Morningstar Suresine 300 "modbus"

Re: Morningstar Suresine 300 "modbus"

Forgot about that thread. But looking at the hub, Morningstar doesn't list the Suresine as one of the compatible devices. It also says that's to connect multiple devices to one meter, I believe the meter may use a different protocol. At least, there's a switch on the Suresine to select either Meterbus (for use with a remote meter) or Modbus (for use with a PC).

I shouldn't need a hub, if it does true modbus. I should be able to daisy-chain the various devices on a single comm link and set a different address for each. Unfortunately, in my work I have run across an awful lot of devices that either didn't implement the spec properly (for whatever spec, I get to try to work with many!) or went way off the reservation and did something completely incompatible but they used (some part of) the protocol so they stick the label on anyway! (No idea if Morningstar did that, that's what I'm trying to find out!)

The isolation issue is something I usually don't have to consider. The links I most commonly use are inherently isolated, the few I use that aren't the devices don't share power sources. Something I wouldn't have thought of if I hadn't seen SG's post.

Re: Morningstar Suresine 300 "modbus"

I had forgotten all about this, you gave something to play with tonight!

But so far no joy. I have the inverter connected to my automation panel, but can't get anything from it yet. At least, it fails the "ping test" to determine comm status. (I'm not any sort of Modbus expert, this is the first time I've tried to use it! Maybe someone else understands this?) I haven't created any points yet to see if they would work anyway. There is a setting for "ping address" that was defaulted to 0x0, not sure if I need to change that or what... (Best I can understand, it ought to be set to the address of one of the readable points in the device.)

One potential issue I have is, which pin of the RJ11 jack is + and which is -? I can't find anything that says, but have tried it both ways without success. (I'm assuming it uses the two center pins too..)

Does anyone know - is the Suresine actually RS-485? Somewhere in my miles of searching tonight I saw a reference to Modbus over RS-422, so thought perhaps that's a possibility... (The automation panel has an RS-485 connection, I was trying to connect directly.)

If it is RS-485, then I'm sure it's just a matter of finding the right settings. I have about a dozen different things I can set in addition to basic serial port settings, and Modbus is turning out to be quite confusing to me...!

Otherwise, I do have an RS-232 port on the panel as well. Perhaps I'll just get the Morningstar adapter if all else fails and use it... (Probably have to anyway, my other Modbus device - TED-style monitor - wants a different stop bit setting...)

Hope that rambling made sense. I'm tired and not thinking too clearly anymore tonight! :roll:

Re: Morningstar Suresine 300 "modbus"

This isn't a TCP/IP ping. It's just (from what I understand) that the controller "pings" the address specified (0x0 is usually the first point available to be read in the controller) to see if it gets a response. As opposed to doing a full read, where it would need to know more about what it is to get back. All it's supposed to be for is to verify communication with the device.

Again, that's just what I understand from reading the (rather limited) docs. I've never used Modbus before, didn't realize it was so much less straightforward than the other protocols I've used (various forms of Bacnet and LON, primarily).

I may try setting up some points and see if they read. If so, I don't really care what the ping test does!