Kostal Proprietary Plugin

Purpose

The purpose of this plugin is to collect data from the proprietary Kostal protocol (not Modbus).

Usage

This plugin collects data via a serial conenction over TCP, using an old Kostal protocol (not Modbus). The manual Installation and Operating Manual PIKO Inverter for versions 4.2, 5.5, 7.0, 8.3, 10.1 on page 24 (Figure 32) of that document, you will see that you can communicate to one or more inverters directly via an Ethernet cable to the FIRST INVERTER. Other inverters need to be connected via RS485 daisy chain. RS485 is a signalling protocol that allows many devices to share the same physical pair of wires, in a master master/slave relationship. Note the following:

1. Connection from the Ardexa device to the first inverter is via an ethernet cable (via a switch or using a crossover cable).

2. Other inverters are connected to this first one via RS485 daisy chain.

3. You MUST know the IP Address of the FIRST inverters only.

4. Each inverter (if there are more than 1) must have a UNIQUE RS485 address

Inverter data will be collected to the solar table. By default, it will collected data every 5 minutes, but can collect at a minimum rate of about 30 seconds. The plugin will make an attempt of (by default) 2 times to read an inverter. See the Ardexa documentation instructions for connecting Kostal Inverters. The following data will be collected:

Variable Name       Units
DC Voltage 1        V
DC Voltage 2        V
DC Voltage 3        V
DC Current 1        A
DC Current 2        A
DC Current 3        A
DC Power 1          W
DC Power 2          W
DC Power 3          C
DC Temperature 1    °C
DC Temperature 2    °C
DC Temperature 3    °C
AC Voltage 1        V
AC Voltage 2        V
AC Voltage 3        V
AC Current 1        A
AC Current 2        A
AC Current 3        A
AC Power 1          W
AC Power 2          W
AC Power 3          W
AC Temperature 1    °C
AC Temperature 2    °C
AC Temperature 3    °C
DC Power            W
AC Power            W
Total Energy        Wh
Daily Energy        Wh
Total Hours         h
Status
Error
Error Code

Arguments

Arguments are as follows:

• ip_address. This is an IP or DNS like 192.168.1.15

• bus_addresses. A Kostal RS485 address in the range 1-255. This can be a hyphenated list like 3-10 or a list like 2,5,7,9

• --port. This is an optional parameter used in an Ethernet gateway, and is the TCP port used for the gateway. Default is 81

• --attempts. This is an optional parameter, and determines how many times to times to attempt to read an inverter value. Default is 2