CCDM - Charge Controller Data Manager

[ClassicCrazy]

It is zero trouble here !
No hurry or worries .

Larry

[Fort Wisers]

It is zero trouble here !
No hurry or worries .

Larry

Phew! As you can see, I didn't get to it last night or this morning......I will get onto it ASAP.
Take care:
Brent

[Fort Wisers]

Okay - I saved file to config without default and it is working fine.
I turned off graphics to lists only. There is one graphic that still stays on . ( photo below shows it )
Is there an easy  way to force all the lists to bunch together to take up the space where the graphics were ?
When I want to minimize the screen I can drag the right side over to make the window smaller but I can't drag the left side over . Maybe t this is a windows thing. I am running this on windows 10 right now.
My goal was to be able to shrink both CCDM windows from the two controllers to get them both to show side by side on my monitor.  Maybe you have plans in future to show multiple controllers in one running instance ?

Larry

Hi Larry (and all),
So sorry for the delay, work has been nuts and we are now neck deep into a bunch of home renovations.

I finally got a chance to do a quick change for you in regards to the above.
If you go and download the latest (0.0.2 build 20210323) and switch to lists-only (as you have been doing, or simply use your previous config file) you will see the dynamic graphics are gone and I moved
the Charge Controller Details widget to this area where the graphics were showing up, when in lists-only UI mode.

From here, if required, you can re-size the standard opening width and height in the config file by adjusting the values of these:

"Width_Override": 0,                    #Set UI Width override here (Minimum width = 1024), leave zero to allow CCDM to auto size to screen resolution
"Height_Override": 0                    #Set UI Height override here (Minimum Height = 768), leave zero to allow CCDM to auto size to screen resolution

I hope this helps you get what you need!
To answer your question, yes the long term plan is to be able to run multiple Charge Controllers in a single CCDM instance.

[ClassicCrazy]

I will give the new version a try later tonight or tomorrow - thanks for the update.

Larry

[ClassicCrazy]

I did the update - all seemed to work fine .
thanks
Larry

[Fort Wisers]

Hi Larry, thanks for taking the time to check it all out, this is much appreciated.
have a great weekend:
Brent

[MountianComm]

Fort Wisers,
I have to thank you for this program. It is exactly what I needed. I have a classic 150 at a remote communications site that is 100% solar powered. I was finally able to get an internet connection going. For the pi that is running CCDM I also have tailscale running which is a virtual VPN. As long at the pi has an internet connection I can use VNC on my phone or computer to log into the pi and check the charge controller status.

Right now we only have one internet connection. It is thru a pi with a SIM card pi hat. This pi is at another location the two sites are tied together thru a MW IP bridge.

For those needing a remote monitoring option I think a pi with CCDM, tailscale and a cellular pi hat would make a great option.

Waiting to see if the email works now.

TNX Jim.

[Fort Wisers]

Fort Wisers,
I have to thank you for this program. It is exactly what I needed. I have a classic 150 at a remote communications site that is 100% solar powered. I was finally able to get an internet connection going. For the pi that is running CCDM I also have tailscale running which is a virtual VPN. As long at the pi has an internet connection I can use VNC on my phone or computer to log into the pi and check the charge controller status.

Right now we only have one internet connection. It is thru a pi with a SIM card pi hat. This pi is at another location the two sites are tied together thru a MW IP bridge.

For those needing a remote monitoring option I think a pi with CCDM, tailscale and a cellular pi hat would make a great option.

Waiting to see if the email works now.

TNX Jim.

Hi Jim,

Thanks for the kind words and feedback, I'm glad it's working for your project.

Some words of caution on the email log function:
The password and other email information is currently stored in a simple text based .py file on the pi, so this information is vulnerable should your pi get hacked.
The SMTP connection implementation in CCDM is of type SMTP_SSL, so data transfer to and from your email account server is somewhat secure but SSL is considered out of date.
Upgrades to encapsulate email information (account, password etc) into a secure DB and upgrade the SMTP implementation to TLS are on the "to do" list.

I threw together the email portion in a real hurry and have yet to clean up some of this portion.
So if you attempt to use it, create a separate "from" email account that will be used for CCDM email messaging alone.
We've been running with a separate "from" account for months now with zero issues......but that doesn't mean it's not vulnerable.
This is why the email option doesn't currently show up in the documentation.

If you get it working, expect to see something like this in your email inbox each 24 hour period:



I hope to get a bit of work done on CCDM soon and will post on this thread as new versions / builds are posted up!
Have fun and take care:
Brent

[MountianComm]

Brent,
Its a work in progress I get it.  I went back into my email config and found a bad email address.  Hopefully it works tonight..... Just got a notification from gmail a less secure device was trying to use my account.  for those using a gmail turn on the less secure device for this to work correctly

I cant seem to find the values for the battery widget.  I found it once by accident but I entered the wrong capacity.  I put in the 20 hr discharge capacity not the 5 hour discharge capacity that the system discharges at. 

Does the current release support a second charge controller?  I hope to be adding a second independent CC and solar array to the site this summer.

My application is a remote communications building on top of a mountain at 7300'  At present I have a 2.8kWH array with one Classic 150.  I will be adding a second classic with a 1.5 kWH array.  Our internet is currently thru a RPI with a cell HAT at another location.  I am adding an additional cell data connection at the site plus a primary MW IP to a third location with internet.  I have two additional sites that are 100% solar that will be part of this network.  I intend on using CCDM at these sites, However it doesn't look like CCDM supports the KID yet? 

great work.  TNX jim

[ClassicCrazy]

Brent,
Its a work in progress I get it.  I went back into my email config and found a bad email address.  Hopefully it works tonight..... Just got a notification from gmail a less secure device was trying to use my account.  for those using a gmail turn on the less secure device for this to work correctly

I cant seem to find the values for the battery widget.  I found it once by accident but I entered the wrong capacity.  I put in the 20 hr discharge capacity not the 5 hour discharge capacity that the system discharges at. 

Does the current release support a second charge controller?  I hope to be adding a second independent CC and solar array to the site this summer.

My application is a remote communications building on top of a mountain at 7300'  At present I have a 2.8kWH array with one Classic 150.  I will be adding a second classic with a 1.5 kWH array.  Our internet is currently thru a RPI with a cell HAT at another location.  I am adding an additional cell data connection at the site plus a primary MW IP to a third location with internet.  I have two additional sites that are 100% solar that will be part of this network.  I intend on using CCDM at these sites, However it doesn't look like CCDM supports the KID yet? 

great work.  TNX jim

The Kid needs a serial connection to get data and the data that it provides is very limited. There is no modbus on it either.

Larry

[MountianComm]

I got that impression after posting this.  I went into the arduino forum and found dgd Ethernet Modbus port for KID project.  I was hoping to see if dgd project with the arduino and a network interface could work with this project. 

The next two solar sites are pole mounts  a classic would be way overkill for what I need.

[ClassicCrazy]

I got that impression after posting this.  I went into the arduino forum and found dgd Ethernet Modbus port for KID project.  I was hoping to see if dgd project with the arduino and a network interface could work with this project. 

The next two solar sites are pole mounts  a classic would be way overkill for what I need.

Look in either node red or raspberry pi section. There was a project where Ricardo had  monitoring node red set up for the Kid

Larry

[Fort Wisers]

Hey Jim and Larry,

Fingers crossed on your email setting Jim!

Let me see if I can answer a few questions:

Battery Capacity should be set in the Classic controller under the Whizbang setup area, here you set-up the capacity, efficiency etc.
Now that said, don't be surprised if what CCDM shows you is something different, that setup value is the baseline capacity only.
Inside the Classic, from this baseline value, they take into account the configured battery efficiency as well as estimate the capacity based on battery temperature.
CCDM reads and displays this estimated capacity from the Classic.

The current CCDM release does not support reading data from multiple controllers, that's another feature on the todo list.
That said I think Larry had some luck simply making a second copy of the entire CCDM folder, configuring it to tie to his second classic and just running two CCDMs at once.
Perhaps that will work in your case to get you by until multi CC support is complete from one running instance.

Reading from the Kid (Larry is correct it is a serial interface as apposed to the Modbus TCP of the classics) is something that I've been toying adding with but have not actually added it to the official todo list, perhaps I should be thinking more serious about it. As Larry mentioned, the amount of data available from the Kid is not as extensive compared to what we can grab from the classics, but certainly enough to populate a good portion of CCDM.

That said, I actually plan on running a Kid myself on a smaller solar project we have at our cabin, if we do, that might fast track Kid I/F development as well.......just not sure on our timing on this project yet......
I would have to go over and check out the dgd project to see what has been done there, if they've bridged the serial I/F to TCP then this might help fast track things as well since then all I'm doing is adding a new CC type......(and not a new hardware I/F as well).



Take care and enjoy the weekend:
Brent

[ClassicCrazy]

Here is one post about Kid to Node Red
http://midniteftp.com/forum/index.php?topic=4074.0
And here is a node red flow from it
http://midniteftp.com/forum/index.php?topic=4066.msg39969#msg39969

Larry

[MountianComm]

Brent,
Still no luck with the email messages.  I though when gmail kicked out a message saying a device attempted to access the account, and I went in an opened it up (in the gmail account security) I thought had this figured but I guess not.  maybe a future more diagnostic tool would be an email button that forced an email message?

I will keep checking back for updates.  The Kid addition would be great!  In my applications I check my system(s) daily to see what the SOC is in the morning, how soon do the batteries reach float etc.  I have to make sure my equipment isnt outpacing production.  Unlike a cabin  I have to keep equipment power 24/7

I really wish I could contribute here but my expertise is in building radio systems not coding.

TNX jim