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netFIELD Compact Gateway Serial RS485 connection for application - Printable Version

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netFIELD Compact Gateway Serial RS485 connection for application - DSongra - February-18th-2023

Dear Armin,

Greetings!

Hope you are doing well!

I am working on netFIELD Compact Gateway (Version 2.3.0.4), making one demo setup kit for showcase/training purposes to our Indian customers & my colleagues.

For this I have installed node-red docker container, and I have follow the steps as mentioned in document as below. but I am not able to communication Energy Meter,
so how to verify the RS485 mode is activated? or is there any other settings to do.


Terminal -
sudo sh -c "echo 'mode=rs485' > /etc/default/uart1"
systemctl restart uart1-mode

In Node red docker container -
--device=/dev/ttymxc0:/dev/ttymxc0

Br,
Devendra

RE: netFIELD Compact Gateway Serial RS485 connection for application - Armin@netPI - February-18th-2023

Well Devendra,

I just can tell you right now that this forum will be closing in near future. All upcoming support questions will be handled through Hilschers standard support contact support@hilscher.com nowadays.

I am no longer involved in any support activities. Also I have never tested RS232 and RS485 communications with netFIELD Compact. So I have no knowledge about it as I had before with netPI years before.

All I can say is that the system test executed 2022 has been passed successfully at the time of the product release. So the RS485 interface must have been worked physically. Also I do not see any error in the manual and code description you are referencing.

I also see an example how to start Node-RED successfully with

Code:
docker run -d -p 1880:1880 --device=/dev/ttymxc0:/dev/ttymxc0 --group-add dialout nodered/node-red

So from a user perspective you have done everything well.

For a simple tests without Node-RED you could call in your Linux terminal to print out a simple "hello" to the /dev/ttymxc0

Code:
echo "hello" > /dev/ttymxc0

Of course you need a physical RS485 counterpart device like a RS485 to RS232 converter connected to your PC to see if this "hello" char string is coming out. This is the only check I see right now.

If not you have to contact support@hilscher.com instead.

RE: netFIELD Compact Gateway Serial RS485 connection for application - DSongra - February-18th-2023

Dear Armin, 

Thanks for your response and suggestion, I will check this and will update you.


Br,
Devendra

RE: netFIELD Compact Gateway Serial RS485 connection for application - DSongra - February-20th-2023

Dear Armin,

Good Morning!

Yes, it is working I got a response in HyperTerminal Software on my PC.

But this is not working in the Node-Red application, what it should show in the Modbus node Serial Port list, or do I need to manually write (/dev/ttymxc0) in the node-red Modbus node (attached screenshot). or How can I verify this in node-red docker container as you last time guided me for the USB interface.


Br,
Devendra

RE: netFIELD Compact Gateway Serial RS485 connection for application - Armin@netPI - February-20th-2023

As far as I know is that the drop down list in modbus node does not auto-detect the serial port interfaces. So yes you have to configure "/dev/ttymxc0" manually.

And I am happy to hear that you saw the "hello" coming out of the serial port. So we know your physics is working. This is a good start.

RE: netFIELD Compact Gateway Serial RS485 connection for application - DSongra - February-21st-2023

Dear Armin,

Good Evening!

I have done the same and after deploying the node-red flow, the node-red container gets to stop and runs back again for a few seconds and again stops, or I have to recreate the container. So this issue is continuously happening.

I tried node-red docker container version V2.2.3 & V3.0.2 but still the same issue, the container gets stopped.

Could you please provide me some reference container setting screenshots, node-red version, or anything additional settings which you/the HQ team have done to run this? 


Br,
Devendra

RE: netFIELD Compact Gateway Serial RS485 connection for application - Armin@netPI - February-21st-2023

I tried it myself with Node-RED. Instead of installing Modbus node I just was installing the standard node-red serial port node first to make some basic tests.

I configured the /dev/ttymxc0 also manually and after I deployed the Node-RED flow my Node-RED container was immediately crashing.

After the crash I went back to my main Linux where I have started the container from and used the "docker logs <container ID>" command with the container ID of the crashed container.

It said "segmentation fault". So the serial port node causes to crash the Node-RED.

Since Node-RED is not Hilscher software, I cannot say why it crashes.

I searched on the internet for such kind of problem and I found others having such an issue too in the past under different conditions

https://github.com/serialport/node-serialport/issues/2438
https://discourse.nodered.org/t/segment-fault-error-occurs-when-deploy-node-red-node-serial-in-openwrt/63842
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/54129263/new-serialport-throws-segmentation-fault

So it seems you are not alone with this problem. It seems Node-RED and the implementation of serial port function is buggy.

In the end to be honest I can't tell you why the serial port function crashes. We have proved that unter normal Linux conditions using "echo 'hello' > ..." works, so the phyiscal hardware is properly working. It is the used software that does not work.

I don't know how to help you now with 3rd party software now.

RE: netFIELD Compact Gateway Serial RS485 connection for application - DSongra - February-21st-2023

Dear Armin,

Yes, I am also getting this same error in the node-red log, I know this issue many people are facing but somewhere they have mentioned to modified the "docker-compose.yml" file and adding a serial interface & same is mentioned in our Compact Gateway User Manual page no. 20 (UM 02), 

So could you please let me know where can I get this Docker-Compose.yml file in our Gateway? because I have checked this into the docker demon & docker files directory but could not find it, might be I am looking at a different directory.

Br,
Devendra

RE: netFIELD Compact Gateway Serial RS485 connection for application - Armin@netPI - February-21st-2023

There are two methods to start a docker container. Both methods are 100% equal, just the way is different

Method 1: calling "docker" command line e.g "docker run <parameter1> <parameter2> <parameter3> <parameter4> ... <Container>"
Methog 2: calling "docker-compose" command line e.g "docker-compose <compose-file> up"

So instead of having a very very very long and anoying "docker run ...." command line using docker-compose is much more easier since all required parameters are inserted in a simple text file socalled docker-compose.yml file

But the most important point is: either the one or the other method starts the container exactly in the same way. So there will never be a different in the behavior of the container afterwards

You are asking about a docker-compose file. How to create own docker-compose files can be found in the very official specification. https://docs.docker.com/compose/compose-file/

For Node-RED there are also proposals of a compose file available on the official Node-RED homepage on https://nodered.org/docs/getting-started/docker. There is a chapter named "Docker Stack / Docker Compose" and there you find an example of a typical Node-RED docker-compose.yml file. You can copy and paste the contents to a physical file on your Linux and call it.

RE: netFIELD Compact Gateway Serial RS485 connection for application - Armin@netPI - February-21st-2023

I tried at home with my netFIELD Compact and followed the instruction of this ticket https://github.com/node-red/node-red/issues/3461 to install  an older version of the serial-port node within Node-RED.

So I called the following line first

Code:
docker run -d -p 1880:1880 --device=/dev/ttymxc0:/dev/ttymxc0 --group-add dialout nodered/node-red

Calling the command line above returned me the unique container ID after creation (yours will be different)

Code:
47ba15267f49612a357846e56d32e8ad0184c127669300a19fa5af4d34b697ef

Then I called the following line using the container ID to "jump" into the container (replace my container ID with your ID)

Code:
docker exec -it 47ba15267f49612a357846e56d32e8ad0184c127669300a19fa5af4d34b697ef /bin/sh

Then I called the following commands to install the old version of serial port V0.15.0 in the container

Code:
cd /data
npm install node-red-node-serialport@0.15.0
exit

After the exit the container needs a restart to get the container restarted and the old serial port node active (replace container ID with yours)

Code:
docker restart 47ba15267f49612a357846e56d32e8ad0184c127669300a19fa5af4d34b697ef

Now the Node-RED container is restarted and includes for test purpose and old version of serial port node

Now you can configure a serial port node in your flow using the device "/dev/ttymxc0". You can use a "Inject" node to inject a string "hello" to this node for tests.

After you deploy your flow you see Node-RED is not crashing cause of using the old serial port node. This is the proof that the netFIELD Compact device is working fine with Node-RED on serial port. So the problems comes from newer version of Node-RED and serial port node.