Connecting a Growatt Inverter to ShineNet

[Previously, on randomnoun]. This post is a followup from my earlier entry on the trials and tribulations of getting solar panels hooked up to my house in Red Hill.

So I thought it would be interesting to graph my solar energy using ShineNet, a defunct software package created by Growatt, the manufacturers of the inverter that sits on the side of the house, connecting the panels to my newly-upgraded switchboard.

There’s not much in the way of instructions on how to do this on the internet, so here’s how to set it up. What you’ll need in order to do this is:

• vast amounts of time
• a Solar Inverter. Mine is a Growatt 3000TL 3kW inverter (or something that looks very similar to it) which was installed as part of my TVS solar panel install, which I’ve gone into in more detail here.
• a DB9 (9-pin) M/F serial cable ($12 from umart)
• a DB9 F RS232 to Bluetooth adapter that’s capable of running off power supplied over pin 9 (USD $59+USD $16 P&P; or perhaps this one instead for USD$65+P&P which has a chunky antenna attached to it)
• a DB9 M/M null modem adapter ($2.49 inc P&P from ebay), and when that doesn’t work, a
• a DB9 M/F null modem adapter ($3.16 inc P&P from ebay) and an DB9 M/M gender changer ($1.00 + $0.19 P&P from ebay)
• a USB to DB9 M COM serial adapter (if your laptop is less than ~10 years old)
• a USB to Bluetooth adapter (if your laptop is more than ~5 years old)
• the ShineNet software, and a machine capable of running it (i.e. is still on Windows XP)

In the images to the left, the

	icon indicates a Male DB9 connector,
	indicate Female DB9,
	indicates a null modem or cross-over connection, and
	indicate extension or straight-through connections,
	represents USB, and
	represents Bluetooth.

Drivers

If you’re anything like me, your Windows XP laptop (and it has to be Windows XP), is in that sweet spot between being too old to have bluetooth, and too young to have actual physical COM ports, in which case you’ll need to grab a couple of usb adapters to provide those things. Get the cheapest ones you can find from ebay [1], and then be amazed when they’re not recognised automatically when you plug them in.

I got these devices:

• a USB 2.0 to RS232 Serial 9 Pin 9P DB9 Adapter Converter for AUD$2.09 inc P&P, and
• a New Mini USB 2.0 EDR Dongle Wireless V2.0 Bluetooth Adapter which they can somehow profitably manufacture and post from China for AUD$1.00

Neither of these so-called XP-compatible devices come with drivers, so what I did eventually was to install an old trial version of the BlueSoleil bluetooth stack (limited to 5MB data transfer), and the driver for the HL-340 chipset serial adapter from some random website (after finding some instructions on this forum post).

You may find the usbview utility from FTDI helpful when scouring websites looking for anything vaguely useful. (usbview gives you the Vendor:Product IDs of all USB devices attached to your system; the devices above for me were listed as 1A86:7523 and 0A12:0001) .

Once you do that, go into Device Manager and take note of the COM port assigned to the Bluetooth and DB9 USB adapters. On my laptop, the wired DB9 adapter is attached to COM24, and the wireless BT adapter takes up COM ports 11 to 23.

You might want to pair up a bluetooth device that you know works, just to prove that the device driver is functioning correctly. I used some headphones.

From top left, Bluetooth USB device in usbview; DB9 USB device in usbview; BlueSoleil after detecting a bluetooth device; Device Manager showing BlueSoleil COM ports and DB9 USB COM ports. Click to zoom.

ShineNet

ShineNet is the truly awful software package created by Growatt to track solar energy collection from the array of PV cells on your roof. So awful, in fact, that they’re no longer providing it via their website, and any requests to their eight different contact email addresses will fail to get a response from them. What you might want to try doing is sending pleading emails every week or so to people who mention that they’ve installed ShineNet on the solar software section of the whirlpool forum, and hope that someone responds.

There are two types of ShineNet in the world, v1 and v2. This link will give you v1.2, which for the purposes of this entry is actually v1.

Here’s a comparison table, bearing in mind that I haven’t actually tried v2 yet:

Yes, there are other software packages that profess to comprehend modbus (used by v2) and the proprietary protocol that v1 uses, but I thought it would be slightly less time consuming to use the software made by the manufacturer of the inverter first, before hooking up something with more bells and whistles (controlled by DMX, I’d imagine).

Configuration 1

This was the ‘simplest possible thing that could work’ configuration I thought I’d try first.

Unscrew the coverplate on the bottom of the inverter, plug in a cable, and throw that through the closest window. Whilst your outside, knock on your inverter a few times to set the COM port to anything other than the default “MOVE” setting (e.g. “COM1“).

Go back inside and attach the cable to the USB->COM DB9 adapter connected to your laptop.

Fire up ShineNet, from the main menu select SoftSystem -> System Set, set the COM port to the value shown in Device Manager for your USB->COM DB9 adapter and click Set.

From the main menu again, select Inverter -> Connect/Disconnect, and with any luck you’ll eventually get this:

It will probably help if you do this during the day, otherwise your inverter will probably be in shutdown mode due to the lack of photons in the air.

In an ideal world, you wouldn’t have a cable permanently hanging outside of your house, so let’s try running this over bluetooth.

Configuration 2

This configuration is just to verify that the Bluetooth to DB9 adapter works. For this configuration, the adapter is being powered by an external power source (using the mini-USB port on the side of the adapter)

What I’m attempting to do here is to transfer data over the air between the two bluetooth devices which are now plugged into the same laptop (if your laptop was made in the last 5 years, you probably have bluetooth built in, and don’t need the second adapter above). It may be easier to use a separate laptop to connect to, if you’ve got access to one.

On the DB9 to Bluetooth adapter check the settings on the casing to ensure that they’re in this position:

• DCE(F) / DTE toggle switch is in DCE(F) mode
• the S / M dip switch is pointing to M
• the N/G / G dip switch is pointing to G
• the USB/Battery / DB9-Pin9(5V) toggle switch is pointing to USB/Battery (and you’ve got the adapter powered by a mini-USB cable). If it’s powered up, there should be some red and blue lights flashing on the thing.

Bring up two HyperTerminal windows (you’re on XP, so you still have HyperTerminal… it’s probably under Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> Communications -> HyperTerminal. Alternatively, you could also use PuTTY in ‘Serial’ mode). Set one window to point to the COM port that the Bluetooth DB9 adapter is plugged into, and type this into it:

AT

and press Enter, at which point, you’ll get either this:

OK

which is good, or this

ERROR

which seems to go away if you type ‘AT’ again, or this

(incomprehensible garbage)

which probably means the adapter is a bit loose or you’re set to the wrong line speed / flow control / stop bits / parity bits, (it seems to default to 19200 bps / None / 0 / 1 out of the box), or this

(nothing at all)

which probably means the adapter isn’t plugged in, or something else is loose, or it’s not powered on, or you’ve selected the wrong COM port, or you’re looking at the wrong laptop, or your keyboard doesn’t work, or the serial port driver doesn’t work, or the serial port driver isn’t configured correctly, or the operating system has crashed, or something else entirely, or some combination of those things. Try shaking it and trying again.

Now that you’re talking to the Bluetooth adapter in old-school Hayes-speak [3], have the following conversation with it:

AT
OK
DEVICE=?
0000 00 000000
OK
NAME=?
Serial Adaptor
OK
NAME=Growatt Inverter
OK
NAME=?
Growatt Inverter
OK
PIN=?
1234
OK
PIN=RaRaRaSomething
OK
PIN=?
RaRaRaSomething
OK
ROLE=?
Slave Mode
OK
STATUS=?
Celsius         : 41
VERSION         : VER : 4.6.3
ADDRESS         : 0018 DB 010000
ROLE            : SLAVE MODE
FLOW            : DISABLE
ECHO            : ENABLE
PROMPT          : ENABLE
DISCOVER        : ENABLE
RECONNECT       : DISABLE
AUTO            : DISABLE
DIP             : DISABLE
<<<             : ENABLE
>>>             : ENABLE
DETECT          : DISABLE
SERIAL_PROTOCOL : 19200,N,1
NAME            : Growatt Inverter
PIN             : RaRaRaSomething
DEVICE          : 0000 00 000000
CONNECT         : 0000 00 000000
OK

Now in BlueSoleil (or the native Windows Bluetooth device stack, if you can manage to get that working), search for your BlueTooth/DB9 adapter using the other bluetooth adapter (it should appear with the NAME you assigned above). You might want to try this from a completely different machine if you like, since this is testing BT<->BT connectivity. Pair with the adapter (using the PIN you entered above), and then allocate it a COM port. On my machine, BlueSoleil assigns the port COM11 to this device.

BlueSoleil before and after connecting to the Serial Port Service to the DB9 to Bluetooth adapter (called “Growatt Inverter” above). Click to zoom.

You should now be able to talk to yourself even more than usual by opening up another HyperTerminal window connected to the BlueSoleil COM port and tapping keys into it, which should appear on the HyperTerminal connected to the DB9 adapter COM port, and vice versa.

Now back on the DB9 adapter COM port, and this will save you mountains of time later on, type this:

AT
ERROR
AT
OK
BAUD=?
19200 bps
OK
BAUD=9600
OK
àøæ

That àøæ at the end is HyperTerminal/PuTTY not being able to deal with changing linespeeds. Try reconnecting using 9600bps and everything should be right as rain a bright, electricity producing day.

If you don’t do that, be prepared to spend a couple of entertaining hours with portmon and on websites containing pages titled ‘Adventures In Bluetooth‘ trying to discover why the next bit doesn’t work.

Configuration 3

Now we want to test connecting the inverter by Bluetooth. You’ll notice the Bluetooth to DB9 adapter is still connected to the Inverter via a cable and the null modem adapter, and is powered through an external 5V USB.

This is the part that probably won’t work, so why not fire up portmon (from SysInternals) anyway and watch the bits fly over the air.

You’ll find that portmon doesn’t work for some reason, so try it in client/remote mode by going to Start -> Run and typing “c:\util\portmon /c“, then Start -> Run and typing “c:\util\portmon“, typing Ctrl-R, then “localhost“, selecting the bluetooth adapter COM port, sit back, and enjoy watching things like this appear:

Or, in a slightly more readable form:

portmon has the ability to save logs of your COM port communications, so when things go pear-shaped, try grabbing a trace of a successful connection (over the wired serial cable) and the unsuccessful connection (over bluetooth), and compare and contrast in your favourite text editor or comparison tool.

The trace above shows what portmon gives me for a successful connection to my inverter, if that’s of any use whatsoever.

So for this test, fire up ShineNet again, give it the COM port address assigned to your (now remote) Bluetooth/RS232 adapter in BlueSoleil and, with any luck, you’ll get some more stats flowing over the air.

Configuration 4

Configuration 4a gets us a bit closer to how this thing should typically run.

Righteo, now it’d be nice if I didn’t have a 5v power adapter plugged into the side of the DB9 to Bluetooth adapter, since the whole purpose of using bluetooth was to get this working wirelessly, which kind of defeats the purpose if I’ve got an extension cable connected to the adapter outside the house.

I have it on good authority that it’s possible to power this adapter directly from the inverter, using current on pin 9 of the DB9 connector. Try flicking the switch on the side of the adapter from ‘USB/Battery‘ to ‘DB9 Pin 9(5V)‘ and then be amazed when the lights go out and it ceases to work.

This is because the cheap-arse null modem you purchased doesn’t actually have a pin 9. Go on, check it. Check it twice. Isn’t that fascinating ? Yes. Yes it is.

So as a workaround, use that DB9 M/F null modem you definitely purchased weeks in advance instead, and a DB9 M/M gender changer so that everything’s boy/girl/boy/girl from the bluetoothy adapter to the inverter.

This is where I’m up to at the moment, so this probably be revised in two weeks or so when the new null modem turns up.

That presumably works first time, so rip out the cable, put the bluetoothy adapter in a plastic bag so it won’t break the first time it rains, replace ShineNet with something that doesn’t look like as if it was written by the solar panel guy’s son over the course of a weekend, and there you go. Have you learnt nothing ? Of course it’s not going to work.

You’ll probably find that the ebay seller just skirts a day short of their paypal-guarantee window and you receive the DB9 F/M null modem adapter exactly 30 days after you order it. Because life is meant to be spent waiting for other things to happen. Close the paypal dispute when the package arrives.

Break the adapter out of it’s bubble-wrap, attach it, turn everything on, and be amazed when it still appears to work. Flick the switch to get power from the DB9 line, and lo and behold, the power does flow, but the ones and zeroes that comprise the solar panel data don’t appear to make it to the bluetooth receiver on the laptop. So that’s annoying.

So it’s about this time that I receive a comment on this post through the absolute shart load of spam that I receive asking whether I should have the bluetooth thing in slave or master mode which gets me flicking through the specs sheet for this thing again. And what do you know, that DTE/DCE switch thing on the left hand side actually swaps the transmit/receive lines for you, meaning I didn’t need to get a separate null modem adaptery thing at all.

So there you go.

Log in to the adapter through HyperTerminal/PuTTY again, and enable the dip switch settings by entering this into it:

AT
OK
DIP=?
Disable DIP Switch
OK
DIP=Y
OK
DIP=?
Enable DIP Switch
OK

Now that the device is noticing what it’s dip switches are set to, flick the Master/Slave ( M / S ) dip switch to ‘ S ‘, and (this is the exciting part) the DCE(F) / DTE toggle on the side to DTE .

You can now remove the (possibly not working at all) DB9 F/M null modem adapter that took four weeks to arrive from the chain of doodads, and still get something that could be described as vaguely functional.

So now everything seems to be working hunkydory in Configuration 5a:

meaning (and this is the last time I’ll be firing up Paintshop Pro for this blog post hopefully), it now appears to work in Configuration 5b:

I shall leave replacing the laptop with a raspi, and replacing the ShineNet software with something else completely for another thrilling installment. Stay tuned, Solar Warriors.

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