I am looking for advice where to either purchase or rent (I am based in Cape Town) a CanBus tool in order to update the firmware of my battery BMS.
I am told by the battery manufacturer whom also make the BMS that in order for my BMS to communicate with my Cerbo GX (as per pics below) the BMS firmware will need to be updated.
Anyone in Cape Town or western cape that can assist?
Michael
@JacoDeJongh is this something you can assist with? I am told the BMS of this battery uses the Pylontech protocol. I have the software and files to update firmware of the BMS but not the Canbus reader/editor tool
There isn’t just one kind of CAN-bus interface for PCs. Some can be very specific. For example, the ActiSense CAN-bus interface (typically used on boats, NMEA2000) is completely different to the CANadapter used by OrionBms, which is different to the hobbyist “CANable” chip, or even the slcand solutions that uses a microcontroller to translate a serial protocol to can messages, or the ELM327-based options and all their clones (some worse than others).
This is going depend entirely on what interface the software requires.
Edit: Also, there is no such thing as the “Pylontech protocol”, unless the manufacturer means that he literally uses Pylontech’s way of transferring firmware over a CAN-bus (it does exist). But that still doesn’t help with finding the right CAN connector, because Pylontech batteries are usually updated over a RS232 connection.
Hi Sorry, no, not much I know about them. I have a few Can hats lying around but they are for Pi’s . I see a few places selling similar devices.
The way Pylontech communicates were widely accepted in many different manufacturers. In most pace bms"s there is a dropdown to select from. Firstly for communication between batteries and secondly for communication between BMS and Inverter.
“Pylontech” is selectable in both drop downs, hench the idee that pylontech is a “protocol”.
BlueNova is somewhere in Cape Town. Can’t they assist with the actual device?
EDIT: If Blue Nova is unwilling/unable to assist physically with updating the firmware (+ @JacoDeJongh can’t work his magic) and that specific brand CAN-USB device is needed - about R1900 total (shipping/duties etc. included). [Image is linked to the the actual listing on amazon]
Interesting observation, I cant see any indication that this is a blue nova. How did you see it?
reading tea leaves… 
but seriously
Then maybe I can help. Let me contact one of their engineers. Maybe she will know where to look.
Hehe, okay. I should have some compassion of the average guy on the street 
I suppose what irritates me about the “pylontech protocol” is that people copy it verbatim, down to some of the identifying marks, and then make it my problem when the battery is incorrectly detected as a Pylontech.
The protocol is pretty standard across all batteries, for the most important stuff (voltage, current, soc, voltage and current limits, etc). The difference is usually in the way alarms and warnings are communicated. Traditionally Pylontech, LG and Sony/Murata uses 0x359 for this, and everyone else uses 0x35A for this. In Victron country both are supported, so it doesn’t really matter. All protocols are essentially the same.
Pylontech does however have a heal of their own stuff added in top of this, things that would be more aptly referred to as the “pylontech protocol”, but which most batteries will not support.
They have an extended set of commands by which you can query cell voltages, if you send 8 zero bytes to 0x4000000, for example, it will send back information about cell voltages for everything. At least according to the docs.
There is also a way of transferring firmware over the CAN bus, using messages between 0x4610 and 0x46D0. This is very much Pylontech protocol, but I don’t think this battery supports that…
