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Growatt Inverter + Pylontech Batteries : BMS Comms Guide


SiliconKid

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16 minutes ago, Kingsway said:

@SiliconKid Thanks for a useful feed.. I have exactly the same setup and got it all working as you outlined. 

Do you also have the word "solar" flashing under the battery icon?

Thanks - waiting patiently for loadshedding this evening.

 

 

Be aware that if you haven't applied the firmware updates yet it will LOOK like everything is working properly now, but it's actually still not, and your batteries aren't going to recharge like they should .

You will need the firmware updates.

I will PM them to you now just so you have them anyway.

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6 minutes ago, Kingsway said:

Has anyone tried doing the firmware update using a MacBook?

Thanks 

The Growatt firmware updater software is Windows specific, so that software will not run on MacOS.

If you are running Windows 10 on the Macbook using Parallels or BootCamp or something similar, there should be no reason why you can't do the firmware upgrade from the MacBook because the comms is all done over a normal USB cable which is mounted as a COM device by Windows.

You WILL need a machine running Windows though. Window 10 is probably best but Windows 7 should also be fine. I wouldn't use any version of Windows older than 7.

Edited by SiliconKid
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On 2020/03/04 at 1:49 PM, werries said:

Just a note on the two inverters in paralell.

Both inverters need to be connected to the batterie. Growatt sells a hub for this purpose.

I have however used a plain RJ45 network splitter, ordered from RS components. That serve the same function. Just connect the bms cable from battery to the in side of the splitter and plug in 2x same length network cables to each of the inverters.

Dont use a network switch hub! Unless you still have one of the old dumb hubs from way back. A swich will try and asign network adresses etc and you just want to duplicate the one line.

Mind sending a link to the RS one you ordered? Have search all over the RS site, and cannot find a 1 female -> 2 female adapter. May other configs, and adding so additional ones in the middle, but you do find ones that seem to do it online. Exampe of what I assume you bought: https://www.amazon.com/Covvy-Splitter-Connector-Network-Ethernet/dp/B07LC6VG3W

Thx

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7 hours ago, Igubu said:

Mind sending a link to the RS one you ordered? Have search all over the RS site, and cannot find a 1 female -> 2 female adapter. May other configs, and adding so additional ones in the middle, but you do find ones that seem to do it online. Exampe of what I assume you bought: https://www.amazon.com/Covvy-Splitter-Connector-Network-Ethernet/dp/B07LC6VG3W

Thx

https://za.rs-online.com/web/p/rj-adapters-couplers-extensions/1863098/

RS stock no. 186-3098

 

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2 hours ago, werries said:

Thank you very much! :)

I was pondering if you couldn't get away with just the master Growatt via BMS - but seems not. The Dyness hub (which does allow 8x ports) is a bit more money - but if this works for you, good to know. The ones I found online showed "one active port only at a time" - assuming no issue here for you?

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13 minutes ago, Igubu said:

Thank you very much! :)

I was pondering if you couldn't get away with just the master Growatt via BMS - but seems not. The Dyness hub (which does allow 8x ports) is a bit more money - but if this works for you, good to know. The ones I found online showed "one active port only at a time" - assuming no issue here for you?

Contacted Growatt first to esquire and they insisted I need a growatt hub for parallel inverters. Never seen such a hub on sale here, but then again I did not shop for solar components till I wanted to install mine...

Yes all the network splitters will say only one active at a time, but that is in network related terms, when you need to send massive ammounts of data over the splitter. We used to game/lan half life over splitters and dumb hubs and you really did feel the slow transfers then. For the inverters and bms however you don't need much, and as far as I could determine the communication is segmented already. 

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7 minutes ago, werries said:

Contacted Growatt first to esquire and they insisted I need a growatt hub for parallel inverters. Never seen such a hub on sale here, but then again I did not shop for solar components till I wanted to install mine...

Yes all the network splitters will say only one active at a time, but that is in network related terms, when you need to send massive ammounts of data over the splitter. We used to game/lan half life over splitters and dumb hubs and you really did feel the slow transfers then. For the inverters and bms however you don't need much, and as far as I could determine the communication is segmented already. 

Thanks.

For reference found a picture of what they look like: - think you can add 2x of these to link 7 inverters in parallel to a battery bank.

image.png.23fedfcce0a13cf4a673e8d5bc50f2c3.png

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On 2020/02/22 at 11:17 PM, SiliconKid said:

@ChrisLR, @Solagas

Hi Guys

I'm not sure why you aren't getting the updated values on your display but it MIGHT be because of the 2 x firmware updates that I've deployed to my inverter, which you guys presumably have not deployed yet.

If you are seeing a % value (100%) that is at least a good sign that the inverter does seem to be communicating with the BMS. It's strange that it's not charging your batteries though because it should be taking it's lead from the BMS to decide when to charge.

The charge current and the various voltage levels involved will all be automatically determined via the BMS if you have BMS comms working, so you won't be able to edit any of that.

The firmware updates have to be done from a PC (I used a small notebook) and you have to connect the notebook to the inverter using the USB cable that you should have received with the inverter.

You will need to be comfortable with doing firmware updates yourself, and you will need to do a reset on the inverter after the firmware is installed.

There is always some risk when you flash anything with new firmware that you could brick it, but Growatt sent me the firmware updates and I was comfortable with deploying them myself.

I can provide the firmware that Growatt sent me if you want to try to update it.

My inverter is working perfectly and ALL values are displaying accurately, battery charging is working exactly as expected, and everything is right.

If you want the firmware and the instructions let me know and I can PM them to you, or I can email you if you like.

Allan

 

 

Hi, Can you perhaps e-mail me the firmware upgrades or tell where I can download them...?

Thanks,

Chris

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On 2020/02/18 at 8:43 AM, Tsa said:

Thanks and should be useful to others using PylonTech.

Any idea if the same would apply to Dyness batteries? 

Getting issue with new install that runs fine from PV, but as soon as supply switched to Batt, Red ALM LED lights on Batteries and Growatt inverter goes Error 08 (Bus voltage high) within seconds. 

Hi!

After some communication got the go-ahead from Growatt support for Dyness batteries.

It's the same 2x firmware's mentioned here by SiliconKid - and the process the same.

It differs on 2 parts though:

1. Dip Switch for the connections - different to Pylon - the Dyness manual states 0010 - so off/off/on/off - so that would need to be set on the master Dyness, and all the rest 0000 - off/off/off/off.

2. With Pylon once you enable Li mode on option 5   - it jumps to 36 - and you select 02 for Pylon. With Dyness option 36 needs to be 01 (Default).

Have not been able to test this yet  - planning for the weekend perhaps - but let me know it it worked for you.

One Unknown to me at this point - the Dyness BMS cable seem to have a few more pins wired - whereas the Growatt cable only has 2x pins connected. I believe to solution above used the included Growatt black cable to connect between the inverter and the pylon - not sure if that will work with the Dyness, or if you need to use the Dyness cable -> Growatt - please let us know if you were able to test.

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@Igubu

Great feedback. Thanks for doing the research and legwork on that.

That opens up more options for the Growatt inverters in terms of proper BMS comms.

And given the current shortage of Pylontech batteries, that's a very good thing.

Somebody with Dyness batteries please try this and give us some feedback ASAP.

 

Edited by SiliconKid
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I have been through the process with Dyness & Growatt and still have an issue where my batteries would switch off supply for a second, basically trip house power,  and then reconnect as if nothing was ever wrong. 

This would happen at random times when running off battery only. Sometimes minutes after switching to battery, other times after 5+ hours only. SOC at that stage is still 75%+ based on battery SOC LEDs. This only happens when running setting (05) as Li and profile L01. When running as USE it works perfectly, not such power disconnect issue.. What I have seen when this happens is Warning 04 (low battery) and warning 20 (BMS comms issue) when this dip occurs. 

Dip switches I was told to set to 0 1 1 0 on master and also using the cable that was supplied with inverter(black) which goes from BMS on inverter to the master. (not the straight through BMS cable supplies with batteries). 

I have not done the FW upgrade yet, but after speaking to the guys at Dyness they confirmed that this is a battery FW issue and that FW needs updating. They however do not supply this to customers, but plan on coming to SA once Covid clears and travel is allowed. Still not sure how this will resolve the FW issue on MY batteries, but have asked them to keep me updated on this. Apparently their remote upgrade facility is still in development. 

Would be great if someone else with Dyness and Growatt can test the same. Maybe its a faulty cable in my case, or something else, but Dyness confirming FW issue, I stopped further troubleshooting and just run it in USE no issues (as suggested by Dyness). 

Also gave me these parameters to set in USE mode. 

"parameters,max charge voltage 53.5 V,float voltage 51V,cut off voltage46V,max charge/discharge current 50A(for 2 units(batteries)"

 

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@TSA

So once again a supplier / manufacturer reverting to USE mode and bypassing BMS because their own firmware is buggy. Except in this case it's the BMS firmware! 

Sigh. Do any of the suppliers of any equipment in this industry test any firmware properly, ever? 

The sad thing is, getting this kind of comms right should not be hard. I don't think the protocols involved are even particularly complicated. 

Same story over and over. 

The symptoms of your problem there seem like a clear case of comms being lost between the BMS and the inverter, which WILL cause the inverter to immediately cut all power to your loads until comms is re-established because the Growatt inverter is designed to do that for safety, and I've simulated that behavior on mine before by simply unplugging the comms cable. 

And that is obviously happening because their dodgy firmware isn't keeping the comms port open and intermittently closes the socket and then has to recover and re-establish the connection (at least their code actually does that automatically), at which point your inverter sees the BMS again and allows power through to the loads again. 

The intermittent nature of the disconnect is interesting, but could be anything going on in that code to cause that. 

Oh well, at least we know what's going on. 

Thanks for the feedback. 

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@SiliconKid Yip that seems to be exactly the case. It would just be great if someone with a similiar setup can also test this config and confirm if they are also seeing it. I'm hoping that they dont and that I might just have a faulty comms cable OR some other issue (other than the FW indicated by the supplier). 

I already see a difference in my DIP settings of 0110 vs the suggested by @Igubu of 0010.

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@Tsa

Interesting Dip switch..?

I got this from the dyness manual - think you might have posted this before?

I think with a dip switch change it still requires a restart of inverter & battery?

Perhaps give it a go. If you are keen to try the firmware update yourself, I'm sure we can help via a PM on instructions at least. The main Growatt engineer (Same person everybody probably talks to - Mahone) said the loading of FW is 100% fine with them. Only issue perhaps if you aren't comfortable doing it..

But according to this pic it should be 0100? (edited)

image.thumb.png.4d7572e340c06c4a78fb3274c99d3ea2.png

Edited by Igubu
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7 minutes ago, Tsa said:

@SiliconKid Yip that seems to be exactly the case. It would just be great if someone with a similiar setup can also test this config and confirm if they are also seeing it. I'm hoping that they dont and that I might just have a faulty comms cable OR some other issue (other than the FW indicated by the supplier). 

I already see a difference in my DIP settings of 0110 vs the suggested by @Igubu of 0010.

Big apologies.. my original post didn't match the pic's in the manual! :( The pic shows 0100 - NOT 0010..

(Only received the manual pics later - so what was given over the phone was wrong - the manual seems correct.

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@Tsa

I would definitely install the 2 firmware updates I've supplied before you even bother doing anything else. 

We've confirmed that the Growatt inverters need those 2 firmware updates so you have to deploy those before trying to troubleshoot anything related to any BMS. 

If you don't you troubleshooting on known bad firmware that is confirmed buggy and just wasting your time. 

Growatt have confirmed to Igubu that profile 05->01 should work with Dyness, so after doing the firmware updates configure for that and then see what happens. 

If the disconnect persists at that point at least we know it's not because available inverter firmware updates are missing. It still won't confirm its the battery firmware but at least all other known causes will have been taken off the table. 

The dipswitches are important because they were key to getting the Pylon comms right too, so we need to confirm what works there. Those dips control baud rate, and the wrong baud rate could actually be causing those disconnects. 

 

 

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8 minutes ago, Igubu said:

This part of the manual is confusing though... don't see the link between the # and the "baud rate" settings...

image.png.77fcd6c058b6cf180a48c16df4a7d7cb.png

 

That is very confusing. 

I'm trying to find any way to interpret that sensibly but there isnt enough information to understand the valid combos. 

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OK, I have now again confirmed via email with Dyness that it needs to be 0110 on the host\master battery.

"Hi set the master DIP 0110 firstly,then start the battery and inverter,choose program05 to Li1,enter it and exist to main display. 

please use the correct comms cable,and plug inverter side to BMS port,battery side CAN IN. 
if everything is set correctly,but communication can't success,you need reatart the battery and inverter to see again"
 
Seems like inverter update would be the next step and then go from there. Mahone also suggested this before Dyness came back and indicated the FW issue. 
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