Universal Solar Inverter over Modbus RS485 / TCP custom_component (Growatt, Sofar, SolaX, Solis)

Solax X3 Gen4 HT34 10kW and on roof 7,65kWp

Ouā€¦ You think I must buy other type of Waveshare RS485 ?

This is what I fear if the menus do not contain a modbus transmission option
I recommend the rail mounted model RS485 TO ETH (B) model from Waveshare. It costs around 30ā‚¬
See our wiki : installation notes page

OK, I ordering now :sleepy: we will see

Hello,
I have the same problem with SolaX Modbus communication. Iā€™ve been using this plugin successfully for couple of months. Data was being sent both to SolaX cloud and to Home Assistant. The inverter was connected directly by utp cable to a router. Suddenly it stopped working, all attributes became ā€œunknownā€.

Iā€™ve tried everything I could (inverter firmware update by SolaX, reinstall plugin, standalone node-red), nothing worked. At the end Iā€™ve attached PocketWifi to keep sending data to SolaX cloud. Iā€™ve bought Waveshare device and attached it - all LEDs are correct (permanent red, permanent blue, green blink every couple of seconds). Still no data.

Iā€™m a bit confused what inverter generation do I have. The SN starts with H3UE, which should be gen3 based on wiki information at github. In SolaX cloud, the inverter type is X3-Hybrid-G1/G2. Iā€™ve tried all possible baud rates, changed wires 4 and 5. There seems to be a problem between Waveshare and the inverter - even if wires 4 and 5 are not connected to the Waveshare, the LEDs remain the same.


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Hi,
all discussed things are too complicated for me :frowning:
I just programmed my own Solax X1/X3 G4 Modbus-RTU (RS-485) Gateway to MQTT using an ESP32. So itĀ“s open and free to attach to any homeautomatisation.

Feel free to checkout and test. I would be happy, if you can test it with your own Solax X1/X3 G4 inverter and share your results with me.

The LEDs must behave differently when the Inverter is connected: The ACT led periodically turns blue when it sends data to the Inverter, but when the Inverter sends a reply, the ACT led becomes green (for a very short time, and almost invisible).
If you dont see these short green ACT led periods, there must be something wrong with the cabling.
Please use only the baudrate configured in your inverter (see inverter menu settings), dont use other baudrates, it is already complicated enough ā€¦
I would also recommend to use the default polling period (15 seconds) as long as we are trying to get it work ā€¦

Thank you for your reply. I can see green led for a short time. Unfortunately I could not find baud rate in my inverterā€™s menu. I could be wrong but Iā€™ve tried to read SolaX manuals for different generations of inverters and it seems to me that only gen4 have baud rate in menu.

If you have previously had the Integration working, have you upgraded to the one of 0.7.0betaā€™s?

If so this might be the issue you are having? With 0.7.0b10 the integration doesn't start Ā· Issue #161 Ā· wills106/homeassistant-solax-modbus Ā· GitHub

Edit:

Just noticed you are using a Gen3 Inverter. Why arenā€™t you using the built in ethernet port?

I have just upgraded to 0.7.0b11 (I used main branch before), now I can see more complex plugin configuration dialog but still no data. I used built-in ethernet port before for couple of months, but then it stopped working and I could not see any SolaX data in Home Assistant. That is why Iā€™m trying to use waveshare device.



When you were using the built-in ethernet were you trying to connect to the Inverter at the same time with Node-RED?

If you try and connect to the Inverter twice it will block all communications.
I would try and power cycle the Inverter and try the built in ethernet again.

On the Gen3 the default baud rate is meant to be 115200 on Inverters without ethernet. There is a possibility it could be 9600 if you are connecting on the same connection as the Modbus Meter.
I have never tried to connect to RS485 on my Gen3 so I donā€™t know what does / doesnā€™t work from a connection point.

Good day.

This is what Iā€™ve been seeing in my log lately. Is it necessary to pay attention to it? Everything seems to be working.

As you are also seeing the same slowdown with Shelly it might be an overall system slowdown?

Iā€™ll remove the debugging shortly from the Integration which will put less demand on the system.

I tried built in ethernet again together with Inverter power cycle, and suddenly your plugin works again. I believe that I tried to restart the inverter many times before without any success :slight_smile:

I could immediately try to solve another problem - the one that also appeared before the communication between inverter and HA stopped working. I was not able to change SolaX Charger Use Mode, when I changed the mode, it returned to the previous value after couple of seconds. Now I tried to change the mode directly in Inverterā€™s menu and there was an error DSP-COMM failed. I searched this thread and found similar problems about 2 years ago. In my case, the inverter was in Idle mode and SolaX Battery Awaken button from your plugin fixed the issue - I can now do everything I need with SolaX and Home Assistant.

Thank you very much for your patience with me and all the work you do for us.

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Glad you are sorted now and back up and running.

Thanks for the information.

May I ask since when is debugging enabled in the integration? I believe this could be contributing to my recorder freezing issue during backups. Solved by reducing the interval of reading data from the device from 1s to 5s. The problem with the recorder is gone for now. (so far 2 days itā€™s fine. before that daily problem)

ADD: first occurrence of the problem 15.10.2022

Debugging was increased on the Beta versions of 0.7.0 to enable fault finding and ensure the Integration is behaving the same as the previous 0.6.x

You really are pushing the Inverter to itā€™s limit with 1s poll rate.
There is meant to be a 1s gap between instructions to the Inverter. I am getting away with 2s poll on my Inverter with built in ethernet. But 5s is a more recommended polling Interval.

Indeed, 1s is pushing it. As @wills106 explained, we currently generate a lot more debug info, but only during the first 5 polling cycles.
You could also change your logging level to INFO instead of DEBUG, but I would also recommend to continue to work with 5s polling cycles.

@Vodny86 Do you also own a Sofar Inverter as well as your SolaX Inverter? I just noticed this post you made. SofarSolar inverter integration - #64 by Vodny86

Iā€™m looking to buy the wavshare device to use with my solax x1 gen 4.
Will I need to also buy a programmer for the wavshare device to set it up?

Also will this then show me real-time details from the inverter not every 5 mins like Solax cloud?