Unable to Connect to Waveshare RS485 to RJ45 to Inverters in Parallel

[gerd091986]

Hi All,

I recently thought I has another solution in using the Pocketwifi to control my Inverters but unfortunatly I have learned it's not stable enough.

I've been pulling my hair out trying to get this to work but have not been sucessfull, happy to buy coffee or make a donation for someones help with this.

Home assistant is on 192.168.86.58 as a static ip on port 8123
Waveshare inverter is on: 192.168.86.59 port 502
Solax Wifi is on: 192.168.86.41 

• When I connect to the Solax Wifi dongle everything works fine, 256 entities and complete control

• When I am in Home assistant and set everything up, as soon as I click submit, the light goes blue on the waveshare device and it looks to connect, 23 seconds later the blue light goes out. in Viacom when the blue light comes on it states TCP connection is established, but Viacom status is not linked. So it looks like it is connecting but not properly, I get 1 device and 4 entities.

• There is no firewall to configure, my home assistant runs on a raspberry pi and home assistant OS is the operating system, correct me if I'm wrong

• Router - I have mapped the Waveshare port on 192.168.86.59 from 502 > 8123 so the home assistant can pick it up. Not sure if this was the right thing to do but Waveshare told me to make sure the ports are open etc

• Home Assistant - It's working correctly when connected to the Solax Pocket wifi, so it's configured correctly

• I have contacted SolaX to see if I need to enable anything and they have said there is nothing specific to setup or enable on the inverter

• I have restarted the inverters, Home Assistant and Waveshare device and it's still not working.

I have read through all the Wiki and discussions and I can't find a solution, any help would be greatly appreciated.

[gerd091986]

I have checked the logs after reading another post and it's definatly the connection to the Waveshare as it doesnt get a serial number as per 502

unrecognized inverter type - serial number : unknown
11:23:34 AM – (ERROR) SolaX Inverter Modbus (custom integration)
SolaX: cannot find serial number, even not for MIC
11:23:34 AM – (ERROR) SolaX Inverter Modbus (custom integration)
SolaX: reading serial number from address 0x0 failed; other address may succeed
11:23:34 AM – (WARNING) SolaX Inverter Modbus (custom integration) - message first occurred at 11:23:29 AM and shows up 2 times

[gerd091986]

Bases on this thread I have tried to swap the pins.

Now I have the Red light on, green middle and last light Blue permanently, but now get more errors errors:

Connection to (192.168.86.1, 502) failed: [Errno 111] Connection refused
11:49:55 AM – (ERROR) SolaX Inverter Modbus (custom integration)
Connection to (192.168.86.1, 502) failed: [Errno 111] Connection refused
11:49:40 AM – (ERROR) SolaX Inverter Modbus (custom integration)
unrecognized inverter type - serial number : unknown
11:49:40 AM – (ERROR) SolaX Inverter Modbus (custom integration) - message first occurred at 11:23:34 AM and shows up 3 times
SolaX: cannot find serial number, even not for MIC
11:49:40 AM – (ERROR) SolaX Inverter Modbus (custom integration) - message first occurred at 11:23:34 AM and shows up 3 times
SolaX: reading serial number from address 0x0 failed; other address may succeed
11:49:40 AM – (WARNING) SolaX Inverter Modbus (custom integration) - message first occurred at 11:23:29 AM and shows up 6 times
SolaX: attempt to read serialnumber failed at 0x0 data: None
11:49:40 AM – (WARNING) SolaX Inverter Modbus (custom integration) - message first occurred at 11:49:40 AM and shows up 2 times
Connection to (192.168.86.1, 502) failed: [Errno 111] Connection refused
11:49:40 AM – (ERROR) SolaX Inverter Modbus (custom integration) - message first occurred at 11:49:40 AM and shows up 2 times

Swapped back the pins as I don't think this helped.

[cleveHEX]

I don't have any personal experience with this device, but can you set Modbus Gateway Type to "Simple Modbus to TCP/IP mode"?
I might be very off then pardon me, but it does not match imho:

[cleveHEX]

I source the info from the repo wiki, what are the other options (screenshot would be nice)? Is there an exact option to select as I provided?

[gerd091986]

No exact option as you described.

On this web interface:

On Viacom:

[gerd091986]

The other option in Viacom if this helps:

[cleveHEX]

My last guess is to try

when setting up the integration. If it does not help, someone else will have to step in, as I have ran out of ideas.

[gerd091986]

Tried that again and still, I get the blue light for 30sec and then goes green.

Thank you for all your help trying @cewbdex I really appreciate it.

I will keep reading and trying, I'm sure I will get there in the end.

[gerd091986]

Also I am recieving the short Green ACT periods mentioned here

[gerd091986]

[cleveHEX]

The barcode contains your serial number and edit history is public, you need to delete this post if you want your inverter SN remain private.

[gerd091986]

Thank you.

Lets try that again:

[gerd091986]

Waveshare suggested updating the firmware of the device, here is the latest firmware if anyone needs it:

1.490 firmware

I updated the firmware on the Waveshare device, turned the inverters completely off, waited 10min and then turned them back on.

Still when connecting via Home Assistant I only get 4 devices and the blue light for 30 seconds which then goes off and doesnt come back on.

If anyone has any further ideas I'm all ears, otherwise I will keep digging.

[wills106]

• Router - I have mapped the Waveshare port on 192.168.86.59 from 502 > 8123 so the home assistant can pick it up. Not sure if this was the right thing to do but Waveshare told me to make sure the ports are open etc

Connection to (192.168.86.1, 502) failed: [Errno 111] Connection refused
11:49:55 AM – (ERROR) SolaX Inverter Modbus (custom integration)

That combination won't work. If you have managed to route your port 502 on the waveshare to 8123 and you are pointing the Integration at 502 that won't match up.

I would remove any firewall rules you have setup and start from the beginning.

Let the Integration point to port 502.
Might be worth doing a factory reset on the Waveshare.
Modbus Gateway Type to "Simple Modbus to TCP/IP mode"
Integration connects with "The Modbus TCP variant" as "Modbus TCP"
Do you actually have more than one Inverter connected together? If you only have one there is no point in setting "Parallel Mode (Master-Slave)"

[gerd091986]

Just looking at this error in more detail:

This error originated from a custom integration.

Logger: pymodbus.logging
Source: custom_components/solax_modbus/init.py:350
Integration: SolaX Inverter Modbus (documentation, issues)
First occurred: November 9, 2023 at 11:49:55 AM (32 occurrences)
Last logged: 10:14:39 AM

Connection to (192.168.86.1, 502) failed: [Errno 111] Connection refused
Unable to decode response Modbus Error: Unknown response 57
Modbus IO exception Modbus Error: [Input/Output] Unable to decode request
Connection to (192.168.86.59, 502) failed: [Errno 113] Host is unreachable
Connection to (192.168.86.59, 502) failed: timed out

Connection to (192.168.86.1, 502) failed: [Errno 111] Connection refused

Thats my wifi router IP address that's refusing the connection, will look into why this might happen more.

[wills106]

I didn't notice that, I was just focusing on the port number.

[gerd091986]

Added Port Forwarding for the Waveshare Device 502 >502, this error is gone:

Connection to (192.168.86.1, 502) failed: [Errno 111] Connection refused

Left with:

unrecognized inverter type - serial number : unknown
11:05:22 AM – (ERROR) SolaX Inverter Modbus (custom integration)
SolaX: cannot find serial number, even not for MIC
11:05:22 AM – (ERROR) SolaX Inverter Modbus (custom integration)
SolaX: reading serial number from address 0x0 failed; other address may succeed
11:05:22 AM – (WARNING) SolaX Inverter Modbus (custom integration) - message first occurred at 11:05:17 AM and shows up 2 times

Connection still not being established.

Removed port forwarding for Waveshare device and added it for 502>502 for Home Assistant (Because I have no idea what I'm doing and trying everything)this error is gone:

Connection to (192.168.86.1, 502) failed: [Errno 111] Connection refused

I'm left with:

unrecognized inverter type - serial number : unknown
11:11:14 AM – (ERROR) SolaX Inverter Modbus (custom integration)
SolaX: cannot find serial number, even not for MIC
11:11:14 AM – (ERROR) SolaX Inverter Modbus (custom integration)
SolaX: reading serial number from address 0x0 failed; other address may succeed
11:11:14 AM – (WARNING) SolaX Inverter Modbus (custom integration) - message first occurred at 11:11:09 AM and shows up 2 times

Removed the Port Forwarding rules an that error didnt come up again, only got these errors:

unrecognized inverter type - serial number : unknown
11:13:26 AM – (ERROR) SolaX Inverter Modbus (custom integration)
SolaX: cannot find serial number, even not for MIC
11:13:26 AM – (ERROR) SolaX Inverter Modbus (custom integration)
SolaX: reading serial number from address 0x0 failed; other address may succeed
11:13:26 AM – (WARNING) SolaX Inverter Modbus (custom integration) - message first occurred at 11:13:21 AM and shows up 2 times

Seems like a red herring, will stop going down this path.

[wills106]

Just want to double check you are connecting your Waveshare to the COM Port RS485 and not the Modbus Power Meter RS485 or the Inverter link up RS485?

[gerd091986]

I think I'm connected to the right port, the Com/LCD port.

[gerd091986]

Disconnected the Slave battery and all 256 entities came up.

Something to do with connecting a slave then, now time to reconenct the slave without losing the connection.

[gerd091986]

1. Changed Main Inverter to be Master and connection stayed.
2. Connected communication cable between Master and Slave
3. Turned on Slave - Lost everything

[gerd091986]

Yes it is, I called Solax and they checked that the batteries are on the same firmware etc. which they are.

They then said, they dont think Modbus is supported in parallel, I told them it's working on Pocket Wifi, they said they will send it over to the R&D department for more infomation.

I'm interested if anyone with a Parallel setup has managed to get this to work....

[gerd091986]

Looks like I'm out of luck....

Dear customer,

I just got a reply from the R&D department. They say that Modbus connection is not an option when the inverter is in parallel mode. Sorry for the waiting time and the inconvenience.

Best Regards,

[cleveHEX]

Interesting reply. I know one guy that had parallel-slave setup and he contacted me that he uses modbus adapter on master and he does not see most entities from the slave and we concluded that the information is not passed from slave to master and he needs to connect the second inverter too. But we weren't in contact since and I don't know the results. I don't remember which inverter he used, only that it was probably G4.

[gerd091986]

They were lying....

Just change the Modbus address from 1 to 2 on the slave. Big thanks to @fxstein for this comment that got me there.

I will stop annoying everyone now!

[cleveHEX]

How could it work before in parallel mode, when they had the same addresses? I hope you installed the inverters yourself and it was not some company who did the mistake.

[gerd091986]

Parallel is done over a seperate hardwired connection cable, no options there, it sorts itself out, just one setting to change on each inverter. Has been working fine for a year and it doesnt say anywhere you need to change the Modbus address.

Modbus has it's connection through the COM/LCD port and it's own settings, one of which is the address. I should have thought sooner to change the address from 1 to 2 on the slave so they are not the same.

[cleveHEX]

So it's your work? If so, it's fine, SolaX does not really provide proper public documentation IMHO, but a company has to know.
Made #626, so it could help people like you in future.

[gerd091986]

Yes my work, a company installed the system a year ago in parallel but did not connect the modbus.

I'm doing the Modbus connection and setup myself.

Thanks for adding that to the FAQ!