For all the Beta Testers please upload this new revision of code.
What's New:
-It has many bug fixes
-More Calibration adjustable Settings
-New Scroll Status only Displays Features turned on
-Status voltages now more stable
-Load Menu does not include the Input selection
-New About Kid menu under Tech, displays Bootloader and Firmware Versions
-This code features Smart night light on load terminal and AGS on the Aux terminal.
Uploading this Firmware will force a Factory reset, it was a must because there were major changes all the way to the core of the program.
Please Let me know of any issues or concerns or questions.
Mario
Mario!
Great news on the new FW, with many important improvements.
Will try it in the next day or two.
The KID is a very, very capable mid-sized MPPT CC with many important and useful functions. A great value. Thanks again !! ( you DO know this). Vic
Very cool!
I would like to know if in this version of firmware the serial port is working? I would like to monitor the SOC trough the Raspberry Pi. I already monitor temperature using the 1-wire temperature sensor and displaying data via the rrdtool.
Thank you for your work!
This is the present setup. Two solar pannel of 250W connected in parallel, 4 6v battery, 2 in serie and two in parallel. (464 ah)
I plan to rewire the cable to minimize the electro field, particulary between de battery and the inverter.
Serial port communications to the PC will be coming in the next revision of firmware, I modified some stuff of the serial but it is not ready yet.
I am working on it.
Mario
I just update the firmware and reenter the battery value for absorb, float and eq. I was not able to enter the capacity of the battery. I try in the battery menu and I did not found.
Thanks
Jean-François
The capacity for the Battery works only when you have a WBJR present.
Thus it is located in the AUX menu and is a Setup (Press SETUP button) for the WBJR.
Mario
Thank you!
Jean-François
Ok every one I will tell you how to Unleash your Kid... but its a secret.... go to the password and enable password, wait 5 sec and then press left then select 125 and press Enter, the bottom row will show "Kid Unleashed" then select 142 and press Enter, select no Password and press the SAVE button.
Now the kid will be able to do AGS on the WBJR terminal. Select Aux press UP and Select AGS, Press SETUP button to configure the parameters, the kid only provides 12v out 150mA max to the terminal, the need of a contactor may be necessary to turn the Gen.
Another function that will be unlocked is Smart night light on the Load, which basically turn on at dusk and stay on for user adjustable amount of hrs and then go off then turn back on before dawn for the amount of hrs set by the user.
Then Hourly load on, basically tell the load from what time to what time to stay On. Warning The kid does not have a RTC so it uses the solar panels to create an astronomical clock that gets recalibrated every midnight, it does not have DST, and it is an approximate time to the actual time zone.
Both the Smart night light and the Hourly need at least 4 days of functioning in that mode to work properly.
I would appreciate much, if some people can test these functions and let me know if they find problems.
Mario
Quote from: Mario on October 08, 2014, 08:10:04 PM
Serial port communications to the PC will be coming in the next revision of firmware, I modified some stuff of the serial but it is not ready yet.
I am working on it.
Mario
Is there a serial port on the KID? I am only aware of the USB port
Quote from: thanasis on October 13, 2014, 03:05:28 PM
Is there a serial port on the KID? I am only aware of the USB port
USB IS a serial port.
Universal
Serial
Bus
Tom
Quote from: TomW on October 13, 2014, 05:46:50 PM
Quote from: thanasis on October 13, 2014, 03:05:28 PM
Is there a serial port on the KID? I am only aware of the USB port
USB IS a serial port.
Universal Serial Bus
Tom
LOL! USB is only 3 letters. Why not say USB instead of serial port. ;)
Plus for some of us old timers this is what a serial port looks like:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_port
ok to answer the answer of the serial port, yes USB is a serial port but that will not be the way the kid will output data to the PC, it will use the Master Phone jack, and some kind of adapter to go to either the RX,TX,GND of a Raspberry pi or straight to a PC with a serial port or a USB to serial adapter.
Mario
Real Cereal Port.....Got Milk? :)
Just loaded up 1761 so far so good .
Under the calibration menu, what is the prematching number mean? I assume the min watts is output of the kid. In bully mode the master can't see the WBJ, states the wire is disconnected. The Wimpy kid WBJ still works.
What are the other aux functions LBD High and LBD low for? Could we have an example? Can two different load functions be used in bully mode on each kid?
This may be in the FAQ and I missed it, but can anyone be a beta tester just by loading the beta firmware, or is it only for those that got in on the initial beta program? I recently brought my KID online, and am in playground and learn mode (a hidden setting that exists outside the KID). The super-feature for me will be the serial port data as I am somewhat of a data junkie and have written cacti templates for most of my life functions.
Anyone can beta test new firmware by just loading it. Keep in mind therer could be a bug or two so keep your eye on it and let us know if anything looks wrong
For those testing 1761, how is it going?
Any big issues worry about?
Other the the menu auto scrolling (kind of annoying) all seems fine. Voltage readings seem alot more stable.
Is there a way to turn this off?
I would like to see all of the temps added to the scroll. SOC would also be a good thing to add to the scroll. (my 2 cents)
Chris, you can turn off the scroll if you don't like it.
I agree with wanting to see temps on the scroll. That would be nice. SOC does show up on my scroll, but is that because of the WBjr I have?
I wonder if there should be a menu in there that allows you to turn on or off things that scroll? Or is that going to over complicate the Kid?
Quote from: Halfcrazy on November 12, 2014, 05:45:34 AM
I wonder if there should be a menu in there that allows you to turn on or off things that scroll? Or is that going to over complicate the Kid?
I would definitely support such a menu to pick and choose what appears during scroll. :D
Looks like a crummy (weather) weekend ahead, I should have time to play with the beta firmware. Any idea when the data port beta might show itself? ;D
I figured out why I was not getting SOC in my scroll, my WBJr was disconnected at the board. My Beta Kid does not have a "no tool" connection for the WBJr and it was not tight enough.
I would still like to see the temps in the scroll please.....
8)
Loaded 1761 tonight after the sun went down. Re-programmed my current load configuration, and all is well. There were a couple new items that I did not see mentioned anywhere. One was some form of an offset defaulted to -0.3 and in that same menu was another one. The KID is in my garage, so I will get the specifics in the morning to ask better questions about them.
So far, not a single issue. Tomorrow will be first light on 1761.
A follow up to my previous post. I am seeing some interesting behavior that I am wondering about. First a little about my setup. I am running 3x 100w Renogy panels in series. I have a single 12v deep cycle battery... It is mostly a set up and learn/play config right now, though I am running my garage electronics off the setup, with a continuous load of about 28w (2.4A) through a 140w cheapo inverter. My KID is now running 1761 with Solar 2 and it was an excellent sunny day if not short from being in the N hemisphere going into December.
At one point today I saw about 230w coming in, and my battery was in float again in the early afternoon. Now that the sun is getting lower, I am seeing the strange behavior. The panels are at an angle, but still in full sun. The MPPT is now in MTTP Float instead of just float, and it doesn't seem like it should be yet. During the day, the MPPT function was holding the panels around 57-58 volts, right in the sweet spot per the manufacturer, so all was good. Now that it switched from float to mppt float, the input voltage has continually dropped off. It is now at 23.8V. If I turn the input off and back on, it will re-calibrate, and use a much higher input voltage, and produce far more power for a while. I just reset it again, and it went from 23.7V input to 55V on the input and is producing more than 2x the amps. Should it not be periodically re-training to find the best wattage on its own?
A side note, it would be excellent to be able to show this with some data from the serial port. Hope that is coming along well.
Do you have a larger inverter to put more load on the battery?
Also it sounds like the Kid is doing its MPPT adjustment to maintain the float voltage you have set.. with failing incoming insolation as the sun drops.
Hi xs..,
Why are running Solar2? This is customarily a slow-tracking mode, and often works well with non-solar inputs.
Solar mode should be fast-tracking, and might do better in tracking in fading sun.
Is there any shading on any of the PVs when you note the low-ish input voltage?
With 300 Watts of PV, the KID should not be running hot, and thus reducing the output current to limit its thermal load.
Done guessing for now. Vic
I do have a larger inverter but do not see why more load would be a good thing. My single battery is plenty wimpy, and I am pulling 2.4A off it continually.
As for solar2, I thought I saw the same pattern on solar, so tried solar2 to see how it behaves. There are not any shadows that I saw, and on both occasions, simply turning the input off and back on reset the voltage back into the high 50s. It stayed there until the sun set.
I will flip it back to solar in the am, and give that another go. The kid is not hot at all.
Thanks for the replies
I do have a larger inverter but do not see why more load would be a good thing.
because 2.4A is about 2% of a single deep cycle battery and you are just tickling it as far as depletion and when you are dealing with an almost fully charged (>90%) battery you get some strange seeming charge related symptoms...
I have a battery with maybe 90AHr at best. It starts drawing on the battery around here at about 4pm, where incoming solar = outgoing load. In the morning, solar picks up the slack about 9AM. December rather sucks in IA. It is also in a cold garage, so I lose a bit more capacity. The fun of solar in the winter... Anyway, 90Ah - (2.4A * 17h) = ~50Ah remaining. This is drawing the battery down to 12.0v, and I really don't want to take it lower. One could argue I don't have enough battery for the load I have even. My WBjr is reflecting this pretty accurately, which is quite excellent. My only point in all that is I think the KID should handle 2.4A without any problems, and it does most of the time. I wanted to report this because I feel it is an anomaly.
I did not manage to switch over to the solar program today, so it was in solar2 all day. The problem did not manifest today, and everything ran as I would think it should, with the voltage ranging from 55 to 62 on the input throughout the whole day. The day was overcast today, and it never did reach float, but did reach absorb. Yesterday was mostly clear with light clouds off an on, and so reached float. That was the only difference I can think of. Temperature was about the same. I got tired of going out to check the display, so set up a webcam to view the LCD. Not a great camera, but it works :) Image attached from today's overcast output.
It is now flipped back to solar for tomorrow.
Hello XSNRG, I noticed you have Renogy 100w panels. Are they the flexible ones? If so how do you like them? I am sorry this is a little off topic.
John
Nope, sorry, I have the solid frame guys. I have heard good things about the flex panels, though no first-hand experience with them.
To bring the post back on topic, Today was excellent sun, hit float in the morning even, and had no issues at all with the KID.
It is possible to use AGS function and WBJR in the same time?
Jean-Francois
Quote from: Mario on October 13, 2014, 01:22:40 PM
Ok every one I will tell you how to Unleash your Kid... but its a secret.... go to the password and enable password, wait 5 sec and then press left then select 125 and press Enter, the bottom row will show "Kid Unleashed" then select 142 and press Enter, select no Password and press the SAVE button.
Now the kid will be able to do AGS on the WBJR terminal. Select Aux press UP and Select AGS, Press SETUP button to configure the parameters, the kid only provides 12v out 150mA max to the terminal, the need of a contactor may be necessary to turn the Gen.
Another function that will be unlocked is Smart night light on the Load, which basically turn on at dusk and stay on for user adjustable amount of hrs and then go off then turn back on before dawn for the amount of hrs set by the user.
Then Hourly load on, basically tell the load from what time to what time to stay On. Warning The kid does not have a RTC so it uses the solar panels to create an astronomical clock that gets recalibrated every midnight, it does not have DST, and it is an approximate time to the actual time zone.
Both the Smart night light and the Hourly need at least 4 days of functioning in that mode to work properly.
I would appreciate much, if some people can test these functions and let me know if they find problems.
Mario
Quote from: Bunkie314 on October 18, 2014, 03:46:27 PM
Under the calibration menu, what is the prematching number mean? I assume the min watts is output of the kid. In bully mode the master can't see the WBJ, states the wire is disconnected. The Wimpy kid WBJ still works.
What are the other aux functions LBD High and LBD low for? Could we have an example? Can two different load functions be used in bully mode on each kid?
I am curious too about the -0.3 prematching number setting.
Back in Dec I posted about some strange voltages I was seeing on the PV input on my KID. Since that point, I have upgraded my panels and some wiring, but on occasion I am still seeing the voltage not tracking for mppt on the pv input. This morning is an example. The voltage was holding at 23.4v for a couple hours. It finally broke loose about 10AM and went 40+ in one shot, bulking changed from 30w to 125w. The sky conditions did not change, with it being heavy overcast. This also seems to be the conditions when I see it happening -- overcast early morning. I have no shading. Are there stages or steps in the mppt algorithm where this would be the normal operation? I would expect it to be more linear as the photons become available.
I realize the variability of the cloud cover and angle of the sun penetrating them, etc. The solidly clamped input voltage is an indication of something else it would seem.
This is not a big deal as it seems to eventually snap out of it, but since I was seeing it again this morning, I thought it was worth a mention. Everything else about my KID is spot on.
I am running the solar program with 1761.
Update: it has swept down to 29v now, and is holding there. It is certainly brighter outside though, and can be proven by my solar radiation sensor. I do love having empirical data. Holding at 29v for a while, but have the photons available for much more.
http://www.howardweb.org/weather/solar/ (http://www.howardweb.org/weather/solar/)
Update 2: Yes, something is not quite right. I went out to the garage and toggled the input. The voltage went from clamped at 29v to 92v, wattage from 45 to 155. It is now sweeping normally again. I did not restart the KID, just toggled the input. The attached battery voltage shows when I toggled it and the power came up drastically to charge the battery. It also shows where the KID seemed to be working normally for a while between 10:10 and 10:30. I did not do anything to it during this time. After about 10:30 is where it clamped at 29v input until I manually intervened at 11:19... At 11:28, It just locked input at 29v again.
I am seeing this again today. The input voltage is not ranging. It is stuck on 24.7v on the input, greatly reducing the power from the panels. I didn't think this was a big deal, but on an overcast day like today it is the difference of reaching float or not.
Adding today's battery graph... Easy to see the two times it ranged properly and how much power is missing. The two voltage peaks do not correspond to changes atmosphere either. I will add that graph as well.
Jim
Today in full sun, at morning angle, the input voltage locked in at 18.9v. It is generating 63w where it should be closer to 250 or more. Still solar program.
If you go back to the old firmware does this problem go away ?
A good question. I will have to check my notes. IIRC it was happening before as well.
When it finally snapped out of it this am, it went from 6A to 25A. Completely clear here today.
Two deployed so far and turned my back on them, Systems great ( I think )
Not upto speed on Mr kid's menus yet.
Are there daily logs (or planned?) one can scroll thru?
Like PV Ah, watt/hr, Min-max or Dawn-dusk voltage?
Quote from: xsnrg on February 15, 2015, 11:32:31 AM
Back in Dec I posted about some strange voltages I was seeing on the PV input on my KID. Since that point, I have upgraded my panels and some wiring, but on occasion I am still seeing the voltage not tracking for mppt on the pv input. This morning is an example. The voltage was holding at 23.4v for a couple hours. It finally broke loose about 10AM and went 40+ in one shot, bulking changed from 30w to 125w. The sky conditions did not change, with it being heavy overcast. This also seems to be the conditions when I see it happening -- overcast early morning. I have no shading. Are there stages or steps in the mppt algorithm where this would be the normal operation? I would expect it to be more linear as the photons become available.
I realize the variability of the cloud cover and angle of the sun penetrating them, etc. The solidly clamped input voltage is an indication of something else it would seem.
This is not a big deal as it seems to eventually snap out of it, but since I was seeing it again this morning, I thought it was worth a mention. Everything else about my KID is spot on.
I am running the solar program with 1761.
Update: it has swept down to 29v now, and is holding there. It is certainly brighter outside though, and can be proven by my solar radiation sensor. I do love having empirical data. Holding at 29v for a while, but have the photons available for much more.
http://www.howardweb.org/weather/solar/ (http://www.howardweb.org/weather/solar/)
Update 2: Yes, something is not quite right. I went out to the garage and toggled the input. The voltage went from clamped at 29v to 92v, wattage from 45 to 155. It is now sweeping normally again. I did not restart the KID, just toggled the input. The attached battery voltage shows when I toggled it and the power came up drastically to charge the battery. It also shows where the KID seemed to be working normally for a while between 10:10 and 10:30. I did not do anything to it during this time. After about 10:30 is where it clamped at 29v input until I manually intervened at 11:19... At 11:28, It just locked input at 29v again.
Yes. I have noticed this problem on my Kid as well. I just didn't know how to describe it. But, yes, I have noticed it too. Toggling the input does seem to snap it out of it.
-Sean