Mate Serial Communications Guide This guide is only relevant to Mate Code Revs. of 4.00 and greater For additional information contact matedev@outbackpower.com Mate Serial Communication Guide Page 1 of 20 Rev 4.04 10/21/08 Copyright 2007 © OutBack Power Systems, Inc.
Revision History Revision 2.0: 1. Added revision history. 2. Corrected some typos. 3. Added more typos. 4. Added Hub description to Mate Overview. 5. Added Baud rate description to Hardware section. 6. Changed inverter address description in FX Status Page. 7. Added to FX mode descriptions in FX Status Page. 8. Added to AC mode descriptions in FX Status Page. 9. Changed bit 5 warning mode description in FX Status Page. 10. Added MX Status Page. 11. Changed the description in Commands section. 12.
Mate Serial Communication Guide Page 3 of 20 Rev 4.04 10/21/08 Copyright 2007 © OutBack Power Systems, Inc.
Introduction The purpose of this document is to describe the hardware and software protocols required to communicate with the OutBack Power Systems MateTM remote controller via a PC. This information is only relevant to Mate Code Revisions 4.00 and greater. Mate Overview The Mate controller is designed to report status and control the operating modes of OutBack Power Systems power conversion equipment.
Hardware In addition to a LCD and buttons for display and control, an OutBack Mate provides an isolated RS232 port for PC communication in the form of a female DB9 connector, running at a baud rate of 19200, 8 bits, no parity, 1 stop bit. The Mates’ serial port is optically isolated from the rest of the OutBack products it is connected too. This isolation requires that the Mate ‘steals’ power from the PC in order to RX pin 2 of a DB 9 communicate.
BYTE 1. ASCII (10) New Line character denoting the start of the status page. 2. This is the Inverter address. 3. ASCII (44) a comma as a data separator. 4. Tens digit of Inverter current. 5. Ones digit of Inverter current. 6. ASCII (44) a comma as a data separator. 7. Tens digit of Charger current.. 8. Ones digit of Charger current. 9. ASCII (44) a comma as a data separator. 10. Tens digit of Buy current.. 11. Ones digit of Buy current. 12. ASCII (44) a comma as a data separator. 13.
44. Low byte of FX Warning mode. 45. ASCII (44) a comma as a data separator. 46. Hundreds digit of Chksum. 47. Tens digit of Chksum. 48. Ones digit of Chksum. 49. ASCII (13) carriage return. Denotes end of status page. Inverter Address: For a directly connected FX this will be a ‘0’ (ASCII (48)). If a HUB is used, the address will correspond to the port the FX is plugged into. ASCII (49) – ASCII (58) for Ports 1-10. Inverter current: ‘00’ to ‘99’.
Support means that the FX is drawing power from the batteries to support the AC source it is connected to. Grid-Tie inverters will display support whenever power being removed from the batteries does not exceed the AC loads of the system. An example would be: A Grid-Tie FX has a SellRE setting of 25.6VDC and 600W of AC load on its output. DC sources are contributing 300W to the battery. The GTFX will hold the battery @ 25.6VDC by converting the excess 300W of DC power to AC.
AC mode: ’00’ to ‘99’ This data represents the status of the AC input. No AC is pretty straight forward, AC Drop means that AC is present but, it is not yet within valid parameters or the FX has been told not to use it (Drop). AC Use means AC is present and valid, and the FX will utilize it. DATA MODE "00" No AC "01" AC Drop "02" AC Use Figure 6 Battery Voltage: ‘000’ to ‘999’ A 24.8 Vdc battery voltage will be sent as ‘248’. The Resolution of battery voltage is .1V for 12V systems, .
Warning modes: ‘000’ to ‘255’ This is an ASCII expression of an 8 bit byte, with each bit representing a different error. Referring to Figure 8, a returned ‘010’ would be AC input low voltage and freq. FXs with warnings will continue to operate. See figure 8. BIT # Value Warning 1 1 AC Input Freq High 2 2 AC Input Freq Low 3 4 Input VAC High 4 8 Input VAC Low 5 16 Buy Amps > Input size 6 32 Temp sensor failed 7 64 Comm Error 8 128 Fan Failure Figure 8 Chksum: ‘000’ to ‘999’.
MX/FM Status Page 3 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 45 46 47 48 end of status page Chksum unused 43 44 Separator Separator Daily AH Separator Battery voltage Separator Separator MX Charger mode Error modes Separator Aux mode Separator Separator Daily KWH Separator PV voltage Separator Unused 4 Separator 44 48 48 44 X X 44 X X 44 X X X 44 X X X 44 48 X 44 X X 44 X X X 44 X X 44 X X X 44 X X X X 44 4
34. Tens digit of battery voltage. 35. Ones digit of battery voltage. 36. Tenths digit of battery voltage. 37. ASCII (44) a comma as a data separator. 38. Thousands digit of daily AH. 39. Hundreds digit of daily AH. 40. Tens digit of daily AH. 41. Ones digit of daily AH. 42. ASCII (44) a comma as a data separator. 43. Unused, ASCII (48). 44. Unused, ASCII (48). 45. ASCII (44) a comma as a data separator. 46. Hundredths digit of Chksum. 47. Tens digit of Chksum. 48. Ones digit of Chksum. 49.
MX60 Aux mode: ‘00’ to ‘99’ This shows what Aux output mode is being run on the MX. Refer to MX manual for mode descriptions. FLEXmax 80 or FLEXmax 60 the lower 6 bits represent the programmed Aux mode. If bit 7 is set (data greater than 63) then Aux mode is active.
Chksum: ‘000’ to ‘999’ this is a simple additive chksum of the decimal values of the Status page. NOTE: Since the MX address is an alpha character, it’s checksum needs to be calculated differently then the FX’s numerical address. Addresses reported for the MX/FM will be ‘A” (ASCII 66) through ‘K” (ASCII 75) corresponding to ports 1-10. The value to use for Chksum calculations should be the received ASCII value – 48 (For the received character ‘A” the chksum value to be used would be 65-48, or 17.
FLEXnet DC Status Page Byte 8 end of status page Battery Temperature Chksum separator separator separator Status flags separator separator separator Extra data separator separator Shunt 3 enable 3 4 5 6 7 separator Shunt 2 enable State of charge Battery voltage Extra data identifier Shunt C Amps Shunt B Amps X 44 X X 44 X X 44 X X X 13 2 separator X 1 separator 10 X 44 X X X X 44 X X X X 44 X X X X 44 X X 44 X X X X X 44 X X X 44 X X X 44 X FNDC Address Shunt 1 enable ASCII
32. Hundreds digit of state of charge. 33. Tens digit of state of charge. 34. Ones digit of state of charge. 35. ASCII (44) a comma as a data separator. 36. Shunt A enabled flag. 37. Shunt B enabled flag. 38. Shunt C enabled flag. 39. ASCII (44) a comma as a data separator. 40. High byte of status flags. 41. Low byte of status flags. 42. ASCII (44) a comma as a data separator. 43. Tens digit of battery temperature. 44. Ones digit of battery temperature. 45. ASCII(44) a comma as a data separator. 46.
Extra data identifier: ‘00’ to ‘99’, this is an ASCII expression of a 8 bit byte with bits 1 through 7 being used. Bit: 7 extra data numeric sign 0: positive value 1: negative value Bits: 1-6 0: Accumulated AH shunt ‘A’ 1: Accumulated kWH shunt ‘A’ 2: Accumulated AH shunt ‘B’ 3: Accumulated kWH shunt ‘B’ 4: Accumulated AH shunt ‘C’ 5: Accumulated kWH shunt ‘C’ 6: Days since full 7: Today’s minimum SOC 8: Today’s net input AH 9: Today’s net output AH 10.
Shunt enable flags: ‘0’ enabled, ‘1’ disabled. Status Flags: ‘00’ to ‘63’ This is an ASCII expression of an 8 bit byte, with each bit representing a different flag. Relay state is 1 when relay is closed, 0 if relay is open. Relay mode is 0 if manual mode, 1 if relay control is in automatic mode. Referring to Figure 14, a returned ‘009’ would be charge parms met and shunt 1 values are negative.
Commands The Mate will accept the following commands for controlling FXs only. The Mate only passes these commands to the master inverter in a HUB stacked system. The master will change the modes of all slaved inverters to suit. ON, SEARCH, OFF, USE, DROP, AUX ON, and AUX OFF. ON will turn the FX to ON mode, if no AC input is being used the inverter will provide a constant output.
If a 2 byte command is received during this ‘Listen Time’, the Mate will cease listening to the PC and process the received command (See figure 16). An invalid command will be ignored by the Mate. The result of any valid command will be shown in the next seconds’ Status Page. At this time commands will only be sent to the master FX on any STACK or HUB stacked system. The slaves will follow all operational mode changes of the FX except AUX ON and AUX OFF.
