News:

To visit MidNite Solar click this link www.midnitesolar.com

Main Menu

The Hawkes Bay is LIVE

Started by Sunshine, December 23, 2020, 09:32:36 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Sunshine

The Hawkes Bay has officially entered beta testing! Ryan has the very first unit to leave Midnite engineering and it is now charging his batteries. As expected there are a few bugs to work out but this is an exciting step forward toward release! Follow along as we post updates over the next several weeks. We expect a new video out today as he takes it to full power!

Video here:
https://youtu.be/lGEMjAuDtG8

Vic

Hi Sunshine,  Ryan,   and the whole MN Crew,

Hawkes Bay  is beautiful,  solid looking hardware!

Obviously,   getting the first Beta unit out is a huge accomplishment,   GREAT WORK !

Have been eyeing this CC,  or the Barcelona for a new project.

Will follow the progress on both of both of these great new CCs.

Thanks MidNite for these and all of the other new products you have in the pipeline.   ALL are well woth waiting for.    Have a great Christmas,  errr   Holiday Season,   and a terrific New Year.
Thanks again,   (73),   Vic
Off Grid - Sys 1: 2ea SW+ 5548, Surrette 4KS25 1280 AH, 5.25 KW PV, Classic 150,WB, Beta Barcelona, Beta KID
Sys 2: SW+ 5548s, 4KS25s, 5.88 KW PV, 2 ea. Classic 150, WB, HB CC-needs remote Monitoring/Control, site=remote.
 MN Bkrs/Bxs/Combiners. Thanks MN for Great Products/Svc/Support&This Forum!!

mike90045

so, what makes  Hawkes Bay different from Classic ?
http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Solar

Classic 200| 2Kw PV, 160Voc | Grundfos 10 SO5-9 with 3 wire Franklin Electric motor (1/2hp 240V 1ph )| Listeroid 6/1, st5 gen head | XW6048 inverter/chgr | midnight ePanel & 4 SPDs | 48V, 800A NiFe battery bank | MS-TS-MPPT60 w/3Kw PV

Vic

Off Grid - Sys 1: 2ea SW+ 5548, Surrette 4KS25 1280 AH, 5.25 KW PV, Classic 150,WB, Beta Barcelona, Beta KID
Sys 2: SW+ 5548s, 4KS25s, 5.88 KW PV, 2 ea. Classic 150, WB, HB CC-needs remote Monitoring/Control, site=remote.
 MN Bkrs/Bxs/Combiners. Thanks MN for Great Products/Svc/Support&This Forum!!

Sunshine

Hi Mike,
The most substantial difference is that the Hawkes Bay allows for 600v input. This means much fewer strings of panels and easier wiring of your PV array.

Vic

AND, it has external battery voltage sense,   a very big step,  to me.

Also Hawkes Bay has 3  Aux input/outputs

ALL,  as in the Brochure,   Linked above.

Excellent work MidNite !!   Thanks,   Vic
Off Grid - Sys 1: 2ea SW+ 5548, Surrette 4KS25 1280 AH, 5.25 KW PV, Classic 150,WB, Beta Barcelona, Beta KID
Sys 2: SW+ 5548s, 4KS25s, 5.88 KW PV, 2 ea. Classic 150, WB, HB CC-needs remote Monitoring/Control, site=remote.
 MN Bkrs/Bxs/Combiners. Thanks MN for Great Products/Svc/Support&This Forum!!

Highflyer

Has Ryan done any more videos or testing?
Brian

The one thing is the one thing

Sunshine

As to be expected, we found a few bugs in the initial testing which engineering has been working feverishly to fix. Because the initial units were not field updatable(one of the issues that is now fixed) we have sent our unit back to get fancied up. We are expecting the new unit to ship out early next week and then approximately 1 week transit. After that expect a new video to roll out shortly!

Vic

Thanks for the update, Sunshine!
Vic
Off Grid - Sys 1: 2ea SW+ 5548, Surrette 4KS25 1280 AH, 5.25 KW PV, Classic 150,WB, Beta Barcelona, Beta KID
Sys 2: SW+ 5548s, 4KS25s, 5.88 KW PV, 2 ea. Classic 150, WB, HB CC-needs remote Monitoring/Control, site=remote.
 MN Bkrs/Bxs/Combiners. Thanks MN for Great Products/Svc/Support&This Forum!!

Robin

Ryan's SN 001 has been returned to MidNite. Mario has made numerous improvements in the past month and since the original was not upgradeable in the field, we had him send it back. That unit will be put on the wall in building 6. It is special. We will send him another unit this week. It will be upgradeable in the field. We also should have a ComBox to send him. Very beta-ish, but hey if we can see something on the internet, we will be very happy. I was convinced 3.5 years ago to not place Ethernet in all new products as things need to be networked. The engineers who talked me into this said the ComBox was only a 3 month project! Well, we are about to ship our first beta unit next week. So much for engineers and timelines.
The picture of a pre-wired HB on the bench is the 110 amp version. It is going to a beta test site in Florida. Three more will be going out this next week. They are working pretty well now. I think they are 95% production ready. It is time to get ETL or UL scheduled. I would like to have the HB and Barcelona tested at the same time though, so that may delay us another month? We have new Production ready power boards designed that will be ordered this week. New production control boards are already on order and so are gate driver boards. Things are looking good for this product.
A little more about a pre-wired Hawke's Bay system. We feel strongly that customers should use our breaker box as it contains a 600V 30 amp shunt trip breaker. The Hawke's Bay has a special circuit inside that does not rely on any other electronics to be functioning. Its job is to monitor battery voltage. If the battery voltage gets too high, that special circuit trips the breaker and thus disconnects the PV input. The reason for this is that if a controller fails, and they all can do that, the controllers could put PV voltage on the battery. I would not want to have PV voltage on a battery, especially a Lithium battery. I am hoping to add up all the retail prices of the HB, breaker box, back plate and SPD and that would be the retail price of a pr-wired system. No labor or other parts would be entered into the retail price. As an added incentive, we would also give a couple year's additional warranty. We do not yet know the retail price of any new products yet, but you can bet they will be priced as low as possible. We have a new guy working on bills of materials for all the new projects. That will help us to get pricing established. This new guy is Tony Boatwright. Tony and I both started at Trace Engineering in 1990. Tony spent 15 years there and then left to go to Magnum Energy where he spent another 15 years. Tony is helping to insure nothing falls through the cracks with all of our development projects. He is working with all 26 engineers in this endeavor. Good luck Tony!
Robin Gudgel

Highflyer

Robin,

Nice update.  The passion to get it right comes through loud and clear. 

Side note, I am in Australia today watching the commercials during the game, they are looking to have three million NEW home solar installations in the next few years.  Get busy making awesome hardware, the demand is here.
Brian

The one thing is the one thing

FNG

We got our 80 amp Hawkes Bay back, This one can be updated with a cell phone and has a working com box plugged in. Still some code work to do for sure but so far its going well. Current limit is set to 75 amps and it is making 80 amps so its under promising and over delivering. This one has the older boards with the older shunts so I am told the accuracy will be spot on with the new boards. Mario currently has the fans running way to early and also at close to 15 volts. They will be variable speed soon and that will help a lot with that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfluRXN0Z5Y

boB


GREAT video today !

Good to see all the work that is being done.  Some of that work I have not even seen before, like the web interface.

Things are really taking shape !

K7IQ 🌛  He/She/Me

Vic

Hi Ryan,

Terrific progress  !!  Looking great. Congrats to the whold MN Hawkes Bay Team.

Thanks for posting the video,   Ryan.   73  Vic
Off Grid - Sys 1: 2ea SW+ 5548, Surrette 4KS25 1280 AH, 5.25 KW PV, Classic 150,WB, Beta Barcelona, Beta KID
Sys 2: SW+ 5548s, 4KS25s, 5.88 KW PV, 2 ea. Classic 150, WB, HB CC-needs remote Monitoring/Control, site=remote.
 MN Bkrs/Bxs/Combiners. Thanks MN for Great Products/Svc/Support&This Forum!!

Highflyer

Brian

The one thing is the one thing