Sunny Webbox RS485 w/SMA 6048-US

[Consumerbot3418]

ClassicMQTT was about the first thing I got set up with my RPi and it's pretty straightforward thanks to the great Midnite guys, and their forum has good info.

Yep, thanks, I've had ClassicMQTT running for a while, as well.

I was specifically concerned about the Sunny Island being able to communicate with the Midnite directly, as @Hedges alluded to. I don't know how that would work, but if they spoke the SMA protocol for SI Charger, then maybe things would run a bit smoother when it comes to charging stages on the battery. As it stands, the Midnite and SI have their own set points for charging stages, and timers, too. Maybe they could have had some synchronization?

I probably shouldn't waste my time worrying about stuff like this--the PV harvest off the Midnite is negligible, anyway. There's just too much shading from the light towers, and even the other bank of panels.

 

[Hedges]

If Midnight charges to higher voltage than SI wants, SI can be used to backfeed grid.
If SI has data link it tells Midnight charge parameters, and that power won't exceed target battery voltage so no backfeed.

Trailer mount panels shad other trailer mount panels? Tilt to angles where that doesn't occur.
Towers I think you'd want to lower or remove.

 

[Hedges]

Then again, my utility recently told me I can't connect to pass power through AC1 (and charge batteries) unless I go through their net metering process--which means I probably never will.

I don't think anyone can stop you from charging batteries with either grid or solar, and using that power. That is not related to net metering.
What my utility (PG&E) does say is that we can't charge batteries from grid, then backfeed grid with that power. Must be PV only.

But using Sunny Island, as for passing utility power from grid into SI AC2 and out AC1, that hardware configuration would allow backfeed from GT PV or DC coupled PV, but only if enabled in SI.
I do think that AC coupled PV on AC1 should be a concern of a utility, because it then requires UL-1741 protection against backfeeding a broken line. Because the inverter adds its power to utility power, the control/safety is much more sophisticated than a transfer switch.

 

[Consumerbot3418]

If Midnight charges to higher voltage than SI wants, SI can be used to backfeed grid.
If SI has data link it tells Midnight charge parameters, and that power won't exceed target battery voltage so no backfeed.

Thanks for this explanation. Sounds like I don’t really need to worry, then. Midnite produces very little, and curtails output based on voltages I programmed. I might have to play with it a little. I made the stage voltages match, but presently see Midnite in bulk, while SI says float. It just increases the frequency until Sunny Boy curtails output, so no big deal.

Trailer mount panels shad other trailer mount panels? Tilt to angles where that doesn't occur.

Only way to do this is perfectly flat, or else parking north-south, so the panels can point east and west. I don’t have anywhere to park it where trees aren’t casting shade from the west. If I flatten the panels to avoid shading each other, harvest is nearly nil during winter. Better to have one bank tilted.

Towers I think you'd want to lower or remove.

Even fully lowered, they shade the panels. And in a string config, output drops substantially. I think I’ll point the panels southeast, and just remove the tower at the southwest end.

I don't think anyone can stop you from charging batteries with either grid or solar, and using that power. That is not related to net metering.

They are claiming that I cannot connect Sunny Island to their grid AT ALL (even if not configured to back feed) without following their Net Metering process, which includes a drawing, contract, and inspection. I think their claim is safety concerns, but the cynic in me thinks they just want to put up roadblocks to minimize profit loss to solar. @cgreen started a thread on this subject one day after I got a call from them, and I’m on the same utility. His inverter isn’t UL1741, though, so I can somewhat appreciate the utility’s concern.

I doubt they have the authority to tell me what I’m allowed to plug in to their grid, unless it’s feeding in. Certainly they’d have no way of knowing, but I’ll respect their wishes, and see if I can challenge the policy.

 

[sgtcrumb]

I have a question for those of you that installed the RS485 piggy back card in the Sunny Island. The piggy back card (model 485PB-G3), has two connection ports. One is 2x7, and the second is 2x5. My Sunny Island (6048-US-10) has connection ports of 2x7 and 2x6, respectively (see attached pic). I took another look at the Sunny Island manual, p63, and it does show the Sunny Island with connection ports of 2x7 and 2x6 which matches mine. Did you plug the 5-pin port of the piggy-back card into the 6-pin port of the Sunny Island? Or does your Sunny Island have a 2x5-pin port? Or does your piggy-back card have a 2x6-pin port? The SI-485PB-NR manual shows the Sunny Island with a 2x5 port, rather than a 2x6 port, which makes me think there are Sunny Islands with the 2x5 pin port.

Thanks!

Ref: https://files.sma.de/downloads/SI-485PB-NR-US_en_es-10.pdf

 

[Consumerbot3418]

I have a question for those of you that installed the RS485 piggy back card in the Sunny Island. The piggy back card (model 485PB-G3), has two connection ports. One is 2x7, and the second is 2x5. My Sunny Island (6048-US-10) has connection ports of 2x7 and 2x6, respectively (see attached pic). I took another look at the Sunny Island manual, p63, and it does show the Sunny Island with connection ports of 2x7 and 2x6 which matches mine. Did you plug the 5-pin port of the piggy-back card into the 6-pin port of the Sunny Island? Or does your Sunny Island have a 2x5-pin port? Or does your piggy-back card have a 2x6-pin port? The SI-485PB-NR manual shows the Sunny Island with a 2x5 port, rather than a 2x6 port, which makes me think there are Sunny Islands with the 2x5 pin port.

Thanks!

Ref: https://files.sma.de/downloads/SI-485PB-NR-US_en_es-10.pdf

I wish I thought about snapping a photo before plugging the module in, but I can tell you that I've got the same model Sunny Islands (6048-US-10 on a DC Solar trailer), and the 485PB-G3 installed in it. I can't say with 100% certainty, but I'm pretty sure there were two unused pins on the smaller port.

 

[daklein]

Here's what mine looks like. The SI has 7 and 6 wide sockets, and the piggyback uses 7 and 5. There are different pb cards, but I think this style fits the SI and similar vintage sunny boy pv inverters.

 

[sgtcrumb]

Thank you. I can see there are two unused pins in the photo @daklein posted.

 

[ChrisFullPower]

Right, may not work for everything. I have only the SI 6048US master and an rs485-usb adapter to RPi on the rs485 bus, and it works at 19200. I haven't tried faster than 4 seconds update rate with yasdi2mqtt (it works at 4 sec and that's fast enough for what I want), but before I was using 14sec update rate and even that was not always completing and it would skip data.

I'm having issues getting yasdi2mqtt to work at 19200. Works great at 1200 but not 9600 or 19200! It seems to never connect to the Sunny Island.

I'm getting this over and over:

Not all devices are online, starting device detection (async)...

Something has always been a little screwy with my yasdi2mqtt.... It publishes 2 messages back to back (MQTT Explorer says 0.22 sec apart) then waits 12 - 20ish seconds for the next.

 

[Ai4px]

I'm having issues getting yasdi2mqtt to work at 19200. Works great at 1200 but not 9600 or 19200! It seems to never connect to the Sunny Island.

I'm getting this over and over:

Not all devices are online, starting device detection (async)...

My neighbor and I are working on getting to the SMA inverter via canbus. It's much easier. At this moment we're reading a victron smart shunt and sending SOC and some voltages over CANBUS. He's working on JSON messages over wifi via MQTT.

 

[ChrisFullPower]

My neighbor and I are working on getting to the SMA inverter via canbus. It's much easier. At this moment we're reading a victron smart shunt and sending SOC and some voltages over CANBUS. He's working on JSON messages over wifi via MQTT.

I've thought about that and I may do both. yasdi exposes so many parameters and I dont think it advertises as many on canbus. I may just use the can messages for the fast refresh and just live with the slower refresh for the rest.

 

[daklein]

I've thought about that and I may do both. yasdi exposes so many parameters and I dont think it advertises as many on canbus. I may just use the can messages for the fast refresh and just live with the slower refresh for the rest.

That's my philosophy. I'm using both. The CAN has a few signals at a fast rate that I could figure out (freq is good for turning on more loads if starting to curtail solar), but not other required signals (battery current for example). That's in FLA mode, in Li battery mode there is probably everything you need on the CAN bus. The 485 bus with yasdi has everything, a little slower rate, but it still does work at 19200 and something like 4 second rate, that's fast enough by itself.

 

[ChrisFullPower]

That's my philosophy. I'm using both. The CAN has a few signals at a fast rate that I could figure out (freq is good for turning on more loads if starting to curtail solar), but not other required signals (battery current for example). That's in FLA mode, in Li battery mode there is probably everything you need on the CAN bus. The 485 bus with yasdi has everything, a little slower rate, but it still does work at 19200 and something like 4 second rate, that's fast enough by itself.

I've been playing with it all morning and can't get mine to work on any other rate besides 1200 baud and a 10 second rate.... is there something else that needs changed?

*Edit* Never mind. I’m an idiot. There’s a setting on the inverter.

 

[ChrisFullPower]

I've been playing with it all morning and can't get mine to work on any other rate besides 1200 baud and a 10 second rate.... is there something else that needs changed?

*Edit* Never mind. I’m an idiot. There’s a setting on the inverter.

Got it going at 19200 and 5 sec refresh and my messages are coming in every 7 - 10 seconds! Which is better, but still think I'm going to set up a can2mqtt converter when I get time.

 

[yokayzn]

My neighbor and I are working on getting to the SMA inverter via canbus. It's much easier. At this moment we're reading a victron smart shunt and sending SOC and some voltages over CANBUS. He's working on JSON messages over wifi via MQTT.

Please share a screen dump of you raw CAN messages, the messages I receive doesn't match the SMA manual and would like to compare with someone else, see attached.

 

[yokayzn]

@daklein, does this look like your can dump when the SI was in FLA mode?

 

[daklein]

@daklein, does this look like your can dump when the SI was in FLA mode?

@yokayzn Here's what some of my raw messages look like. I'm using FLA mode, my forklift batteries are fine just keep floating & silent mode to handle any big loads for shorter time frames, and I have some other lithium banks that cycle to handle most of energy storage.

The file has some sections of messages and various notes about figuring out some signals. I was using python-can from github which has a viewer that shows just the last value of each message. The messages have a variety of refresh rates. At the end of the file are the message variable scalings that I could figure out. Later I got yasdi working over rs485, and between CAN and rs485, I get everything I want.

It should be possible to change some settings over rs485 with yasdi, and I've done it manually with a yasdi terminal program, but it hasn't made it high enough up my wish list to do anything automatically with the RPi yet. It would be handy but, it's not bad to walk out there and manually connect or not connect to the grid, vs. leaving it in auto with the SOC thresholds that usually make it do what I want.

 

[yokayzn]

@daklein, thanks, still not getting any other can ID besides 0x01 & 0x07. I am starting to believe its a firmware limitation on the 5048 240v version.

 

[solar3000]

El puente entre 5 y 6 coincide con las instrucciones, probablemente completa la conexión de 100 ohmios (más o menos) entre 1 y 4.

View attachment 106511

View attachment 106512

No encuentro mención de los puentes relacionados con RS-485 en los manuales de Sunny Boy o 485PB... aquí está, en el "plan de cableado"

View attachment 106514

Además, el manual SI6048US tiene la siguiente imagen.
Creo que esto indica que el puente A es la resistencia terminal y los puentes B y C son los que suben/bajan.
Utilice DMM para verificar el voltaje entre Data+/Data- y de ellos a tierra. Tal vez la energía/tierra sea de 5 V, tal vez sea de 12 V. Las líneas de datos estarían separadas por aproximadamente el 10% de eso. Pullup/down los mantiene a ese voltaje, y las unidades con cable los jalan para invertir la polaridad. Las resistencias los hacen retroceder. Los terminadores, por supuesto, vienen reflejos. Si no puede encontrar un lugar para los puentes de polarización de señal y las líneas de datos están separadas por aproximadamente 0 V, entonces, si puede determinar qué terminal es el voltaje positivo correcto, podría agregar un par de resistencias.


View attachment 106513


Valores de resistencia sugeridos en Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-485


"Verde/blanco=Datos+, Verde=Datos-, Naranja=Tierra".

Parece que tienes datos+ y datos- entrelazados en tus cables, que es lo que estaba buscando. Copiar colores del cable de 3 hilos de SMA debería hacerlo.

¿Quiere decir que puede cambiar Sunny Boy y Sunny Island para que funcionen a 19200 baudios?
Entendí que se requerían 1200 baudios porque los esclavos SMA tenían una velocidad de datos fija.

Desde su enlace, alguien dice que el SB5000-TL-22 funciona más rápido. Puede que no se aplique a mis modelos más antiguos.

Manual de caja web:

Velocidad de baudios predeterminada
Si no todos los dispositivos funcionan con la configuración típica de velocidad en baudios de SMA de 1200 baudios,
Pueden ocurrir problemas de comunicación. Cambie la velocidad en baudios a 1200 baudios, si es necesario.
Cambie la velocidad en baudios de 1 200 baudios únicamente cuando sea absolutamente necesario.
"1200" Todos los dispositivos SMA
"9600" Reservado para futuros desarrollos
"19200" Reservado para futuros desarrollos

¡Hola! Tengo una instalación Off Grid formada por un Sunny island y un Sunny Boy conectados por Webbox, junto con un grupo electrógeno de respaldo. Para monitorizar la instalación utilice el protocolo modbus. Este protocolo me permite leer datos de forma periódica. Ahora, quiero escribir en sus registros diariamente para podificar el %Dod Inf, %Dod Sup y el valor de corriente de carga de baterías ( 128 InvChrgCurMax). Para este último parámetro, la dirección que aparece en el documento de MODBUS es incorrecta: https://studylib.net/doc/25277802/webbox-modbus-tb-en-19

hobado a modificar este valor a través de un servidor FTP, pero en el repositorio de archivos no aparece un archivo para poder modificar este valor.

¿Podéis ayudarme con cualquiera de las dos opciones? Con una versión más nueva del archivo MODBUS de Webbox o con descargar el archivo FTP de la configuración de Sunny Island.

GRACIAS

 

[kommando]

You can access the SI6048 with a PC using a RS485 USB adaptor and using the Sunny Data Control program on the PC, use the RS485 connections on the SI6048. There is no FTP access directly into the SI6048 only RS485.

SDC 3.93

https://files.sma.de/downloads/Sunny%20Data%20Control_3.93.exe

The installer login so you can change parameters is username inst password ID00(Day+month+year) so todays password is ID00(27+9+23) = ID0059