Reading through my downloaded user guide, I see the web monitoring output is not a RJ-45 but is a RS232 cable. So to use the web service the inverter needs to be hooked up to the serial port of a PC directly?

I was hoping to be able to simply add the inverter to my home network via CAT5/wireless hub in my garage, but apparently not.

Anybody come up with an elegant solution to convert RS232 to CAT5?

I'm getting my install soon so if needed I can get the installer to fab a super long serial cable if that is needed. I'd rather keep that run short and translate to CAT5 if it is possible.

Thanks,

Attempts to convert RS232 to cat5, seem to fail, because the timeing gets messed up somehow (Solar Guppy covered it elsewhere)

Good news is, that with even moderate quality cable, the 9600 baud link is good for several hundred feet, and SG even thinks it may work up to 1,000'.

The GTview program has a nice little FTP routine to upload the image to a server/web page, and nightly uploads of the daily log file

You can always use an RS232 to Ethernet terminal server, and run in "reverse telnet" mode. That allows you an infinite number of serial ports at a remote location (like in the garage) to be serviced over Ethernet (in my case wireless 802.11g) from the garage to the laptop in the house. I use the Lantronix ETS4P which I bought on Ebay.

Just find a cheap terminal server on Ebay (for instance a Lantronix ETS4P is on there now for under $90 USD.) This will give you four serial ports for up to four devices with RS232, into a single Ethernet 10baseT. There is a photo of this on my website.

john reed
solar.johnjan.com

I have installed RS232 to RJ45 converters and have been running to my PC for years very successfully. I cut an RS232 jumper cable very close to one end, crimped the wires, only 8 of the 9 into an RJ45 male plug. The other piece of the RS232 jumper cable I did the same. Using an RJ45 female to female block, I ran the cat5 cable from the inverter to my PC and it works like a charm. I did the same at my son's house for him. cat5 cable is around 60 feet long.
Paul