Replies: 3 comments 1 reply
-
|
received a new usb to rs485 adapter today. It appears to also be max485 and ftdi based but it has lights and an extension cable so that's nice. Sadly it doesn't seem to be receiving any data from the filter pump either. I tried both wire orientations and left it connected for a couple minutes while actuated the pump display (on/off a couple programs). I also unscrewed the housing for the pump controller and confirmed there are 2 wires connected to the outside connector so it's not anything stupid like that. Seperately I used my two rs485 adapters on 2 computers and confirmed they are able to send and receive accurate data over 2 feet of cable so they are confirmed working. I wonder, do I need a "smart" control panel connected to the pump to cause it to wake up? Or is the pump just waiting for a command for me to give it and never talks unless spoken too? Does anyone have a basic command I can send to turn on or off program 1, for example? |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I found the original conversation which lead to the reverse engineering of this pentair API: here and I also found the extensive conversation to include @tagyoureit when he was first discovering how to interface with the pump as well here. From those sources I discovered that without a controller, the pump will not talk unless prompted. It sounds like the default RS485 address is 0x60. I also discovered documentation from pentair that shows that the yellow wire in the cable is A+ (AKA D+) so I've standardized on that with my adapter. I then sent a basic message which tells the pump to enable remote control: Not wanting to give up I decided that I should fire up the full nodejs-poolController server and maybe it will do somthing better than I can. Unfortunately this didn't yield anything positive either. I did confirm the com port is correct and not open by another app. As you can see, the server isn't seeing anything. I did configure the MQTT client on the server and I see just a single topic publishing the time on the server. I wonder if maybe I need start run the web client to get things going? I am struggling with that due to an error with tsc. As above and just in case I re-tried this all with opposite wiring polarity with no change. Any ideas? `PS C:\Users\kevin\nodejs-poolController> npm start
Init state for Pool Controller |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I got the dash panel working now (had to do npm i before npm start and tsc error went away). Within dash I was able to add the pump manually and magically it began communicating. I could see rx/tx on the rs485 adapter and successful coms on port page of the dash panel. In the logs I see that the pump is ID #50 but address 96 (0x60). I tried re-communicating with via direct serial comms (without poolcontroller running) using address 50 (and correct checksum) but that didn't do it. There must be some other message that wakes up the pump. I did re-enable poolController and re-establish serial comms with the pump and then turned on logging. Unfortunately this logging is a layer of abstraction and not the raw hex comms with the pump so I can't seem to figure out what that magic message is. Would be great if someone could clue me in. In the mean time I will start a new question regarding how to use the poolcontroller to what I need since it is out of the scope of this post (no rs485). |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
You need to have the nodejs-poolController running. It's what communicates with the pump and keeps it running. You can use dashPanel (and should use this as a starting point). If you want to see the messages that are sent, use message manager in dashPanel. We fully support standalone pumps so you shouldn't need to do this work again yourself. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
I recently re-awakened this project for myself and connected the rs485 cable to the vsf pump for the first time. The cable has 2 wires (yellow and green) and I have tried both combinations as connectted to my usb to rs485 adapter (for the A+ and B- pins). Neither config yields any data. The adapter is here and is FTDI MAX485 based. The driver is correctly installed on my windows laptop and I see it show up at com11. In device manager I see that 96008N1 is pre-selected and I've made sure to also select that in my serial applications. I've tried both putty and serialtool applications without luck. I am connecting directly to the vsf pump (black connector just above keypad on the side of the housing) and I do not have any other equipment that is connected (filter pump only). Should I pick up a new 485 adapter or is there somthing obvious I'm missing.
pump connection:
Pinout of usb rs485 adapter. I've confirmed with a multimeter that ground, 3.3 and 5v are where they say they are so I'm confident that I know which terminals A+ and B- are at.
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
All reactions