Hi all,

I decided to start a new thread about this as I couldn't find other topics about this inverter/battery pair and ended up posting in the wrong topic.

According to Deye support, Narada batteries now are supported, though this needs to be verified. I however have not been able to get it right, yet (I hope).

I emailed Deye support asking whether the 5kW inverter (SUN-3.6-5K-SG03LP1-EU) could communicate with the Narada 48NFPC100 BMS over RS485. A few days later an agent emailed me back telling me that they want to upgrade my inverter firmware and asked for my serial number. I told them that before upgrading, I wanted to make sure that the upgrade will actually help me, i.e that the inverter would be able to communicate with the Narada battery BMS. They confirmed that after the firmware upgrade, “you can match this battery”. This sounded very positive and the update was done. After several more back and forth emails, the following was established:

1. Lithium mode 16 needs to be used on the inverter
2. Pins 7 & 8 need to be used for the RJ45 pin assignment on the inverter side
3. They couldn’t confirm the RJ45 pin assignment for the Narada battery, but I did find it in the Narada manual

Before the upgrade, this was my firmware version:

After the upgrade, it was this:

After trying the above, as well as various other permutations of RJ45 pin assignments and lithium modes, I could not get the inverter to speak to the BMS.

Perhaps someone more knowledgeable than me can assist? Here is what I have tried.

Lithium modes 0-16, with special focus on 16 since Deye support said 16 is the correct number:

As a side note, pressing the up/down arrows when entering this screen does not cause the Lithium Mode to change even though the “cursor” is there. I need to select another field, then select the Lithium Mode field again so that the up/down arrows work. Annoying but not a big issue.

Here are the RJ45 pin assignments I have.

Narada 48NPFC100:

 

Deye inverter:

 

From the above, PINs 2 and 3 from the battery need to be connected to PIN 7 and 8 on the inverter respectively. I have tried with the GND connected and without (battery PIN 1 to inverter PIN 6). None of these configurations work, though I am happy to double and triple check if someone thinks that one of these configurations must work. I might just create several cables to test the permutations because right now I have 2 and cut the RJ45 connector off of one end and re-crimp each time I test a new configuration. After changing configuration should I be powering down the inverter, or is it sufficient to just plug the cable in, wait, then go to battery BMS screen?

Thus far this is what I see, so BMS comms does not work:

Any ideas anyone?

Edited January 24, 20223 yr by SolarConvert

Or perhaps someone has some advice on starting from scratch to double check my steps. When testing a pin assignment combination, is it sufficient to plug in the cable and expect a change on the inverter almost instantly? Does anyone else have a Deye 5kW inverter connected to a battery which can only do RS485 (not CAN) and which port do you use, the top left on the inverter?

I am trying the same with a Deye 8KW inverter and Narada NFPC150 batteries. Deye support upgraded my Firmware wihtin 5 minutes of sending the email (no warning) and sent me a list of supported batteries. Narada Batteries.pdfNarada Batteries.pdf According this this document the following are supported using RD485 48NPFC80/48NPFC100/48NPFC150/48NPFC200

I have 3x  Narada RED 48NFPC150 batteries though, and they do not have a RS232 port, only 2x RS485 and LAN. If i read the manuals of the normal colour batteries, there seems to be 1 x RS232 and 2 x RS485.

It also seems that at least one battery must have the address set to 0000 to enable the RS232 and this seems to be for BMS communication to the inverter. I do not have that port. It appears that the RS485 ports are for connecting multiple batteries together for the internal BMS to work.

I used CAT5e RJ45 cables, apparently is has the pins connected that RD485 use. I also read that you should have a cable pugged in at the last battery to terminate the story. Tried that too.....

But with the RED versions of the batteries, I seem to be out of luck.

Hi @CCSA10,

I believe the RS232 port of the battery is only needed for firmware upgrades and PC monitoring, not for comms with the inverter.

The way I understood it is that inverter BMS RS485 port needs to be connected to the first (left) RS485 port on the first battery. If there is a second battery, the second RS485 port from the first battery is connected to the first RS485 port of the second battery, and so on. Is this your experience?

I also read that the last battery needs its second RS485 port terminated, but read elsewhere that people with other inverters have had success without terminating the last RS485 port.

Please let me know if you manage to get your Deye 8kW to communicate to your Narada BMS. I will try to find some time to take a second stab at everything again soon, probably next weekend.

Edited February 20, 20223 yr by SolarConvert

@SolarConvert the connections in your photo above seem wrong, the orange/orange-white pair seem to be pins 7 & 8 in the RJ45, which is the pair that should be used on the battery end, I would imagine.

@CCSA10 As for RS232, yes, not for connection to Deye or Sunken Sun inverters as far as I know. SolarConvert has it right...

@Kalahari Meerkat I am more than happy to check everything again and open to ideas on what else to try.

Just to confirm though, the following is from the Narada manual, so this would be on the battery side of the cable:

 

Then this is from the Deye inverter manual, so this would be on the inverter side of the cable:

 

That being the case, what I have understood is that inverter RJ45 pins 7 and 8 should be connected to battery RJ45 pins 2 and 3 respectively. Alternatively if we include GND, then inverter RJ45 pins 6, 7 and 8 should be connected to battery RJ45 pins 1, 2 and 3 respectively. Is that not your interpretation? As I mentioned, I am happy to try out anything at this point.

What I am also thinking of trying is the battery DIP switch. Currently my single Narada battery has its DIP switch set to 100000, I will try 000000.

 

On a completely separate note, I know that inverter RS485 BMS port pins 1, 2 and 3 work for monitoring the inverter via an RS485 Modbus gateway because I have tested it. If this port is then used up for BMS comms then I will need to monitor the inverter via RS232, unless the CAN BMS port can be used for monitoring.

I am also unsure what to do to test any new configuration, like different RJ45 PIN assignments, DIP switch changes, or Lithium Mode settings. If I unplug and plug in the cable into the inverter/battery and it happens to finally be correct, will I immediately see a difference? Or does the inverter/battery need to be told that settings have changed and that BMS comms must be retried, perhaps by restarting the inverter and/or battery?

55 minutes ago, SolarConvert said:

Just to confirm though, the following is from the Narada manual, so this would be on the battery side of the cable:

Ok, don't know the Narada, I assume it has a spot for a RJ45 connector to plug in, from the inverter side... I'd think that ideally you make up a cable that only connects pins 7&8 on the inverter connector (also pin 3, if you insist, but it should not be necessary) to then go from pin 7 from the inverter side to pin 2 on the battery's RJ45 and from pin 8 on the inverter side to pin 3 on the battery's RJ45 and if you want the ground, RS485 doesn't really need it, pin 3 on the inverter end to pin 1 on the battery's RJ45.

The cable should be a single twisted pair, if you have more pairs, they should not be connected... else you are looking for things to not work. What does pins 4 to 8 on the battery end mean, "No connection" are these grounded, maybe? best not to connect them, the same on the inverter end, only connect what you actually need.

Since I have no BMS driven batteries at this stage and no batteries that use RS485 to communicate I can't say whether this actually works, also I have the Sunken Sun variant which is the same, but not quite, from a firmware perspective, I guess.

Quote

The cable should be a single twisted pair, if you have more pairs, they should not be connected... else you are looking for things to not work.

This right here is what I was worried about. I did use more than one twisted pair for the 3 wires from inverter to battery. I may have used wires from different pairs for RS485A and RS485B. What I will do is create a new cable with only pins 7&8 from the inverter to pins 2&3 to the battery using only one twisted pair and will report back. Thanks, I have something to try out now.

Quote

What does pins 4 to 8 on the battery end mean, "No connection" are these grounded, maybe? best not to connect them, the same on the inverter end, only connect what you actually need.

Your guess is as good as mine. I will only crimp two wires for RS485A and RS485B, the rest will be cut and will not be in the RJ45 connectors.

27 minutes ago, SolarConvert said:

Thanks, I have something to try out now.

You can use CAT5 cable , but snip the wires, that won't be used before crimping the connector on... so you can have extra un-connected pairs in the bundle, that shouldn't matter but they should not be connected at least on one side of the cable...

I tried this now. Twisted pair orange/orange-white were crimped on both ends (7&8 on inverter side and 2&3 on battery side). The rest of the pairs were snipped. So each RJ45 connector only has 2 wires which were crimped.

I have now tried DIP switch settings 000000 and 100000 on the battery with the cable plugged in but still no change. I changed the Lithium Mode on the inverter from 16 to 00 to 01 to 16 just to cause a “change” in settings, but still nothing.

Inverter end:

Battery end:

 

 

Edited February 21, 20223 yr by SolarConvert

7 minutes ago, SolarConvert said:

I have now tried DIP switch settings 000000 and 100000 on the battery with the cable plugged in but still no change. I changed the Lithium Mode on the inverter from 16 to 00 to 01 to 16 just to cause a “change” in settings, but still nothing.

I'm guessing the battery will not respond to dip switch changes on the fly, you probably need to restart the BMS/battery after making the change... did you do this? The Sunsynk manual from June 2020 lists various batteries (probably more by now) and some on RS485, so I'd think this should work, if Deye have supplied new firmware for you battery type. specifically...

16 minutes ago, Kalahari Meerkat said:

I'm guessing the battery will not respond to dip switch changes on the fly, you probably need to restart the BMS/battery after making the change... did you do this?

I hadn’t but now I did, as follows:

1. Flip battery power switch to off
2. Disconnect battery from inverter
3. Reconnect battery to inverter
4. Flip battery power switch to on

The dip switch shouldn’t make a difference for me since I’m only using one battery, but nevertheless I tried this with dip switch positions 000000 and 100000 with power cycling the battery, but still no luck.

1 hour ago, SolarConvert said:

The dip switch shouldn’t make a difference for me since I’m only using one battery,

True, so what does it do? I downloaded the manual for the NPFC series batteries and it seems you have a problem...

On 2022/01/24 at 5:04 PM, SolarConvert said:

I emailed Deye support asking whether the 5kW inverter (SUN-3.6-5K-SG03LP1-EU) could communicate with the Narada 48NFPC100 BMS over RS485. A few days later an agent emailed me back telling me that they want to upgrade my inverter firmware and asked for my serial number.

If the manual is correct, it can not use RS485 to communicate with the inverter, but RS232 only... and I suppose Deye should have said, either, they don't know or, no it can not, which is what the manual seems to imply...

Edited February 21, 20223 yr by Kalahari Meerkat

I’m not sure how many versions of the Narada NPFC series manuals there are. To be honest, I don’t know what to believe anymore, but things still point to BMS comms via RS485 being possible.

Here is an extract from the manual I have, though I merely downloaded it from somewhere on the internet, so it may or may not be the latest.

 

The attachment that @CCSA10 received from Deye also seems to state that RS485 comms with the BMS is possible and it aligns with the information that I received from Deye in January this year. I’m attaching it here for reference.

 

If they added the Narada battery to their supported list, they surely should have tested it. Perhaps I need to try to find out who from Deye tested it and how.

At this moment I am doubting the Narada battery RJ45 PIN assignments in their (Narada’s) manual. The reason is that I tried to use a Modbus gateway to read some registers from the battery a while back (I created a cable specifically for that) and that failed. But, that may have failed due to me not having the correct register numbers - I got the Narada BMS modbus protocol from a document on scribd. Now that I think about it, there is someone who may be able to confirm or deny the Narada RJ45 PIN assignments and register numbers - the author of Solar Assistant. I would purchase this cable just to confirm the RJ45 PIN assignments, but would then probably end up discarding the cable because I do not want to monitor the battery via USB but instead connect it to the inverter. @SolarAssistant would you by any chance be able to divulge the Narada BMS cable RJ45 PIN assignments?

Deye Supported Batteries.pdf

Edited February 21, 20223 yr by SolarConvert

1 hour ago, SolarConvert said:

If they added the Narada battery to their supported list, they surely should have tested it. Perhaps I need to try to find out who from Deye tested it and how.

I think you can assume (based on other batteries working with RS485 with these inverters) that the inverter side is ok, but your battery may not be, may have a BMS firmware upgrade that may allow the RS485 to function to comm with the inverter... time to chase up the Narada end, I reckon...

Just an update here, I contact my installer and he has established that there is one extra firmware update that is needed from Deye for this to work. I’ll post the result as soon as I have more info.

Did you get the update from Deye? And is it working? If so, what is the firmware version. I emailed them in China and within 30 min they transmitted and update to me, but that is about a month ago. They also told me any CAT5 cable will work... I have kind off given up, I was thinking that maybe their instructions is for the normal Narada, not the Narada RED that we have here. I would still love this to work.

So it apparently does work on one Deye 8kW inverter and that at least MAIN firmware 3.3.7.1 was needed.

Inverter RS485 port pins 2 and 1 need to be connected to battery RS485 port pins 2 and 3 respectively. Lithium mode 16. Not sure whether Narada or Narada RED would behave differently.

I am on MAIN firmware 3.3.7.2 with the 5kW inverter and it still doesn't work with one Narada 48NPFC100 and the above configuration. I have tried various permutations. I'm still waiting for feedback from Deye regarding my inverter and battery combination.

 

Update. I had both cables discussed here made up and tried them both with my 8KW. No luck :(. I did have a mishap last weekend where my batteries went down to Zero SOC. On the Narada red batteries I have, there is a display. I then sat and recorded the % SOC and the voltage at every 10% change in SOC according to the batteries  and discovered that the voltages specified in the manuals appears to be very different to reality. Previously I set the Deye inverter Battery settings to Shutdown at 42V and Low battery at 44V as this was quite close to what I saw in the manuals I read. When my batteries went to 0% SOC, the moment that batteries started charging the panel on the batteries indicated 49.3V, so Zero SOC would be around 48.7 Volts, and not 44 as I though. I also compared and recorded the voltage on the inverter vs the voltage on the batteries. This was pretty close.

Another interesting aspect, throughout the charging cycle, the voltage difference at a specific % is 0.6V higher when charging compared to discharging. I chose to use the discharging voltage for settings, as I assumed that this would be what would trigger actions. This is the list of voltages I recorded and use now for my settings.

So batteries 0% is around 48.7 volts, and batteries full is 52.5, that is 3.2 volts difference, and then the 0.6V variance depending on charging or not changes the voltage by 19%

This is the table I now use to estimate levels when i do my settings, specifically on the time of use function. I use the Inverter reading for items that must happen while charging and the "settings on Deye) calculated values when i describe a low threshold.

 

	Batteries Charging	Inverter Reading	Setting on Deye
10%	49.30
20%	50.06	50.4	49.8
30%	50.33	50.6	50.0
40%	50.35	60.5	59.9
50%	50.50	50.8	50.2
60%	50.77	51.1	50.5
70%	50.86	51.2	50.6
80%	50.98	51.3	50.7
90%	51.30	51.6	51.0
100%	52.50	52.5	51.9

I also changed Battery settings on the inverter to:

Shutdown 48V

Batt low 49V

I suspect this may change, i am monitoring this closely during use. I also learnt that changing these parameters does not automatically update the Time of Use settings. Over the raining weekend I had my batteries drop to 18%, and then realised that my minimum voltage was still set to 42.5V. I have now shifted this to 49V. Will see where it goes now. I really enjoy being able to see my SOC and i suspect these values are used to calculate the SOC % from volts, so I am carefull to change them. I do not want to break someting that is working.

I am working slowly with these, as one of the benefits the panic brought is that the SOC on my Solarman app is now within 2% of what is indicated on the batteries themselves and this is amazing. Prior to this exercise, the app would say 93% and on the batteries I often found them to be 28 or 18%. Now for the 1st time I have some realistic indication. I really enjoy being able to see my SOC and i suspect these battery settings values are used by the app to calculate the SOC % from volts, so I am careful to change them. I do not want to break something that is working.

This was my main reason for wanting BMS.

I am going to give the BMS story one more shot, I am going to have a cable made up with pin 2 and 3 connected both sides but crossover, old RS232 type of cable, just for the hell of it and will let you know what happens.

If anyone has success with the BMS thing, please let me know!

This has been an interesting and very time consuming exercise, but it does feel like progress

Have an awesome day!

On 2022/02/21 at 1:31 PM, SolarConvert said:

I got the Narada BMS modbus protocol from a document on scribd.

Hey there
Can you share the link to that protocol page?
I want to try on my 2 narada's and see if I can get any info from the batteries.
At the moment its all guess work between the batteries and my sunsynk inverter :(\

I found the scribd page but it is behind a paywall, anyone downloaded that doc?
Please share

Edited April 19, 20222 yr by WannabeSolarSparky

14 minutes ago, WannabeSolarSparky said:

Hey there
Can you share the link to that protocol page?
I want to try on my 2 narada's and see if I can get any info from the batteries.
At the moment its all guess work between the batteries and my sunsynk inverter :(\

o found the scribd page but it is behind a paywall, andone downloaded that doc?
Please share

The original I got was 5.3MB so I had to run it through Adobe's site to compress it and fit within the 3MB upload limit on this forum. I don't see any difference between the original and the compressed version. It is attached to this post.

Please let me know if you figure out how to read values from the battery!

Note the following important bits:

I tried with Modbus slave 0, 1, 38 and 39 when my single Narada battery dip switch was set to 0 and 1, but still couldn't read data from the battery. This was a few months ago - I haven't tried again since then due to time constraints.

narada-bms-modbus-v16_compressed_high.pdf

Thank You, @SolarConvert
I am going to give this a good bash and share what I can manage
1st to see if I can get the data coming in to nodered
Will keep you updated

22 hours ago, WannabeSolarSparky said:

Thank You, @SolarConvert
I am going to give this a good bash and share what I can manage
1st to see if I can get the data coming in to nodered
Will keep you updated

You should have no problem to communicate with the battery from the RS485 interface connected to a serial -  USB converter. Pin 2 and 3 connected to + and - on the converter. 

That's the setup I have to read BMS data with the BMS software from Narada.

Can this correctly configured Narada /Deye communication cable be purchased? Would appreciate accurate management of the 2 Narada NFC100 48 batteries connected to my Deye 5kw inverter.