February 13, 20242 yr Dear community, I am unable to connect the U5648MS inverter via serial port to my computer running watchpower. When using the serial cable that came with the inverter in combination with a USB to serial adapter watchpower does not detect the inverter. However I replace the serial connection with a USB connection , watchpower does detect the inverter without problem. Question now is can you connect the U5648MS inverter via a serial connection to the watchpower application or is only via USB? What could be the cause of this problem? (tryingh to get support from MPP Solar but they are closed due to chinese new year) tnx
February 13, 20242 yr 9 hours ago, Screech said: Question now is can you connect the U5648MS inverter via a serial connection to the watchpower application or is only via USB? You can use either. If USB is convenient for you, you can just continue using that. Otherwise, it's probably either: * Your USB to serial adapter is not compatible. Check this forum for at least two known good brands and where to get them in South Africa. * You are not specifying the right comms port, or you are using a port that is COM or higher. The genius Watchpower software only works with COM1 through COM9, and doesn't search the ports for you like modern well written software would.
February 13, 20242 yr Author 8 hours ago, Coulomb said: * Your USB to serial adapter is not compatible. Check this forum for at least two known good brands and where to get them in South Africa. I have a feeling too that it is the USB to serial adapter but I am not sure as the USB-to-Serial adapter\converter that I am using works OK for communicating to pylontech and pytes batteries. It is only with teh inverter that I am having issues Are there any that you have good experience with that you can recommend. I am located in the caribbean so I will be ordering it through Amazon in the US. Tnx Edited February 13, 20242 yr by Screech
February 14, 20242 yr 13 hours ago, Screech said: \converter that I am using works OK for communicating to pylontech and pytes batteries. It is only with teh inverter that I am having issues Could it be that your adapter is not a RS232 but a RS485 adapter? For monitoring my battery packs I need the RS485 adapter while monitoring the inverters with Watchpower requires the RS232 adapter.
February 14, 20242 yr If your adapter proves to be RS232 it could also be the inverters RS232 port at fault. I have such a case. The remote control panel to my Axpert MKS 5K inverter witch is connected via RS232, contains a presumably RS232 outlet port for computer connection. But that doesn't work. To work around I built a trow over switch into the RS232 line from the inverter. So I can direct the RS232 alternatively to the remote panel or to the computer with Watchpower. Edited February 14, 20242 yr by Beat
February 14, 20242 yr 19 hours ago, Screech said: Are there any that you have good experience with that you can recommend. I'm based in Australia, so my recommendations aren't a lot of help to South African readers. But I have saved two posts with recommendations from this forum. From the Firmware Update Instructions post on AEVA: Edited February 14, 20242 yr by Coulomb
February 14, 20242 yr Author Coulomb, Tnx for the feedback. I am not located in SA but in the caribbean and I can easily get stuff from either the US or Europe. The capabilities of most USB to serials are dependent on the chipset being used in them. So If I can find one with the same chipset that will most probably work. Let me know what you are using and I will try to find the same or an equivalent. Note: the issue with ordering items in the caribbean is that although I can order almost everything shipping is expensive and returning items is time consuming and also expensive so I want to order something proven to work. Tnx
February 14, 20242 yr On 2024/02/13 at 12:05 PM, Screech said: Dear community, I am unable to connect the U5648MS inverter via serial port to my computer running watchpower. When using the serial cable that came with the inverter in combination with a USB to serial adapter watchpower does not detect the inverter. However I replace the serial connection with a USB connection , watchpower does detect the inverter without problem. Question now is can you connect the U5648MS inverter via a serial connection to the watchpower application or is only via USB? What could be the cause of this problem? (tryingh to get support from MPP Solar but they are closed due to chinese new year) tnx Can you check Device Manager when you use the USB-Serial adapter if the new port doesn't get a warning? Often it's the latest driver copy protection on an imitation adapter that can be worked around by installing an older driver (usually included or on the clone manufacturer website)
February 15, 20242 yr 12 hours ago, Screech said: The capabilities of most USB to serials are dependent on the chipset being used in them. So If I can find one with the same chipset that will most probably work. Let me know what you are using and I will try to find the same or an equivalent. It also depends on whether you get a genuine or a clone chip, and that's much harder to tell, certainly before you buy. Personally, I use the Prolific chipset, and have had no problems apart from when the clone issue forced me to buy a new one (grrr!). However, I've seen posts and possibly Voltronic documents (I can't recall if or where) that say that the FTDI chipset causes fewer problems. It may be that either will work fine, as long as they are not clones. Even clones may work if you can get the right driver, as PsyWulf indicates above. That might be the first thing to try; no need to wait for a replacement if you can find the right driver. I wish it was easier.
February 22, 20242 yr Good morning everyone, I hope this is the right place to ask the following question: I have an "Axpert Max E 11 kw Duplex" I can't connect it to the PC either with the micro-USB or with a PL2303HX rs232-USB adapter. Measuring the outputs from the RJ45 on the inverter side I have the following situation: rj45_1) GND rj45_5) -14v rj45_7) +0.2 rj45_8) +1.3 To use the adapter I connected: rs232_GND -- rj45_1) GND rs232_RX -- rj45_7) +0.2 rs232_TX -- rj45_8) +1.3 rs232_+5v (I also tried to reverse rx-tx) I'm not sure about the COM port settings (baud? parity? etc) I also tried with serial listening software but nothing. I have searched without success, and therefore I ask for help on: 1) a specific guide on connecting this specific inverter with all pinouts and declared logic. 2) original software that is definitely working with my model. 3) How to uniquely identify my inverter and my datalogger with the various CPUs, the various firmwares etc. What else can I try? A thousand thanks
February 22, 20242 yr 4 hours ago, porzioev said: Measuring the outputs from the RJ45 on the inverter side I have the following situation: rj45_1) GND rj45_5) -14v rj45_7) +0.2 rj45_8) +1.3 To use the adapter I connected: rs232_GND -- rj45_1) GND rs232_RX -- rj45_7) +0.2 rs232_TX -- rj45_8) +1.3 rs232_+5v Axpert RS-232 ports are generally as follows: +-----------+-------------+----------------+----------+ | Function. | RJ-45 pin # | D9 pin # | Function | | (PIP) | |(provided cable)|(Computer)| +===========+=============+================+==========+ | SGND | 8 --------- | 5 | SGND | | TD | 1 --------> | 2 | RD | | RD | 2 <-------- | 3 | TD | | +12V | 7 (or 4) | NC | | +-----------+-------------+----------------+----------+
February 28, 20242 yr Good day, i just had time to test that connection but 1) no way to see the inverter "connected" from the official software "WatchPower" 2) have you some alternative just to see if i can recive some data from it, something to check that at least "someting" is coming from the rs232 3) some alternative to "Watchpower" to get it working. Tnx
February 28, 20242 yr 55 minutes ago, porzioev said: 2) have you some alternative just to see if i can receive some data from it, something to check that at least "someting" is coming from the rs232 You can just use any serial comms program; Windows used to come with one, I forget its name. You can send it a carriage return (enter key) at 2400/N/8 (2400 bps, no parity, 8 bits per char). It should respond with what looks like (NAKss . One step up from that is the Voltronics comms program, which allows you to send commands with CRCs (Cyclic Redundancy Check characters) automatically added. It's probably a quicker and easier download than a full comms program like TeraTerm. Available from https://www.mppsolar.com/v3/download/ and search for "communication tool" without the quotes. Suggested command: QPIGS (Query ? ? General Status). It should spit out a string of values like line voltage, battery voltage, and much else. QMOD will give a much shorter response, of the present mode (e.g. "(B" for Battery mode). Note that for all of these, you have to ensure that you exited from Watchpower completely with File Exit, not just closing the window. See the Firmware Upload instructions for details.
June 23, 20242 yr On 2024/02/28 at 10:29 AM, Coulomb said: You can just use any serial comms program; Windows used to come with one, I forget its name. You can send it a carriage return (enter key) at 2400/N/8 (2400 bps, no parity, 8 bits per char). It should respond with what looks like (NAKss . One step up from that is the Voltronics comms program, which allows you to send commands with CRCs (Cyclic Redundancy Check characters) automatically added. It's probably a quicker and easier download than a full comms program like TeraTerm. Available from https://www.mppsolar.com/v3/download/ and search for "communication tool" without the quotes. Suggested command: QPIGS (Query ? ? General Status). It should spit out a string of values like line voltage, battery voltage, and much else. QMOD will give a much shorter response, of the present mode (e.g. "(B" for Battery mode). Note that for all of these, you have to ensure that you exited from Watchpower completely with File Exit, not just closing the window. See the Firmware Upload instructions for details. Hi Coulomb unfortunatelly i was out for work, and only now i can continue this study. i tried again and again, a was suspecting something is wrong with the configuration of my software... now i post a little example of the configuration, can you please kindly help me? Be assured: 1) i identify the adapter COM, it is right (attaching and detaching the adapter the com appear and disappear) 2) i identified the GND (with multimeter for sure is brown) 3) i tried both the TX RX switched on RD TD (orange and white-orange) 4) i assured no other software running on my PC Please please Help me, i'm going mad... Also tried again with USB cable: Edited June 23, 20242 yr by porzioev
June 23, 20242 yr 3 hours ago, porzioev said: 1) I identify the adapter COM, it is right (attaching and detaching the adapter the com appear and disappear) Your configuration dialog box seems to be talking about Modbus; this is a special type of serial comms that is not the same as RS-232. Is that blue adapter a USB to RS-232 adapter? I think I can barely make out USB ? 232 -> USB where the ? represents an unreadable symbol. In Windows 11 and earlier, I use the Device Manager to identify the COM port: Some USB to RS-232 adapters don't seem to work with Voltronic software; I have no idea why. Some USB to RS-232 adapters may need a device driver. Are you definitely plugging into the PC port (right-hand port of the removable display)? Remember that Voltronic software typically can only cope with COM1 through COM9, not COM10 or above. Use task manager to verify that Watchpower is not running in the background. Try the Voltronic Communication Test Tool. It's the easiest way to talk to the inverter, and it seemed to auto find the RS232 to serial adapter. Available from: https://www.mppsolar.com/v3/download/ and search for "Communication Tool".
December 16, 20241 yr On 2024/06/23 at 12:12 PM, porzioev said: Hi Coulomb unfortunatelly i was out for work, and only now i can continue this study. i tried again and again, a was suspecting something is wrong with the configuration of my software... now i post a little example of the configuration, can you please kindly help me? Be assured: 1) i identify the adapter COM, it is right (attaching and detaching the adapter the com appear and disappear) 2) i identified the GND (with multimeter for sure is brown) 3) i tried both the TX RX switched on RD TD (orange and white-orange) 4) i assured no other software running on my PC Please please Help me, i'm going mad... verified. It appears that in the latest version 1.15 WatchPower the type of communication of the Modbus RTU (RS485) prescriptions is not supported by the inverter. You need to download version 1.0-1.4 with RS232 support, here it is connected, the data is read.
February 13, 20251 yr Quote Some USB to RS-232 adapters don't seem to work with Voltronic software; I have no idea why. Some USB to RS-232 adapters may need a device driver. tnx you all very much, a finally managed to connect, changing the adapter, i think it was a strange chip in it. Edited February 13, 20251 yr by porzioev
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