External limiting an GTIL2 SUN-1000G2 with raspberry

Hello suntan. I do not know much about all that stuff your asking about... so no help from me.
Nice setup btw.. never seen so many 2000 watt gtils used at once. I got 2 myself. Im in the process of letting one of them be supplied by batteries. hey Why not use limiter cables? What are those 2 black boxes bottom left with the yellow on them.. are they charge controller? Also it looks like u are supplying all of those inverters from one power source.. Are u using batteries?
 
Not sure if that last reply was directed at meDoin it but here goes anyways....

It would be much easier to control the inverters via Modbus over 232 since the main panel for my house is on the exact other side of the property. That panel in the picture is just a small 100A sub panel that feeds my two EV chargers in the garage.

You are correct in that the whole setup is fed from batteries. 6 Tesla 1860 modules to be exact (3s2p).

I have a fairly large PV setup (15Kw dc) and with my rate plan with my local utility my on peak usage (3pm - 8pm) is expensive and I also get hit with demand charges. Goal of the whole project is to be able to charge up the batteries (only using 80% SOC down to 20% SOC to preserve cell health) during the night and day and then let the GTILs work from 3p - 8p so I can have my home at a decent temperature (live in Phoenix Arizona)and I am not screaming at the wife / kid whenever they turn something on.

Oh and the two boxes in the lower left are some 48Vdc power supplies connected to some CVCC boosters used for charging.


RS232 -> USB adapter should be here this weekend, Going to attempt to fire up a mod-bus connection, will keep you guys posted.

Sorry for the lack of structure, just now enjoying my morning cup of coffee.
 
You may want to add a few cm of space between the backboard and the GTI to improve airflow and increase passive cooling.
Particularly the horizontally mounted GTI will not enjoy any natural airflow (no chimney effect), making the cooling fins at the back near useless.
 
ajw22 said:
You may want to add a few cm of space between the backboard and the GTI to improve airflow and increase passive cooling.
Particularly the horizontally mounted GTI will not enjoy any natural airflow (no chimney effect), making the cooling fins at the back near useless.
Click to expand...
Agreed. Going to place some standoffs behind the heat fins after I get everything dialed in. Working on the Modbus 232 communication with the GTILs and some interfacing with the Tesla BMS modules. I should write up a fill blog post on the setup when it's finished.
 
@sogorman

For the run from the main panel to sub panel you could use CAT5 or CAT6 wire. I ran CAT5 from my main panel to my GTILs (4 of them), around 40-50' in distance. CAT5 has 4 twisted pair of wires that mate up nicely to the 4CT Clamps. Been in place roughly a year without issue.
 
Update, thanks to @ZARK I was able to communicate with the controller of my GTILs using the RS232 specs he provided. Working on finding the registers for controlling the generation limit / amount so I can remotely control.

ZARK said:
watts-on said:
ZARK said:
Hello all. Having read the entire tread I am still lost concerning remote monitoring of this GTIL inverter. I have a GTIL2 1000 watt inverter ver 5.1 with the DB9 connector for remote monitoring.
however i do not have the wifi plug unit. I want to remote monitor my unit localy and not go to the chinese cloud. It seems some have done this here in the thread. I would like some help to do the seem please :). First of, which standard/protocal does it use rs485 or rs232 with modbus. The manuel seems to imply 485. Or can it use both. The pin out for the DB9 connector on the unit would be helpful. I have a wifi RTU unit (model USR W630) that i want to use to connect it to my network and then monitor using openhab2 with the modbus binding. I cant get it work :-( any help Please. Thanks
Click to expand...

It's a while since I dabbled with this, but here is some info and images I created at the time if it helps:

The interface is RS232:


image_bigkxa.jpg


The essential functions of the interface board:

image_kuzekk.jpg


The 8 pins on the left represent the ribbon cable from the main board. The 9 pins on the right represent the RS232 D connector. The centre pins are the connections to the RS232 level shifter IC (charge pump etc components not shown for clarity).
I'm not sure what the connection to pin 9 on the D connector is, but I suspect it is to provide power to a wifi type dongle, so watch out for that if what you connect to it is not expecting that as that is not standard on an RS232 connector.

Some screen shots of settings I used in a modbus application:


image_cquqhi.jpg
Click to expand...

Thanks very much for your responce :) . You have been very helpful. The pin out diagram was very useful. I have now manage to connect and communicate with the inverter :cool: , although I cant make much sense of the data. I was successful with a modbus tcp client. I want to monitor the inverter using openhab2. The modbus binding for openhab support tcp client anyone knows how to set this up. had no luck thus far :s




@ZARK and @watts-onare you able to read registers greater than 198? I am able to communicate with the inverter but only able to access registers up to 198 with ModLink VCL Demo. Most of the 'good stuff' on the inverter is in the high 200 register range.

Also if anyone need this or if it helps, this is the modbus documentation I am going off of for the inverter... sorry about the chinese. Better than nothing.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1QmXChLB3xM4ilQgnIhnX8HtPADPAMqL_
Click to expand...
 
@sogorman

A while back I tried to find any modbus write cmds, but concludedthat the external modbus portmust be read only (maybe for security?). I believe the controller board insidefor the display has a CAN/Modbus port that might allow for write cmds. Also I've attached an additional Modbus doc in Chinese , you might have better luck than I did.

sogorman said:
Update, thanks to @ZARK I was able to communicate with the controller of my GTILs using the RS232 specs he provided. Working on finding the registers for controlling the generation limit / amount so I can remotely control.

ZARK said:
watts-on said:
ZARK said:
Hello all. Having read the entire tread I am still lost concerning remote monitoring of this GTIL inverter. I have a GTIL2 1000 watt inverter ver 5.1 with the DB9 connector for remote monitoring.
however i do not have the wifi plug unit. I want to remote monitor my unit localy and not go to the chinese cloud. It seems some have done this here in the thread. I would like some help to do the seem please :). First of, which standard/protocal does it use rs485 or rs232 with modbus. The manuel seems to imply 485. Or can it use both. The pin out for the DB9 connector on the unit would be helpful. I have a wifi RTU unit (model USR W630) that i want to use to connect it to my network and then monitor using openhab2 with the modbus binding. I cant get it work :-( any help Please. Thanks
Click to expand...

It's a while since I dabbled with this, but here is some info and images I created at the time if it helps:

The interface is RS232:


image_bigkxa.jpg


The essential functions of the interface board:

image_kuzekk.jpg


The 8 pins on the left represent the ribbon cable from the main board. The 9 pins on the right represent the RS232 D connector. The centre pins are the connections to the RS232 level shifter IC (charge pump etc components not shown for clarity).
I'm not sure what the connection to pin 9 on the D connector is, but I suspect it is to provide power to a wifi type dongle, so watch out for that if what you connect to it is not expecting that as that is not standard on an RS232 connector.

Some screen shots of settings I used in a modbus application:


image_cquqhi.jpg
Click to expand...

Thanks very much for your responce :) . You have been very helpful. The pin out diagram was very useful. I have now manage to connect and communicate with the inverter :cool: , although I cant make much sense of the data. I was successful with a modbus tcp client. I want to monitor the inverter using openhab2. The modbus binding for openhab support tcp client anyone knows how to set this up. had no luck thus far :s




@ZARK and @watts-onare you able to read registers greater than 198? I am able to communicate with the inverter but only able to access registers up to 198 with ModLink VCL Demo. Most of the 'good stuff' on the inverter is in the high 200 register range.

Also if anyone need this or if it helps, this is the modbus documentation I am going off of for the inverter... sorry about the chinese. Better than nothing.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1QmXChLB3xM4ilQgnIhnX8HtPADPAMqL_
Click to expand...

Click to expand...
 

Attachments

  • Modbus RTU Protocol ????V100.pdf
    1.9 MB · Views: 741
I accessed the modbus a while back in this thread. Most of the registers seem to be nops. The only interesting data that I could access was the wattage being output.

If anybody else has better luck, please share :)

I have better luck sniffing the LCD display frames
 
Hi to all

After reading carefully all posts, and with the knowledge adquired, i've managedto hack the LCD communication protocol and now I'm able to control the Inverter with an ESP8266 via WIFI.
But it not works perfectly. As at every power change it goes to zero before reach the target power.
I'm trying to understand why but so far no progress.

Also I need to decode the remaining protocol in order to get the values showed in LCD. For now i'm working without LCD.

As i understood, there is a frame of bits sent from LCD to the Inverter.
Over there there are some of them witch are the value of power limiting that we can set on LCD.
Changing this ones I can control the Inverter.

In the attached excel you can find the data and how i decoded the important bytes.

Lets see if can make this work smoothly.

Thanks
 

Attachments

  • Inversor Dados.zip
    11 KB · Views: 461
https://www.anotherpower.com/board/index.php?topic=1270.0

Just to add this, ac coupling is common for us off gridders.. and this is a way to control it via battery charge, intercepting thr solar panel path and pwm control the current. The inverter virtually sees a cloud and scales back accordingly. It could be used with other control schemes but the pwm on the input is a sounds control method.
 
Is there any news on this topic? Would be very useful to be Able to control the GTIL2 externally.
 
OW1000 said:
Is there any news on this topic? Would be very useful to be Able to control the GTIL2 externally.
Click to expand...

I have put together my diy limiter design and am waiting for the boards to come in from China:


image_hcdole.jpg


It has two comms ports that can be configured for TTL UART, RS232 or RS422/485 in either half or full duplex.

The idea is that one port will be for control (I'll probably use modbus protocol) and the other for monitoring only / software updating.
It also has a relay allowing the GTIL it to be disconnected from the mains when not in use to save power.

There is also a spare output that could theoretically be used to control an external contactor to disconnect the DC for the same reason.

It's a fully external unit, i.e. no modifications required to the GTIL inverter (in theory, if it works :) )
 
Hi everyone, I am Giorgio and I am writing to you from Italy. I found this discussion because I am building a photovoltaic system with a 10kwh storage battery in my home. since I cannot feed electricity into the grid but I have to self-consume it in my home, I found the 2000watt GTIl2 inverter that would be perfect for my use. but there is a problem, I installed the inverter in the garage which is 75 meters away from the house and from the main electrical line where I should install the sensor clamp, so I am looking for a system to extend the measurement signal from the clamp to the 75 meters. what device can i use? I read that some of you worked on it but I don't know who to ask to buy it. can you help me ? thanks a lot to everyone.
 
MDJGyurgeiz said:
Hi everyone, I am Giorgio and I am writing to you from Italy. I found this discussion because I am building a photovoltaic system with a 10kwh storage battery in my home. since I cannot feed electricity into the grid but I have to self-consume it in my home, I found the 2000watt GTIl2 inverter that would be perfect for my use. but there is a problem, I installed the inverter in the garage which is 75 meters away from the house and from the main electrical line where I should install the sensor clamp, so I am looking for a system to extend the measurement signal from the clamp to the 75 meters. what device can i use? I read that some of you worked on it but I don't know who to ask to buy it. can you help me ? thanks a lot to everyone.
Click to expand...

I don't know of any off-the-shelf solution that would work over 75 meters.
Even the official external limiter (which doesn't seem to be available any more anyway) was only spec'd to work up to 30M.
It might be possible to hack my diy thing I mentioned above, using a line driver IC, but that would also require a receiver board at the other end to convert it back to the correct signal to feed into the inverter.
 
MDJGyurgeiz said:
ok. I ask you for information. you know who the real manufacturer of this inverter is
Click to expand...

I'm sorry but I don't know. There is nothing on the label and the only information in the manual refers to the Sunshine Website at http://www.chinesegrid.com, but that link is dead.
 
watts-on said:
MDJGyurgeiz said:
ok. I ask you for information. you know who the real manufacturer of this inverter is
Click to expand...

I'm sorry but I don't know. There is nothing on the label and the only information in the manual refers to the Sunshine Website at http://www.chinesegrid.com, but that link is dead.
Click to expand...


Can you tell me which signal comes out of the sensor clamp? what model of gripper it is and with what characteristics
 
MDJGyurgeiz said:
Can you tell me which signal comes out of the sensor clamp? what model of gripper it is and with what characteristics
Click to expand...

it's called a CT(current transformer) clamp, and is effectively just a coil of wire that picks up a representation of the current passing through the centre via the magnetic field it generates, and outputs it as an AC voltage proportional to the current. Its a weak analogue signal, which is why you can't have the wire too long.

This is the one that came with my inverter:


image_uynhmt.jpg


If you use the search term "100a 50ma" from the usual suspects, you should find plenty listed, however I doubt you'll find one with the correct connector. They all seem to come with 3.5mm a jack connector. Search "aviation connector" and you should find the right connector for it.
 
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