I have a 5000 series Solaredge inverter that includes the zigbee wifi radio system to wirelessly connect the inverter to my Xfinity cable modem. It does this with 2 parts;
First is a chip that goes on the communications board inside the inverter up near where the SD programming chip goes. Second is a gateway that receives the radio signal and connects it to the rest of the world via ethernet cable. The inverter is the slave, the gateway is the master.
So here's the problem;
The system was turned up about a week ago. The zigbee radio link was fairly easy to establish. Within 24 hours the gateway indicated it had lost communication with the slave when the signal strength LED's on the gateway, 3 of 'em, goes to none and the link LED, that normally blinks once ever 5 seconds, didn't light up any more. The portal LED, indicated with the label S_OK was on, indicating that the gateway is connected to the Solaredge monitoring portal. (the monitoring portal is my Solaredge account where I can view my system on-line.)
At the inverter, the screen display of S_OK is missing. From the menus I can determine the server is associated to zigbee, but further investigation shows that zigbee is not available. If I go into the menu further, to change the server communication, the choices of LAN, RS485, RS232 are available, but zigbee is missing. Also, one of the display pages shows the zigbee radio channel, the RF signal strength and the MAC address assigned to it from the master gateway portion of the kit.
Long story short; the only way I can get the inverter to recognize it's got a zigbee slave card installed is to go into the maintenance menu and select the choice to reload the SW via the SD card. Once I do that, the zigbee card is now an option for the Server selection and the radio channel, the signal strength, MAC address all appear. The new display states that the Gateway can not be found. I then push the reset button on the gateway. Sometimes it works, but most times I have to do a power-off-reset on the gateway, then hit the reset button. The reset button causes the gateway to go out and look for slave radio zigbee's in inverters.
I guess what I'm posting for is to see if anyone else has had issues using zigbee on the Solaredge inverter and what you did to fix. I'm also interested in any opinions and ideas of where to continue looking. While I appreciate the Communications Card Solaredge sent me today, I really don't think it's going to solve the drop-out issue.
For back ground information, here's the last e-mail I had with the Solaredge tech who sent me the Communications card and the most recent e-mail I sent when I got the card, installed it and informed him of the results;
Hi Aaron,
The zigbee shut down again tonight about 11pm. I was actually looking at the Gateway and the signal lights went from all 3 green to one green.
In a nutshell; to restore, I have to reload the SD Card via the SW Upgrade -SD Card option from the Maintenance Menu and the zigbee starts working again for another day. This has SOMETHING to do with the inverter going into NIGHT MODE. It never happens during the day when solar power is being generated and the inverter is ON.
Here are the steps I've taken to restore the inverter to wake up the zigbee module;
I went to the inverter and the main screen didn't have the <S_OK> status lit.
Short push button and step to Server Display
Short push button and step to ZIGBEE READY display and there isn't any channel and signal strength is no longer H but just a dash -.
I then went to the Communication Menu
SERVER <ZIGBEE> is displayed but two rows below that line, the ZIGBEE CONF is not selectable. NO <S>
I then went to Server Menu
No zigbee option. Now THAT is weird! How can 'Server Display' indicate 'Zigbee Ready' and the Server Menu doesn't show zigbee as a choice to select. There is just RS485, RS232, LAN and none.
So I selected LAN.
Now from the Communication Menu Server <LAN> is displayed.
Back to Server Menu
No zigbee option to select.
Back OUT of Server Menu
Go to Maintenance Menu
Scrolled down to SW Upgrade - SD Card
Select and select YES
The inverter loads the SD card.
Go to Server Menu
Zigbee is now and option and I select it.
Within a few minutes the Gateway LED signal strength LEDS, all three light back up, the Yellow LINK LED on the the Gateway blinks once every 5 seconds and the Ethernet LED (S-OK) on the Gateway lights up.
Back at the inverter, all is normal with the zigbee; the main display has the <S_OK> restored, there's now a channel selected and the signal strength is an "H" indicating High.
I'm hoping the replacement zigbee slave module solves the problem, but I'm not so sure it will. I'm beginning to think there's something in the firmware chip that's allowing the zigbee to get unrecognized when the inverter goes into nightmode and been there a while. It doesn't restore on it's own when the sun comes back up either.
END E-MAIL
O.K. me skipro3 again. Rereading my e-mail to tech support, my last sentence suggests that I think the firmware chip may be at fault. Maybe that's why he sent me the Communications board instead of the zigbee slave card? This tech isn't a very talkative sort. I got the board after my e-mail and no reply. Not even a note that he's sending it to me. Just BAM! an e-mail from UPS saying I've got a package being delivered.
Now, here's my e-mail to Solaredge tech support after I installed the communications card;
Hi Aaron,
A package arrived in the mail today. It's not what I was expecting. I thought you would be sending a zigbee slave card. Instead I got a Communications Board. It's the big board with the display and where the zigbee slave plugs into.
I went ahead and installed it. It gave me a bit of trouble at first. Everything worked but the DC voltage would never go out of it's SAFE mode of 1 volt per panel I have 16 panels so it read 17 volts (I assume it's a bit more than 1 volt per panel, so the discrepancy.) I got it to work by putting the inverter into stand-by via the menu, then back again to disable stand-by. That got it to finally go into Wake-Up mode and count down from 285 seconds. From there, it finally produced correct output DC and switched the output on.
But I don't think this fixed the zigbee failure. During the process, the display indicated that there was no zigbee and that there was no channel and no signal level. But like I wrote you last night, from the communication menu, the SERVER <ZIGBEE> is displayed but further down on the same menu, ZIGBEE CONF is not available. I went into SERVER menu and zigbee is not an option and yet, it's the one the server says it's connected to.
So I kept trying the reload of the SD card. 3rd try, it recognized the zigbee was there, but no gateway. I initialized the gateway and there was finally communication between the inverter's slave zigbee radio and the gateway zigbee radio.
I'll watch it, but with the initial failure I've experienced right away, I don't think it's going to stay up and connected
Thanks!
Jerry
First is a chip that goes on the communications board inside the inverter up near where the SD programming chip goes. Second is a gateway that receives the radio signal and connects it to the rest of the world via ethernet cable. The inverter is the slave, the gateway is the master.
So here's the problem;
The system was turned up about a week ago. The zigbee radio link was fairly easy to establish. Within 24 hours the gateway indicated it had lost communication with the slave when the signal strength LED's on the gateway, 3 of 'em, goes to none and the link LED, that normally blinks once ever 5 seconds, didn't light up any more. The portal LED, indicated with the label S_OK was on, indicating that the gateway is connected to the Solaredge monitoring portal. (the monitoring portal is my Solaredge account where I can view my system on-line.)
At the inverter, the screen display of S_OK is missing. From the menus I can determine the server is associated to zigbee, but further investigation shows that zigbee is not available. If I go into the menu further, to change the server communication, the choices of LAN, RS485, RS232 are available, but zigbee is missing. Also, one of the display pages shows the zigbee radio channel, the RF signal strength and the MAC address assigned to it from the master gateway portion of the kit.
Long story short; the only way I can get the inverter to recognize it's got a zigbee slave card installed is to go into the maintenance menu and select the choice to reload the SW via the SD card. Once I do that, the zigbee card is now an option for the Server selection and the radio channel, the signal strength, MAC address all appear. The new display states that the Gateway can not be found. I then push the reset button on the gateway. Sometimes it works, but most times I have to do a power-off-reset on the gateway, then hit the reset button. The reset button causes the gateway to go out and look for slave radio zigbee's in inverters.
I guess what I'm posting for is to see if anyone else has had issues using zigbee on the Solaredge inverter and what you did to fix. I'm also interested in any opinions and ideas of where to continue looking. While I appreciate the Communications Card Solaredge sent me today, I really don't think it's going to solve the drop-out issue.
For back ground information, here's the last e-mail I had with the Solaredge tech who sent me the Communications card and the most recent e-mail I sent when I got the card, installed it and informed him of the results;
Hi Aaron,
The zigbee shut down again tonight about 11pm. I was actually looking at the Gateway and the signal lights went from all 3 green to one green.
In a nutshell; to restore, I have to reload the SD Card via the SW Upgrade -SD Card option from the Maintenance Menu and the zigbee starts working again for another day. This has SOMETHING to do with the inverter going into NIGHT MODE. It never happens during the day when solar power is being generated and the inverter is ON.
Here are the steps I've taken to restore the inverter to wake up the zigbee module;
I went to the inverter and the main screen didn't have the <S_OK> status lit.
Short push button and step to Server Display
Short push button and step to ZIGBEE READY display and there isn't any channel and signal strength is no longer H but just a dash -.
I then went to the Communication Menu
SERVER <ZIGBEE> is displayed but two rows below that line, the ZIGBEE CONF is not selectable. NO <S>
I then went to Server Menu
No zigbee option. Now THAT is weird! How can 'Server Display' indicate 'Zigbee Ready' and the Server Menu doesn't show zigbee as a choice to select. There is just RS485, RS232, LAN and none.
So I selected LAN.
Now from the Communication Menu Server <LAN> is displayed.
Back to Server Menu
No zigbee option to select.
Back OUT of Server Menu
Go to Maintenance Menu
Scrolled down to SW Upgrade - SD Card
Select and select YES
The inverter loads the SD card.
Go to Server Menu
Zigbee is now and option and I select it.
Within a few minutes the Gateway LED signal strength LEDS, all three light back up, the Yellow LINK LED on the the Gateway blinks once every 5 seconds and the Ethernet LED (S-OK) on the Gateway lights up.
Back at the inverter, all is normal with the zigbee; the main display has the <S_OK> restored, there's now a channel selected and the signal strength is an "H" indicating High.
I'm hoping the replacement zigbee slave module solves the problem, but I'm not so sure it will. I'm beginning to think there's something in the firmware chip that's allowing the zigbee to get unrecognized when the inverter goes into nightmode and been there a while. It doesn't restore on it's own when the sun comes back up either.
END E-MAIL
O.K. me skipro3 again. Rereading my e-mail to tech support, my last sentence suggests that I think the firmware chip may be at fault. Maybe that's why he sent me the Communications board instead of the zigbee slave card? This tech isn't a very talkative sort. I got the board after my e-mail and no reply. Not even a note that he's sending it to me. Just BAM! an e-mail from UPS saying I've got a package being delivered.
Now, here's my e-mail to Solaredge tech support after I installed the communications card;
Hi Aaron,
A package arrived in the mail today. It's not what I was expecting. I thought you would be sending a zigbee slave card. Instead I got a Communications Board. It's the big board with the display and where the zigbee slave plugs into.
I went ahead and installed it. It gave me a bit of trouble at first. Everything worked but the DC voltage would never go out of it's SAFE mode of 1 volt per panel I have 16 panels so it read 17 volts (I assume it's a bit more than 1 volt per panel, so the discrepancy.) I got it to work by putting the inverter into stand-by via the menu, then back again to disable stand-by. That got it to finally go into Wake-Up mode and count down from 285 seconds. From there, it finally produced correct output DC and switched the output on.
But I don't think this fixed the zigbee failure. During the process, the display indicated that there was no zigbee and that there was no channel and no signal level. But like I wrote you last night, from the communication menu, the SERVER <ZIGBEE> is displayed but further down on the same menu, ZIGBEE CONF is not available. I went into SERVER menu and zigbee is not an option and yet, it's the one the server says it's connected to.
So I kept trying the reload of the SD card. 3rd try, it recognized the zigbee was there, but no gateway. I initialized the gateway and there was finally communication between the inverter's slave zigbee radio and the gateway zigbee radio.
I'll watch it, but with the initial failure I've experienced right away, I don't think it's going to stay up and connected
Thanks!
Jerry
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