[Solved] Integration of Metronic FP-210 calculator with Modbus ASCII into SCADA

Hi, I need some advice on whether it is possible to do something about this, or whether there is any point in messing around at all, and the solution is lying on the floor and just needs to be picked up, namely I have a fairly old calculator (summator), from Metronic, model FP-210. In my case it is connected to a water meter, the water meter has a pulse output to which the Metronic is connected. This way you can see locally what the current flow is and the sum of the 'scooped' cubic metres.

This Metronic has an RS485 port, the transmission flies in ModBus ASCII, and consequently I would like to have a remote reading of this indicator, the problem is that the SCADA I am using does not get along with the Metronic due to lack of support for ModBus ASCII . I managed to get along remotely (on the table) with such an FP-210 via the Hercules program. The query for the current flow looks as follows:
<ESC>81D<CR>
Here, the value 81 is the address of the device
The query for the counter values (there are two) looks like this:
<ESC>81L<CR>
I have uploaded screen shots of the answers from the FP-210 in the attachments.
The highlighted value "197.8" in the red frame in the "1_flow" file is the current flow, while the two frames in the "2_totaliser" file are the values of the first and second counters ("0000130952").

This is where the stumbling blocks start, well is it possible to read these values every, say, 2 minutes, convert these responses on the fly so that you only get what is marked with rectangles and finally dump these values as registers in ModBus TCP to be read by the master? I hope it is possible to understand what I mean....
I've recently discovered a software called Node-Red and I thought maybe it would be possible to make it so that I could write a program in this Node-Red that would be responsible for reading and converting the data from the pointer (i.e. be the master for the FP-210) and at the same time dump this data (already after conversion, as raw numbers) into its Modbus registers and be a slave device for my PC, and then I could do the reading in SCADA over ModBus TCP.

I have a raspberry version 4 and an RS485<->USB converter for testing.
With the Node-Red program itself I have already worked a bit, I have already managed to read another indicator after ModBus RTU . The only thing is that you have to somehow force this program to issue the query as <ESC>81D<CR> and <ESC>81L<CR> and convert to raw numbers....
Ideally, he would have exposed this data as Input Registers 64bit


I have seen that there are ModBus ASCII to ModBus RTU converters, I bought two for a trial but it did nothing and I returned them. Replacing these indicators is out of the question for the time being, as the situation is what it is and forces one to find the cheapest possible solution, for this locally the current flow and the status of the counters must be visible.

I hope I have described my problem fairly clearly, if something could be done about it I would be happy. I have looked for some information on the internet, but nobody seems to have encountered this conundrum yet. Perhaps there is another way to achieve a satisfactory result and I am unnecessarily experimenting?

As a colleague above wrote I think you are combining too much.
But of course, it is possible to read and convert in node-red via e.g. serial in/out
You could also be tempted to write rules in the above mentioned Tasmota command Serialsend and receive Serial receive.
Generally a simple matter. You just have to parse the received data accordingly.
https://tasmota.github.io/docs/Commands/
However, I would also advocate getting rid of the FP-210 and counting pulses directly via some ESP8266-based module.
You can then send the received data via mqtt to node-red, and there it's all downhill from there.

Thank you very much for your replies
At the moment, it is not possible to blow up the FP-210, there are a few such indicators at our place, but I have a few free ESP8266, one may be tempted to build some kind of impulse counting circuit, however, the option of local display of the counters' state and current flow must still be preserved.... I think I'll try to put something together with Node-Red via the Serial In/Out option, and if not, I'll look towards Tasmota (possibly I'll write for help if needed ;] ), and if not yet, I'll leave the topic alone and will have to arrange to replace all the FP-210s with something else that meets my expectations.

Erbit wrote:

Colleague still hides in huge secrecy what this is all about. And that's a shame.

The water meter.
It is a water meter, it counts how many metres of water have passed through the pipe, what is there to explain further....

Erbit wrote:

Using ESP to take readings from the FP-210 is overkill, but without knowing what it is about it is difficult to advise anything more. Perhaps removing the FP-210 is not possible for formal reasons. For the mentioned ESP you can use a display and Tasmota will also handle it, besides, let's not forget that you can "send this data somewhere".

It doesn't pay to fit a display to an ESP, the cost increases, in which case I prefer to have the water meters replaced with ones that support the M-Bus overlay, e.g. from Apator, and fit the whole thing together. The FP-210 is a very old indicator, so I would like to make it remotely readable at minimum cost, this will save us time when carrying out weekly readings....

If the RS485 is to remain, the best solution is to connect it to the ESP8266. On the electrode there is a DIY E ESP8266 TCP-IP/RS485 converter . This device is a converter, but with a change of program, data reading and periodic sending can be done.

Thank you all for your help and your nothing to contribute posts. I wrote on an overseas forum, there were immediately people willing to help, who helped achieve the goal with whatever was at hand.
I am closing the topic and let the moderator at his discretion do what he wants with this thread.