H3 Inverter & ModBus help

[chillywasher]

Hi everyone, first time on this forum.

I'm looking for some help setting up a USR-W610 with a H3 inverter (H3-10.0-E). I'm intending to use it with Home Assistant using the new Nathan Marlor HACS component. I've tried setting everything up according to what pieces of information I can find online (mainly the Stealth Chesnut setup guide) but ultimately the HACS component is unable to communicate with the USR-W610.

I've configured the USR using Wifi and it has an IP address that is pingable; web UI also available on this IP. USR configured as per here: https://github-wiki-see.page/m/StealthC ... tup-Guide

The only details that seem to be missing online is how to connect the USR to the H3 inverter. H3 manual is here: https://www.fox-ess.com/wp-content/uplo ... Manual.pdf

The only usable connection I appear to have on the inverter is the USB slot that the existing Fox Smart W Wifi stick is plugged into. For this I have tried removing and replacing with a DSD TECH SH-U10 USB to RS485 Converter:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B078X5H8H7? ... t_details

This converter is wired to my USR-W610 through the A/B terminals.

However when I plug the SH-U10 into the inverter the screen on the inverter says "FW Upgrade" and then I am unable to exit this screen unless I unplug the SH-U10. I believe this FW upgrade screen is stopping the SH-U10 from working and thus communicating with the USR.

I'm interested to know if there are any other H3 inverter owners out there who have managed to connect using this method, or indeed another method they can share that works.

Many thanks

Chris

[canton7]

See https://github.com/nathanmarlor/foxess_ ... ring-Guide.

(The page you linked on StealthChesnut's wiki has similar instructions).

The usb socket is for firmware upgrades only, which is why it's getting confused when you connect a USB device to it. You need to connect the RS-485 A and B wires to a specific connector on your inverter.

You don't need both a W610 and a SH-U10 - they both do the same thing of converting RS-485 from the inverter to something else (ethernet for the W610, serial for the SH-U10). Pick one or the other, depending on whether you want to connect your machine running Home Assistant over serial or ethernet.

We don't yet have H3 support released in the Nathan Marlor integration, but I'm planning to get a beta version out with some preliminary support soon for people to test.

[tony.matthews1]

Hi Chris,

Pending the update of Nathan's code, the code I'm currently running for my H1 inverter is here: https://github.com/TonyM1958/HA-Foxess-Modbus

The readme page gives info on setting up the RS485 connection, how to setup HA and selecting the modbus profile for your H3 inverter.

You will be one of the first using this code for H3, but you're welcome to give it a try and then switch to Nathan's code when its ready.

If you find any problems, please feel free to drop me a message.

Regards
Tony

[rjhazeld]

Very useful information for me as a new user of HA, thanks. I have two 410s units on order having run out of patience with the app etc.. I have two inverters an H1 and an F5000 sited on a garage wall on the other side of which is the consumer unit etc. and in the room above that is a lan switch with spare ports. I need to decide where to site the 410s the options are:
1) close to each inverter connected with a short length of cat 5 cable and run two lan patch cables to the switch. Downside is two patch cables and routing them.
2) near the switch and run the cat 5 from the inverter comms plug into the consumer nit cupboard and then up to the room with the switch. This would be easier as the cable will not have plugs on and therefore easier to
thread through. A variation of this would be to have a connector block near the inverters and then use two pairs in the cat 5 i.e. short length to each inverter and then long length with both pairs to the room with the
switch.

The overall distance, inverter to switch is about 3m if I use option 2 with a single cat 5 cable will the data transmit cleanly or is it likely suffer interference from the mains cables/consumer unit installation ?

Apologies if I should have posted this separately

[canton7]

I would definitely put the 410s as close to the inverters as possible - while RS485 can in theory run long distances, you can be certain that ethernet will be fine, whereas you might have occasional noise issues with a long run of RS485.

Just buy a cheap crimping kit on amazon if you don't want the RJ45 plugs getting in the way when running the cable.

You can get passive adapters to run two ethernet connections over a single cat5 cable, if you only want to run one from the switch. You won't hit get gigabit speeds with the result, but that doesn't matter here.

You've also got the option of getting a pair of poe injectors (one side feeds power into an ethernet cable from a barral jack, the other side extracts it) to run power for the 410s down from the switch, without needing to run a separate power cable to your router.

You might also be able to connect both inverters to a single 410s, if you give them separate modbus slave ids.

[canton7]

I've just created a new pre-release of Nathan's integration which (in theory) adds support for H3 inverters. Although I don't have one to test against, so I'm relying on people trying it out and reporting issues.

Please give it a shot, and let me know on github if you hit any problems.

[rjhazeld]

Thanks for the quick reply, I will follow your advice and put the 410s close to the inverters. This will be a two stage project since the installers omitted to leave the coms plug for the F5000 so have to source the correct plug which will no doubt take a bit of time

Each inverter has 10 x 400watt panels, one facing east and one west. The east is the H1 which has 3 energy cube batteries connected. Getting the RS485 data setup will be a good step forward and will give some data on the F5000 via the CT2 Clamp.

[rjhazeld]

I have acquired two USR-TCP232-410S and set the local lan address as static for both following the wiring guide. I have connected one to the H1-5.0-E inverter. The work led is blinking as expected. I have connected to the 410s and can see an RX count on the status page but not any Tx.
I have installed the FoxESS-Modbus integration via HACS. On entering friendly name hybrid, modbus host as either 192.168.1.7 or http://192.168.1.7, modus port 502 and modbus slave 247 pressing submit gives ! Error-please check connection details. I connect to the web interface using the ip address and I can see the modbus port number on the RS485 page. I haven't found the modbus slave in the 410s page. Do I need to configure the IP address in HA somewhere as well? Seems I am within a whisker of getting the data flow started but missing a nuance. Can anyone help?

[canton7]

You need to be using the latest prerelease, version 1.4.1b5

[rjhazeld]

Right, thanks, I'll give it a go.

[rjhazeld]

The pre-release version has taken me a step closer. Now encountering a time out error. I suspect this may be because the inverter settings need to be changed so that comms is set to RS485 instead of Lan. I will try that tomorrow. I haven't changed the work mode setting to either TCP or UDP as HA seems to be seeing the 410s now.

[canton7]

Can you post the full error message text?

[rjhazeld]

Data flowing!! tracked the last problem down to a broken core in the cat 5 pair I was using between the H1 and 610s. Rewired with new cat 5 and the integration configured as described. Next step is to set up a dashboard and understand the various values.

Once I get the communications connector for the F5000 inverter I will get that wired up. I guess some customisation will be necessary so that the integration recognises the F5000 although the data elements on the cloud portal seem the same as for the H1.

Thanks for your help and efforts developing the integration.

[canton7]

Oh great!

I'd be interested in adding F5000 support to the integration, but I'll need a bunch of back and forth with someone who has one to figure out what registers are available, both over RS485 and a direct ethernet connection (if the F5000 has one).

That mainly consists of using modpoll to manually poll registers and working out which registers hold which values. We might get lucky and it's similar to one of the inverters we have mapped out, or it might be different. The H1 and H3 are quite different for instance, whereas the AIO is a subset of the H1.

[rjhazeld]

Happy to help once I get the necessary connector in place. I don't have a great deal of knowledge in this area but can run modpoll commands and supply the responses.

I have two iterations of the FoxEss-Cloud integration running, one for each inverter so I imagine they must be generating similar output, we'll see.

Is it best to post as an issue on github when I get the connector to start the F5000 work off?

[canton7]

Thank you! Yep a discussion on github would be best, thanks

[rjhazeld]

In short after chasing FoxEss support for a definitive answer to the F5000 failure to supply data I eventually got an answer that the F5000 has no capability to export data i.e. the manual and several versions of tech specs that can be found on the web are incorrect. I have finally resorted to replacing the F5000 with a second H!-5.0-E (at the same time as adding two 4.1 slave battery units). Data started flowing as soon as I added the second inverter's details to the integration.

I have endeavoured to get a definitive answer from FoxEss regarding the E series (my daughter and son-in-law have one) without success the UK support and German product team claim not to know themselves. Given that the manual is a joint E & F Series one, and the system menu is the same, I suspect that it will not support data export.

Whilst the inverters and batteries seem to be good customer service is woeful at best I hope I never need to use it again.

[ajrpsantos]

Hi everyone.

Is it possible to use Fox Smart W Wifi stick as the only hardware to integrate FOX-ESS inverter H3-5.0-E with home assistant? I tried to do it but got stuck with comunication, after inserting the IP of this dongle... Is the extra hardware absolutely necessary or there is any way of intercepting the sensor info that the dongle sends to foxcloud?
Thanks in advance.

[Dave Foster]

Hi everyone.

Is it possible to use Fox Smart W Wifi stick as the only hardware to integrate FOX-ESS inverter H3-5.0-E with home assistant? I tried to do it but got stuck with comunication, after inserting the IP of this dongle... Is the extra hardware absolutely necessary or there is any way of intercepting the sensor info that the dongle sends to foxcloud?
Thanks in advance.

No it isn't possible to use the wifi dongle for local communication (at least not yet) - the easiest think for you to do would be to add this integration https://github.com/macxq/foxess-ha to your home assistant and let it gather the stats directly off the Fox cloud.

[Will]

In short after chasing FoxEss support for a definitive answer to the F5000 failure to supply data I eventually got an answer that the F5000 has no capability to export data i.e. the manual and several versions of tech specs that can be found on the web are incorrect. I have finally resorted to replacing the F5000 with a second H!-5.0-E (at the same time as adding two 4.1 slave battery units). Data started flowing as soon as I added the second inverter's details to the integration.

I have endeavoured to get a definitive answer from FoxEss regarding the E series (my daughter and son-in-law have one) without success the UK support and German product team claim not to know themselves. Given that the manual is a joint E & F Series one, and the system menu is the same, I suspect that it will not support data export.

Whilst the inverters and batteries seem to be good customer service is woeful at best I hope I never need to use it again.

Are you sure they have an E series and not an S series? I have a few S series working for friends and family.