@Shovelhead same as @ChasakisD my MKG-300C also has an unsoldered PQE connector. No matter what I try, I can’t get any response from the XYE port using an RS-485 → USB adapter on my Windows laptop.
I’ve tested with CoolTerm, RealTerm, several Python MODBUS address scanners, basically every possible combination of port settings – but the line stays completely silent. I really need to read my fan-coils status to automate water pump control, but I’m losing hope – no signs of life at all. Please let me know if you ever managed to get it working, and if so, I’d really appreciate any details you can share.
Hi everyone. I signed up specifically for this project, because I’d like to implement it on my A/C split as well (although my end goal is to somehow turn this into a wired Ethernet connection to the ESP, rather than a purely wi-fi one, but one thing at a time for now). My A/C ia a “Heinner Obsidian” and came with the OSK102 dongle, which is what it’s running now no problem.
I took a look inside the front panel and sure enough, there’s the board, very similar to others shown here, with the corresponding pseudo-USB connector for the dongle.
Rather than diving straight in (because I do not have all the parts and TIME yet), I thought I’d be clever and just have a look at what the unit and dongle are sending on those TX/RX pins. Since I’m a bit of a tech-hoarder, I found a 4 pin JST connector (or whatever it’s called) which matched the one on the A/C’s board, so I wouldn’t have to mess with the original USB connector. I didn’t have a serial adapter on hand at that time (such as a CH341 maybe ?), but I DID have an Arduino clone just lying around, so I thought I could use ITS serial adapter, which SHOULD be possible from what I gather - the board by itself DOES work when I do this: I create a “loopback” by directly connecting its TX/RX pins together and spam characters in something like PUTTY. When I pull the jumper, the characters stop coming in, so we can assume that part works. I then threw together all THIS nonsense:
Sadly, that’s as far as I ever got: no matter how much I tried, the A/C never sent anything in my terminal - not even some random garbage characters - NOTHING ! I tried swapping the data pins around, but no - not even a hint of data. The A/C was working just fine, responding to the remote control, with no side effects to that mess of wires you see in the picture, but it did not send anything either. I then tried the dongle by itself: I brought it down on the table with the USB connector, stuck some dupont wires in the other end and ran those to the Arduino’s TX/RX, GND and 5v, following along with the labels on the A/C board, to make sure I don’t fry the dongle by messing up the polarity.
Thankfully I didn’t, but it did not show any data in the monitor either. It did not register to my WiFi either (couldn’t see its MAC in my Ubiquiti), so simply powering the dongle by itself is not enough - it first has to do some sort of handshaking with the A/C to go any further. It was THIS handshake I was expecting to capture at the very least, but no - nothing ever came through… Granted, I’m not entirely sure what I was planning to achieve with said data and IF it’s even of any use at all. I think my idea was to try to figure out what the dongle and A/C expect to send/receive and TRY to “manually” send that data to see if the unit responds.
Thankfully, everything went straight back to normal once I plugged the dongle back into the A/C, so no - I didn’t kill anything during my experiment to explain this COMPLETE lack of any output.
Has anyone tried this before ? Is it even necessary to bother to do this, or should I go straight to the ESP+level shifter ? I do not have a running install of HA yet, so I won’t dive straight in. I couldn’t find this project done with a Heinner unit, soooo unless I’m really lucky for some of the “default” commands to match, I figured I HAVE to get “in there” to sniff them out to know what data to send for stuff like On/off, fan speed, temp, mode, etc…
did you figure this out as i am trying to make the same change rather than solder to the ac unit
esphome:
name: ac1
friendly_name: AC Despacho
esp32:
board: esp32-c3-devkitm-1
framework:
type: arduino
I just had the same issue, you can see the code that I just leave before
What an epic thread!
I am installing a multizone heatpump with 4 wall mounted heads and a concealed ducted handler. The wall mounted heads will be simply handled with SLWF-01 modules.
For the ducted handler I have an ESP32 with a RS-485 adapter to connect with the XYE interface. As I understand one of the only limitations of XYE is the lack of follow me which can be overcome using the IR interface.
Has anyone tried directly connecting a GPIO pin from an ESP to the TSOP using the remote_transmitter function similar to how to achieve this with the SLWF-01 module for IR control? If that is not possible can the IR LED on the board be accessed via the 5-pin connector?
I’m sure it’s possible to directly interface to the IR signals, but I found it just as easy to have an IR LED near the board that sends commands from the ESP. After all, that’s exactly how the ‘dumb’ thermostats work. I was also able to pick up the thermostat’s commands from the IR LED on the board, so in theory, one could use the thermostat as a controller for the HA/ESPHome integration.
It didn’t seem worth it, considering you’d be out of sync with the thermostat’s ‘state’ as soon as you send a command that didn’t originate from the thermostat.
This repo appears to go an extra step by decoding the protocol used for this board to ‘read’ the status 7-seg displays: homie_heatPump/src/SenvilleAURADisp.hpp at e9abbaad83cb7865b2cb663581197b32a78e2b07 · kpishere/homie_heatPump · GitHub
Thanks for the reply @brianHa
I also found the other dedicated Midea XYE thread where it looks like follow me was figured out via RS-485. Right now the handler is sitting in a box in the garage so I am just trying to get ahead of the integration a bit.
Looking forward to contributing once I get it installed.
1 Like
“I’ve got it!
Some esp32 devices need Rx and tx inverted, so I inverted the pins by software and now it works like charm!.”
Do you mean by doing this from your previous message?
Is “id: puerto_aire” a unique name you created or do you need to get it from somewhere?
Thanks
I have tx pin with 03 and and Rx with 01 now, because before it didn’t work
Puerto_aire is something I have declared after that, in settings, so it should be like this:
…blah blah
uart:
- id: puerto_aire
tx_pin: GPIO03
rx_pin: GPIO01
baud_rate: 9600
# Main settings
climate:
- platform: midea
name: ac_despacho # Use a unique name.
uart_id: puerto_aire
period: 1s # Optional
timeout: 2s # Optional
num_attempts: 2 # Optional
autoconf: true # Autoconfigure most options.
beeper: true # Beep on commands.
…
Blah bla
I managed to get it working by using some IR zigbee transmitters like this one and using SmartIR in HA in order to send the correct commands. It was a long process trying to capture every command from the controller. I can share them if you want. By using the XYE ports whould be ideal without any extra devices in the range of the fan coil, but at least I got it working.
Just create a PR on the SmartIR github repository, and it will be added 
https://github.com/smartHomeHub/SmartIR/pulls
Question, all I am trying to get my slwf-01pro working without soldering into the IR Receiver I want to simply use a IR Transmitter; however, i can’t get the follow me pin to trigger a LED, and if i wire the LED to GPIO5 the board tends to lock up after a few min. Any thoughts or perhaps there is something I am missing
Is it an IR LED module or just the LED? If it’s just a LED, you need to add a current limiting resistor and I would drive it from an additional transistor, not just from the ESP’s pin.
it is just the LED and I have a 1K resistor on it so I take it that it should work from GPIO5 as long as I solve the driving needs?
I got it working i ned up salvaging a ir led from a old remote and that actually worked the only issue I have now is that it keeps changing the display back to Celsius when it heartbeats
Here is my sensor code for follow me
sensor:
- platform: homeassistant
entity_id: sensor.unk_manufacturer_unk_model_temperature #external temp sensor in HA - F unit
id: den_follow_me_sensor
internal: false # set to false so that you can see it in HA
name: “den_follow_me_sensor”
filters:- throttle: 10s
- heartbeat: 1min # send updates every 2 min
- debounce: 1s
on_value:
midea_ac.follow_me:
temperature: !lambda “return ((x - 32.0) * (5.0/9.0)) ;” # convert F to C
beeper: False
Hi Steve,
Im wondering if you finally found a way to connect the VA 2-035 CN to HA? I have a same unit, looking for exactly same thing. So far I tried interfacing XYE with ESP32 and RS485 but no luck yet
thank you in advance
Hi @gekk , I’m sorry, but I haven’t been able to achieve reliable results yet, it doesn’t work yet.
I have purchased the necessary equipment, ESP, power supply, etc. but I am having trouble with the programming. I probably won’t be able to deal with it this year.
Unfortunately, I will need help too…
Ciao, io ho questo problema su un condizionatore Clivet (Midea). In pratica non ho l’uscita usb femmina e non so come collegare il dongle usb. Mi aiutate?
You need to post in English, please.
1 Like
I am looking to integrate something like the SLWF-01 into 8 head units, but the head units do not have the CN3 port populated on the display circuit board.
There is discussion about this earlier in the thread by @nvschilleman and @bartlebi but I couldn’t find any resolution.
Here is my circuit board:
There is a 5-conductor cable coming out of cn2 which is not connected to anything, in case that is useful for anything. These units are branded Thermospace/Thermocore but sure seem like Midea.
Is there any hardware replacement solution, perhaps including replacing the entire display unit pcb? I would need the white board with the LCD and IR and such, and would also need the little green board with the not-usb port. Where could I buy these?
My goal is to establish HA control of the temperature setting, fan setting, and heat/cool mode at a minimum. I want to avoid IR-only control, in part because I have multiple units in one open space.
My highest priority is ensuring compatibility with the internal/main circuit board. How likely is it that swapping only the display pcb pictured above will work, without making any changes to the main internal board? Has anyone done this successfully yet?