Solar PV Monitoring Networks: Troubleshooting Routing and Subnets

Some guide on network architecture, troubleshooting subnets, routing gateways, and DNS settings for industrial solar PV loggers.

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Connecting a Huawei SmartLogger 3000 to the cloud via a cellular 4G router, such as the TP-Link TL-MR6400, often presents routing and subnet mismatch challenges for solar PV installers.

This post provides a quick troubleshooting guide and step-by-step instructions to resolve gateway mismatches and connect your SmartLogger to the Huawei FusionSolar management system (NMS).

1. Network Theory: Subnets, Gateways, and DNS

To understand why connection issues occur, we must look at how data travels across the network. A foundational framework for this is the OSI (Open Systems Interconnection) Model, which divides network communication into seven logical layers:

Figure 1: Visual representation of the 7 OSI layers mapping to our SmartLogger setup.

While a complete connection relies on all seven layers, troubleshooting connectivity issues almost always starts at the bottom three layers: Physical (Layer 1), Data Link (Layer…