Hi guys,

 

I have a question for pylons which is better to use RS485 or CAN to the inverter?

And what is the difference?

 

Thank you.

CAN is faster but are you sure your inverter can connect CAN ?

Not sure Its an 5kva King. But ya was just wandering about the 2 ports on the pylontech

Depends on the Inverter also and if it understands Pylontech. I use RS232 and RS485 because I don't think my inverter can CAN

 

3 hours ago, Jaxone said:

I don't think my inverter can CAN

Actually, the Axperts with removable display, with the possible exception of some very early models, use CAN protocol for some battery types (WEC, SOL, i.e. Weco and Soltaro). When user type is PYL (Pylontech), RS-485 is used, even though it could have used the CAN hardware. I have no idea why they made that decision. I suspect that they started with RS-485 since it looked at one point like that would be most common, then found some BMSs that use only CAN bus.

Thanks guys,

 

Then another question, if you are using ICC with the console cable is CAN or RS485 needed or can you leave it to ICC, or should it be used as well?

If ICC is connected to your inverter trough USB it's a good idea to have ICC also connected to the battery so it can read battery state directly from the battery and NOT use data read by the inverter ... might not be as accurate as reading directly from battery.

I do not use ICC , I use Solar Assistant (for now) and I have it connected both to the Inverter trough USB and to Pylontech trough RS485 , then I let it handle the inverter settings and switchover.

When MultiSIBControl grows up a bit I think I will switch over to that as it has better control settings.

 

Big difference is CAN is a whole protocol that defines messages / data frames / protocols whislt RS-485 if is just about signal levels, generally two wire (A/B), one signal over a twisted pair, differentially,

CAN physical /signal level is very much like RS-485.

Bit rate on both can be set.

Is there a de-facto standard for BMS messages on the RS-485 bus?

 

On 2022/06/01 at 12:06 PM, Jaxone said:

If ICC is connected to your inverter trough USB it's a good idea to have ICC also connected to the battery so it can read battery state directly from the battery and NOT use data read by the inverter ... might not be as accurate as reading directly from battery.

I do not use ICC , I use Solar Assistant (for now) and I have it connected both to the Inverter trough USB and to Pylontech trough RS485 , then I let it handle the inverter settings and switchover.

When MultiSIBControl grows up a bit I think I will switch over to that as it has better control settings.

 

When you say solar assistant for now, are you not happy with it? 

I'm happy with the graphs , but not happy with the inverter control options.

So I have laptop connected with MultiSIBControl to control the charge options and control the inverter and SolarAssistant for remote access at the graphs and when I need to make changes to charging current.

Hopefully next version of SolarAssistant will give same control options and schedules as MultiSIBControl offers. MultiSIB Control is indeed a very good control tool.

52 minutes ago, Jaxone said:

I'm happy with the graphs , but not happy with the inverter control options.

So I have laptop connected with MultiSIBControl to control the charge options and control the inverter and SolarAssistant for remote access at the graphs and when I need to make changes to charging current.

Hopefully next version of SolarAssistant will give same control options and schedules as MultiSIBControl offers. MultiSIB Control is indeed a very good control tool.

Great thank you, my reason for asking is I have ICC and wanted to know how Solar Assistant is compared to it.  But if you say MultiSIBControl is a better control tool, perhaps I should first try that and Keep ICC for monitoring.  What are your thoughts? 

Then another question, If I use CAN for PylonTech to inverter can one use the same cable or is there a different cable that needs to be used? 

3 hours ago, Etiennet said:

If I use CAN for PylonTech to inverter can one use the same cable

If you are connecting directly to an Axpert inverter (or its removable display), then you will be using RS-485, not CAN. CAN is only for Weco and one other brand of BMS, I forget (Soltaro maybe?).

If you are connecting to a Pi running ICC, Solar Assistant etc, then I have no idea if you can use CAN or not with Pylontechs. I believe that the Pylontech use a different connector for CAN than for RS-485, so I'd be surprised if you can use the same cable for both. Most inverter to BMS cables will be wired only for one comms standard (RS-485 or CAN bus).

Does anyone have the RS485 pin-out for the Axpert inverter Li-Ion port?

3 hours ago, ryanb said:

Does anyone have the RS485 pin-out for the Axpert inverter Li-Ion port?

Download the Axpert MKS IV user manual, the pinouts is in the BMS section. The same pinout is used for MKS III  and VM III / IV models as well. The RS485 pins are 3 and 5, cannot remember which is A and B.