Multiple Slaves per Device/Hub

[rpsmonkey]

Hi,
thanks a lot for this tool. Adding the first device was very easy!

Now I'm struggling adding a second device (different Slave ID) on the same Hub. Is that possible?
My setup: I'm using Modbus serial (USB Device) and I have connected several Eastron SDM72 devices (each different slave ID).

My problem: I can add a Hub with information about interface (USB device) and Slave ID. But since I can only add 1 Hub per USB Device I can't add further entities with different Slace ID.

Thanks
Robert

[partach]

Hhmm good point. You can with IP to RS485 that allows multiple connections. But with current implementation not yet indeed with USB to RS485. I maybe can build something in configuration options to allow for this. I will put it on the backlog!
Am 95% done with adding Bacnet (a bit trickier than anticipated) and will take it on after that

[partach]

I made a pre-release version for you with a first implementation. I can hardly test as i dont have multiple slaves on one bus.
Please use version v.0.7.1 pre-release to test and let me know! (bacnet in it is functional but not yet to the level i want:)

[spjakob]

I can at least confirm that it's not working for me with several slaves on one hub. I tested prerelease. A few remarks:

See screenshot:

• It's possible to add as you can se, but it looks like entities is only created for first device.

• Names must be separated. Hub should have a name and device should have (another) name.

• A lot of options is not valid if you have multiple devices, like "load template" etc.

• It's not possible to add same slave twice. I understand the logic for this, but it could be good to do for debugging. Maybe a warning instead?

• I think the logic when adding a hub is wrong. Button says "Add hub" but you actually enter info for device in first dialog. I think you should first enter the hub and then add slave devices.

• When you add second slave, there is a slider to enter the id without option to enter it manually. I think this could be same when adding first.

• For a second modbus gw I tried to add a single entity (see screenshot), but if I click on this device, nothing is shown.

....I can not promise I can do more debugging but would at least give some feedback. I have spent some time on a very similar project (modbus_devices) and have also written a modbus_debugger for ha.

I like the idea of keeping all configuration in json files. But I'm a bit curious if/how this could work for more complex modbus devices; like I have for example written an implementation for a device that has a "number of zones" in one register and I then use this number to create dynamic mapping/support for that number of zones (zone1 values are stored in register 100, 101,102 etc and zone2 in 200,201,202, etc). Could you see that such support could be done with .json files?

[spjakob]

Oh, BTW I there is a mockup server for testing several slaves in my ha_modbus_debugger repo. It's only used for testing and mainly focus on slow/faulty slaves, but maybe you can use it if you want to test yourself or just let an AI do a similar implementation.

[depuits]

I recently started using this project and as already mentioned this is no problem when using IP to RS485. I did however find it confusing that adding a hub is actually adding a device on a specific slave id and not just the actual hub device. Changing the implementation to first add a hub (be it ip or usb) and then have multiple devices under it would also solve this confusion and repetition of hub details (eg ip, port, and protocol) when adding new slave devices.

[partach]

Hi, Thanks for the feedback. I have ordered some components on Aliexpress. I need to be able to do some real live testing with this