack my own thread but I tried the serial cable and downloaded watchtower from the MPP site since I could not copy the installation file from the provided CD. I have the app installed on my laptop but cant find a way to initiate a connection to the inverter.

 

[Samsonite801]

Router is set for DHCP. The 2.4 and 5 ghz have different names. I was connecting to the 2.4 ghz ssid.

Not to hijack my own thread but I tried the serial cable and downloaded watchtower from the MPP site since I could not copy the installation file from the provided CD. I have the app installed on my laptop but cant find a way to initiate a connection to the inverter.

I don't know about using the serial for uses other than doing FW updates (since I helped two neighbors do upgrades on their 6500EX's), not saying it isn't possible, only that I haven't personally tried anything else with the serial cable other than firmware updates...


On the WiFi, did you try turning off the WPA2 auth (temporarily for a test), to see if it could then connect? I ask because I have another neighbor on our co-op who has a 6000EX and he couldn't connect his WiFi with his current router unless he turned off the password auth (and then connecting WiFi client with no password)..

So I think his next goal is playing with WiFi extenders to see if he can find one that can work with the WPA2 client enabled on the inverter WiFi, and then connect that extender to his router. I need to follow up with him again and see if he ever found the permanent solution, since he wanted to have his WiFi locked down (of course).

Might also be able to use a Guest WiFi network if the router supports that...

 

[wildbillpdx]

I have a new 6000ex which I recently connected to my WiFi. My SSID is for both 2.4 and 5gHz, not split. I use WPA2 and it was able to connect, with a few attempts. Based on that I suspect some other issue. Perhaps a poor signal? Incorrect SSID or password? Special characters in SSID or password?

 

[PunchySunshine]

It was a while ago for me but best I remember it was a matter of switching networks on the tablet. It wasn't intuitive and I had my wife reading the manual for me. Took us just over an hour for both 6500ex inverters to get setup but they've been online ever since. The watchpower app is decent for checking in. I use DESSmonitor for more detailed reports when needed. The same credentials work for both easy peasy once you're setup.

 

[42OhmsPA]

Stop wasting your time and buy Solar Assistant... I wasted hours with watchpower...

 

[Adam De Lay]

It was a royal pain to get the WiFi connected. I had to just keep retrying over and over. Eventually it finally connected.

As far as using the PC version of WatchPower, I know it's possible, I just haven't used it in a while to remember what I had to do in order to get the data to show up. I wana say you had to set the COM port in the program and then log in. I wana say the password was just "administrator".

I will second the suggestion though about just skipping and moving to Solar Assistant.

 

[Quattrohead]

Use smartESS app, the one they have you try and use is absolute junk.

 

[Dinobot248]

Thanks

I'll give SmartESS a try when I get home.

I watched the YouTube video on Solar Assistant and my OCD self likes it very much. Eventually, I will get it if no other app is working.

 

[Dinobot248]

Thank you, thank you all

Finally got the EG4 6500EX connected to the WatchPowe App !!


Not sure what actually did the trick but here is a quick list.

- Upgraded firmware to latest
- Daisy chained an old router (100Mbit style)
- Used weaker wifi security eg wpa personal
- simple password
- Forced DHCP range to be 192.168.x.2 - 5. Yes its a small range. The app said check to see if IP is between 1 and 5 (I'm paraphrasing).


You know you are on the right path when the Watch Power app ask if it can join your network