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Installation Notes

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wills106 edited this page Sep 23, 2023 · 10 revisions

This guide is aimed at SolaX but gives an idea for other Inverters, there is some other Inverter Specific details listed

Only the SolaX Gen2 & SolaX Gen3 Hybrids have built in Ethernet.

  • (The Qcells Q.VOLT HYB-G3-3P is a SolaX Gen4 despite the G3 naming)

All other inverters do not have a fixed Ethernet or WiFi interface. A pocketLAN or pocketWiFi adapter can be used to connect the inverter to the cloud. The inverter however does not provide the Modbus protocol on its pocket LAN or WiFi interface. Modbus communication must be done through the serial RS485 COM port.

This port is marked COM on the inverter, some user manuals by mistake claim that this is an Ethernet port. DO NOT CONNECT THIS COM PORT TO AN ETHERNET SWITCH - your Ethernet switchport will die if you do !!! The RS485 interface uses only the pin4 (blue wire) and pin5 (white-blue). Polarity matters, so make sure pin4 (blue wire in typical cables) is connected to the A lead of your adapter and pin5 (white-blue wire) to the B lead of your adapter. RS485 cables can be fairly long, so 25 meter or more is possible. You can use the blue pair of a standard cat5 or cat6 cable.

To connect the inverter to your HA, you will need either:

  • A RS485 to Ethernet adapter (cost 25 €) - This is the preferred way
  • A RS485 to USB adapter (cost 2 €) - This is a simple way, but HA may report thousands of warnings "blocking call inside the event loop"

Make sure you verify your inverter's baud rate with the Wiki Page and make sure it matches the baud rate of the Ethernet to RS485 adapter You can confirm the baud rate on the LCD screen on the front of your Inverter, within the Menu's.

The Modbus address be default is 1. Some people have reported that their Modbus address was 4.

In case you can read parameters, but cannot modify them, your inverter is probably still locked. See main README file for more information on how to unlock.

Attention: This work is based on the common protocol documentation for the X1 and X3 device. The documentation is not always clear which parameters do not apply to the X1 inverter, so some of the entities that appear may not have a meaning on X1.

We have tested with following RS485 adapter devices:

Option 1: Waveshare RS485 to ETH (B): (DIN rail mounted model)

image

image

  • connects through Ethernet to your home network router/switch

  • use the "vircom" tool (Windows) to set the IP address matching your lan (or to let the device use DHCP, it does not use DHCP by default)

  • configure it to use "Modbus TCP to RTU", make sure the work mode is "TCP Server" and the server listens to port 502. Make sure the baudrate matches the baudrate of your inverter (see: settings > advanced settings > modbus > baud rate) image

  • In "More Advanced Aettings...",

    • SolaX set Modbus Gateway Type to "Simple Modbus to TCP/IP mode"
    • Sofar Solar & possibly Growatt set Modbus Gateway Type to "Auto query storage type"

image

  • all other parameters can be left default

  • you can verify the config by opening the webpage of your adapter: http://<waveshare_ip_addr>. It should show something like: image

  • In the unlikely case you have multiple inverters connected to one RS485 adapter, you may need to modify the multi-host flag (untested). The system will increase the gap between messages, which will slow down the communication throughput. Make sure your polling interval is long enough (the act led should not light up all the time).

  • if all is well, the PWR LED should be red, the LINK LED should initially be green and become permanently blue as soon as HA has made the connection. The ACT LED should be off most of the time but should flash green (send) and blue (receive) briefly every 15 seconds (the default polling interval). From the waveshare documentation:

  1. If the Link light is not green, the network cable is not connected properly, please check the network cable.
  2. If the Link light is not blue (only consider the TCP working mode), the host computer software does not have a serial port The server establishes a connection, please consider whether the IP address is configured in the same network segment.
  3. If the Active light is green, it means that the network port is sending data, but there is no serial device returning data. Please check whether the baud rate is configured properly and whether the RS485 positive and negative are connected reversely
  • this device seems to have a low power consumption (does not become warm; I did not measure the power)

When configuring the SolaX Modbus integration, specify the network IP address of the Waveshare device, not the address of the SolaX. Do not tick the Serial RS485 flag; the serial port is ignored in this setup.

Multiple inverters connected to one Waveshare adapter

It should be possible to connect multiple inverters to the same Waveshare adapter. The inverters must have different Modbus addresses, so you need to change the Modbus addresses of the inverters first. Then you need to delete your SolaX integration(s) and re-install one instance for each inverter. The configuration dialogue allows you to set the Modbus address.

Option 2: low cost generic USB to RS485 adapter

image image

  • directly USB-connected to your HA system
  • this low cost model can be found in various webshops, search for USB RS485
  • chipset CH340C (similar products with FTDI FT232 chipset should also work but are more expensive)

When configuring the SolaX Modbus Integration, tick the 'RS485 serial port' flag, and specify the actual serial port name (as seen in the output of 'ls /dev/ttyUSB*'). In case you have more than one usb device, it makes sense to use the name seen in the output of 'ls /dev/serial/by-id'. In this setup, the IP address and TCP port do not matter, use 'localhost' as IP address and leave the TCP port default 502.

Other Options: see Compatible RS485 Adapters

Solis Inverters

Those with a socket for a datalogger - e.g., Hybrid models.

The integration could rely on the Modbus TCP supported by some Solis dataloggers. However, there are certain challenges and proposed solutions:

  • DLS-L - compatible - an obsolete datalogger - hard to get, and no longer supported by Solis. There are newer and older models with different support levels. If you have a newer one with a serial number starting 1920xxxxxx, you are lucky in some way. The older ones are likely not to work.
  • S2-WL-ST - compatible - it will stop reporting to Solis Cloud (*) once you configure the integration and start polling data to Home Assistant (and that means any other integration too).
  • DLS-W - not compatible - an obsolete datalogger - you should search for SolarMan-based integrations.
  • S3-WIFI-ST - not compatible - a newer model - works with the Solis Cloud only.
  • You could connect your inverter using any of the Compatible RS485 Adaptors when combined with the female plug Exceedconn EC04681-2023-BF - as there is no datalogger, there will be no Solis Cloud (*) reporting.
  • A combined method of Solis Cloud and Home Assistant using any Datalogger as well as wiring, and how to connect and configure Waveshare devices to work with this integration are described in detail at https://github.com/alienatedsec/solis-ha-modbus-cloud

(*) Disconnecting Solis Cloud is to prevent Solis engineers and your installer to support and monitor your PV installation.

The comparison of functions and dependencies:

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