Solar Assistant - EG4 3000 EHV - am I using the correct settings?

[sday]

Greetings. Anyone have experience using Solar Assistant with EG4 3000 EHV. From their website if I'm reading correctly it says use Sumry settings. I bought the Pi pre-installed with SA, plugged in a usb-RJ45 RS232. Pi recognizes the UART but when I connect, SA says, "No response. Retrying..."

any thoughts?

Thanks
-Steve

 

[timselectric]

Try rebooting the Pi.
Unplug the power to it and plug it back in.

 

[sday]

Try rebooting the Pi.
Unplug the power to it and plug it back in.

Thanks, I've tried that. I've tried a different power source, (AC and DC bricks) different USB ports, and two different RS232 UARTS. The wifi dongle that the EG4 comes with works fine. I saw another thread that talked about the UART and high voltage detected on the serial device with the UART heating up to melting temp. I've noticed mine also get very hot pretty quickly so I don't run the test very long. I just ordered a USB passthrough breakout board so I can check some voltages also. I thought the DC brick could be a contender for that given it's coming off a 50+ volt DC battery. But it gets hot quickly off a standard AC brick.

 

[timselectric]

Are you using the USB cable that came with the EG4 unit? It's the only one that will work.

At least, that was the case for my Growatts.

 

[sday]

It came with an RG45 to 9 pin RS232 and the wifi dongle plugs directly into the 9 pin. From the Pi I bought a USB-A to RG45 so I can go direct from Pi to inverter. I was thinking about getting an RS232 that goes USB-A for the Pi side to the 9 pin->RG45 that came with the unit. It should work direct unless EG4 is doing some non-standard wiring. That's what I'm exploring next. I was thinking something like that would have already been fully explored and reported online, but I didn't see anything. I'll report my findings unless someone knows for sure.

thanks for the suggestion.

 

[42OhmsPA]

It came with an RG45 to 9 pin RS232 and the wifi dongle plugs directly into the 9 pin. From the Pi I bought a USB-A to RG45 so I can go direct from Pi to inverter. I was thinking about getting an RS232 that goes USB-A for the Pi side to the 9 pin->RG45 that came with the unit. It should work direct unless EG4 is doing some non-standard wiring. That's what I'm exploring next. I was thinking something like that would have already been fully explored and reported online, but I didn't see anything. I'll report my findings unless someone knows for sure.

thanks for the suggestion.

 

[Pinto Yates]

You’ll need to buy a serial to USB cable with FTDI chipset. It plugs into the gray serial to RS232 cable that came with inverter. Plug the RS232 into inverter and USB end into Pi. At least that’s how I did it after consulting with Pierre ar SA.

 

[sday]

Thank you all for the help. EG4 RS-232 port has a proprietary pinout pattern. Also interesting, and aging myself, I have done a lot of RS-232 programming back in the day... The RS-232 specs call for everything, voltages, pinout patterns for various connectors, etc. I didn't realize specs for the RJ-45 connector never materialized. No wonder it didn't work. Anyway, here are the pinout specs I put together for my project using a cheap USB-A RS-232 to the proprietary EG4 3000 RJ-45 RS-232 port for anyone else stumbling on this thread from a similar problem.

Also, put a quick video together on the topic.

** and a warning. Do not buy a USB to RJ-45 and just plug it into the RS232 port without verifying pins. Because there is no RJ-45 standard for RS-232, you run the real risk of melting something. Ask me how I know. Luckily it only fried my other USB->RJ45 device and the USB port on the Pi it was plugged into. That device melted quick, as in about 30 seconds. I'm lucky the rest of the Pi and the EG4 appear to be fine. Looks like Pin 4 on one side is Vcc and the other is Ground. yikes