Replies: 16 comments 33 replies
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You could remove any power from the balancer and measure the resistance between the pin header pins and the microcontroller. Try to get an idea how to BLE module is connected to the microcontroller and what's exposed at the pin header. |
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I would also be interested in this, to connect to my Neey via serial comms rather than Bluetooth. I would be sure that there will be a method possible to connect directly to this device, likely via async serial TTL levels. |
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I went looking online for a BLE module that uses the RTL8762AG version and found this one, very similar board layout. From that site they have a data sheet, a PDF, and from this I can see that the Neey is using the UART interface, the two pins on the top left of your photo. There are some other pins connected between the Neey and the BLE module, such as the serial RTS line and power of course. The datasheet says the default baud rate for the RTL8762AG is 115200, and it would be at 1.8 to 3.3 Volt level. I am thinking that it might be possible to then use a simple USB to TTL serial converter that allows setting for a 3.3V interface will get things working. The thing to do first would be to connect the line that transmits from the Neey to the receive line of the BLE module and use a simple terminal program, such as tio to listen in while you have the Neey connected to the Neey app on an Android device. I suspect once connected, the Neey would constantly stream data from the BMS side to to the BLE module, which will be also picked up by the serial interface connected on the receive line. Then it would be a matter to decode the stream, but I understand it is will be using a standard BMS type protocol like JK. |
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So then I did a bit more looking and found the exact BLE module and from there found the datasheet to match this module on the Neey. JDY-18 BLE Datasheet PDF The unused through hole pins on the module do connect to the Rx/Tx and power lines which might make it convenient to connect to the USB to serial TTL interface. From the manual above, it appears the module is a simple device and uses AT commands to set parameters. It now all starts to look totally doable. |
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So then I connected a USB/TTL interface to the Neey, only the 0 Volt and Neey transmit data into the interface. Below is a grab from tio data. You can see in the first frame the data GW-24S4E and versions H-1.2.4V1.0.0. 20221201 So, next is decoding the data, just a little puzzle I guess. More tinkering is neeyed :) |
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Good job! I did the same analysis for the BLE Interface of the JK-BMS in the past. If there is no BLE client connected you won't see the data stream. One of the other pins needs to be pulled to enable the stream. Do you need some support to decode the frames above? The decoder of this project should do the job. |
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Thanks for your comments. |
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Okay, so after a full day of playing magic decoding wizard, I have been able to determine the following so far just by sniffing the data and correlating this across to the data I see on my mobile device when connected. There are three different frame type I see so far. One on initial connection, followed by an additional frame followed by regular update data frames, as described below. I use this site to convert the hex to floating point values: |
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You can find all details about the different frame types here: |
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Oh great, thank you Sebastian, I really appreciate this, it will provide some insight into the decoding and how I might code it up for the little SAMD21 board. |
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great job guys! 
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No, I checked with my meter and could not see any connection to the UART pins from that header. But I think this will work quite well, if we can decode the rest and the also decode the other way, the settings that then come in from the mobile device to set various parameters. |
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A small update. So, I connected the BLE module to another USB/TTL converter interface and sent various AT commands to find out what comes back. Sure enough, when I send an AT command the module responds back with an OK response. For my communications I am using GTKTerm, a small GUI based terminal program. So, then back to the Neey. So, with the Neey connected to the computer via the USB/TTL interface I see the AT commands coming in. Sending the OK response from my terminal program shuts up the beep and the Neey enters bliss mode, no noise. Now, with all this, I am thinking the way forward is to replace the BLE module with a tiny little SAM21 based Arduino type board, one that I can configure at least two communication ports, one to the Neey and the other for connection to the outside world. Using a small SAM21 module also allows for some clever functionality, such as providing for different protocols, like Modbus RTU or using json style data frames, and doing all sorts of other calculations that the Neeey is not doing. Like I mentioned, I do not use esphome and even though it can do a lot, it is not the set up I wish to use, I have my own Linux based SCADA software I develop and will want to use this together with other Victron equipment I have. If anyone has some ideas to contribute to progressing forward, I would like to hear. |
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I have one of these Seeeduino XIAO boards which are tiny and I believe would have the capability to do things I mentioned above. https://wiki.seeedstudio.com/Seeeduino-XIAO/
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I have the little Seeeduino board connected with a very basic program in it that transfers data between the two communications ports, that is, between the USB which is connected to the computer and the TTL on pins 6 and 7 to the Neey. After careful checking that all wiring is correct I power up the Neey on the lab power supply at 25Vdc and connect the Seeeduino to the computer via USB C cable. No smoke :) The Neey starts sending data, just AT commands and are received on my computer. Below is the data exchange I can now start to make up a program for the Seeeduino that will do what I wish to be able to handle all aspects of communications between the Neey and a computer system over wired connection. The Seeeduino has some other I/O lines and I have soldered one of these to the Neey where the BLE STAT line would have been. This means I can get the Seeeduino to replicate what the BLE does in terms of a bluetooth connection. Another idea is that the ALED line from the BLE module goes to the Neey blue LED and can operate this now under program control of the Seeeduino, so it could be flashing for some function and solid for another function. The little Seeeduino would fit snugly on the main Neeey PCB where the BLE module once lived, but for now I will have living on the outside while I develop the code. While I have the Neey on the lab power supply, I see that at a supply of 25Vdc the Neey is drawing around 15mA, which is good. All in all, I think this will be a very neat solution. |
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This is what I have on the desk at present for testing. |
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Firstly, the reason I am doing this is because I do not trust any reliability of radio based telemetry, especially Bluetooth when I need 100% reliability for logging and alarm detection. This is why I am removing the Bluetooth and developing the hard wired solution. So, to your question, you say "simply need to monitor the cells in real time", in my opinion, a reading every 500mSec is quite fast, especially if you are monitoring the voltages of Lithium cells. Even more so if you have large capacity cells, they just do not change that quick in my experience. I have 400Ahr LiFeYePO4 cells, 16 of them. They really do not change a lot in 1 second. Even in my industrial automation projects, for SCADA systems, a scan rate of around every 1 seconds is normal and reasonable for most situations. In this case, the Neey is automatically sending the data frame about every 1 seconds once the Neey has been requested for data. It may not be possible to get it any faster from the Neey if it is already got an internal loop to send the data each 1 second. What have you got on the little RPi board, what sort of code are you wanting to run ? I have developed other systems where I sometimes stress test the communications and can often get data frames at over ten time a second, sometimes even faster. This is over serial, say TTL or RS-485 or USB. Using TCP (Ethernet) you can get faster again. |
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1 second is ok for me. 
as you can see on the boottom right a have the cells, monitored with BT and esp32 (wifi). Sometimes i lost connection (BT, WiFi), i prefer Serial connection with raspberry (and ethernet) for send data (all wired) to my homeassistant. |
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Yes, the Neey appears to be quite accurate from my research. I am not sure I would trust a Daly BMS for anything. |
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great, thanks, I'll wait. |
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Hi @Maxym77 for what you are wanting to do, you need to solder just two wires to the BLE module, a 0V ground wire and a wire to the transmit line from the Neey MCU, which goes to the receive input (RXD) of the BLE module. The datasheet for the BLE module I gave details about above, the JDY-18 module gives you the layout of the various pins. You want to connect to the bottom row of the module, the ones that are through hole and are not used or soldered. Take the ground wire to your USB to TTL converter GND pin and connect the other wire, the transmit data to the RXD pin on your USB to TTL converter, as this is the data that will be input into the converter to then go to the computer. Make sure the USB to TTL converter you use can use 3.3V data signals for the TTL. Original TTL was always 5 volts, but these days with lower voltage digital circuits many other lower voltages are used such as 3.3V. Do not connect the USB /TTL converter Vcc or 5V or 3.3V to the Neey board, only those two wires I mentioned. Ultimately, I think the way you are trying to do things is not the best, it is sort of a compromise situation. You mentioned Python code. It is not a matter of a few lines of code to handle this sort of data. As I mentioned, I will not be reading the Neey data frames directly into a computer system with Python. Another benefit of using Modbus will be that it will allow multiple Neeys to be accessed by systems, as each will have their own specific Modbus address. Also, I mentioned, I will make the little SAMD board do a lot more, like do more calculations on the data to provide more data and also alarm conditions. Another thing will be to have dedicated digital outputs from this board to provide true BMS functionality with two alarm outputs, one for signaling to switch off any charging source and another to signal to switch off selected loads, such as inverters. These will be handled by the code in the SAMD21 for conditions of out of balance or low cell or pack voltage and also for high cell voltage or overall pack voltage situations. It is far better to have this functionality tied closely to the device that does all the measurements of the cells, and in this case, it is the Neey. |
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A little update to my progress. Firstly, I neeyd, oops, to give lots of credit to Sebastian, for already having done a lot of the hard work in sorting out the protocol and coding up for the ESP. I have taking sections of this code and re-implemented it into my little project. So, what does it do ? Using a small Arduino style board would do the work the Bluetooth module does, in that it communicated with the Neey MCU and also to any connected computer. I am using a Seeed Studio XIAO SAMD21, mentioned above, but other similar board would work equally well. The "Arduino" style board communicates with the Neey CPU via TTL serial 3.3V, pretty standard stuff, and then also to a connected computer via the built in USB interface, (more about this later). The first step was to understand and then decode the data coming from the Neey. Then to also be able to send data to the Neey. Having the SAMD board act as a VT220 terminal device to a connected computer provide a nice method to display real time data, as it uses cursor position control to place the data at the specific location on the screen. Different colours may also be used. The code now reads and decodes most of the data and also accepts user input to change Neey setpoints. Currently, for my testing, I have this set up on my bench with a small set of 8 cells, of type 18650, very small, but good for testing. Next will be adding in extra functionality, since we can do this as it is separate to the Neey CPU. Another idea I have is that I will add a W5500 Ethernet controller to it so then the Neey can be accessed by an Ethernet connection, where the SAMD board will then be a HTTP server as well as a Modbus TCP server. I'd be interested in ideas others have and if my ideas to develop this further are worthwhile ? So, below is the current screen capture of how I see things. It finished balancing a while back and stopped on the stop voltage. |
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Do you like to share your code? What's the Sonar Alert Mode? |
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Hi Sebastian, yes of course. I'll need another day or two to do a few other things to the code. My idea about using an Ethernet controller, such as a W5500 is that this can then be all setup and configured via a web interface, much like how you might set up a router or many other devices. |
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Also an image while it is doing some balancing. |
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Small Update. I am just playing around still with simple web server ideas, just to see how it might look and function. But below is a screen capture of the very very basic http screen from the Feather. |
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@paulalting I guess you would like ESPHome if you give it a try! :-P |
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@syssi well, it is not my idea to use ESPHome, sorry. The idea is to be able firstly to have a solid reliable communications path from my SCADA system to the Neey, and than can only mean via wire, not any form of wireless. I am deciding whether to use RS-485 or Ethernet as the medium, and then the protocol to use. I think ESPHome will be good for many other people, but not me. I prefer to have 100% control of how things are connected and how they communicate and also how it is displayed and the features all that brings. It is more work, but for me, that is the fun. The problem I see is what happens in 5 years, when you move to other ideas and have less time to support and the hardware is no longer there or I want to add a new bit of hardware, I am stuck. I have seen it before and it is part of normal evolution, just I have a strong need to ensure this will continue to function and can be further developed. Plus, I have a few clients that pay large sums of money for my SCADA system in their projects. All good fun though :) I will be testing Modbus TCP on the Neey next week, with added functions. |
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I like using ESPHOME’s Ethernet connection :-P |
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There seems to be a pin on the Bluetooth module connected to the MCU. When BLE is connected to the mobile phone, this pin is pulled high, and the MCU will continuously send data to the mobile phone through BLE without waiting for the mobile phone to send a read command. Similar to the data of the display interface. |
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It may be a hardware version problem. My board cannot be changed (balancing) through the GPS port. When changes are needed, I turn on the BLE power. I want to buy the original display screen, but when I asked, I was told that I can only view it and cannot change the charging and discharging, balancing. |
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Did you authenticate the write operation? |
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It can be charging and discharging, but there is no balancing. |
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If it is anything like the Neey, then the MCU > BLE is the MCU sending AT commands to the BLE module. In my tests, I found all that is needed is to send to the MCU an OK with CRLF, so 4 bytes, which then stops the MCU from sending more AT CRLF packets and allows normal data sending requests to the balancer unit. @23900 you should really start your own discussion thread as this will just confuse this thread which is for the Neey, not JK. |
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@paulalting Sorry, I mistakenly thought NEEY was a series of JK. |
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@paulalting Have you made any progress with the project? I find the topic very interesting. |
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Hi everyone, this is the card.
Is it possible to connect the RS485 / UART?
Maybe the blue connector at the top?
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