Report Card for Beta Units...??

[Mario]

Im here, I been quite busy last couple of days ( more than usual), since we have the new boards in and getting ready for Production.

So there is a new version of software where the unit can be password protected and the LCD for those kids who randomly fails it should get fixed. Right now its in the tester hands to make sure it is ready to be released to the world.

Now all the guys with the Battery drift problem does it always drift the same way?

When the kid battery voltage drifts does it always drift up (displayed as a higher voltage) or always down (displayed as a lower number) or is it just random?

Mario

[Mario]

Midnite,

How does one adjust the absorb and/or equalization time for the kid. Or is it that these time are only adjustable when the custom battery setting is selected.

The second question can the kid be used to charge a 36v bank. The manual only indicated 12,24 & 48. Further to this, is it possible to custom set the bulk and absorb voltages say if you were charge an odd number of cells say 7, 13 or 25 cells.

Cheers...
Damani

So When you do a factory reset, and you select the different battery types that is used to get you settings close to the actual settings the batteries need depending on the battery manufacturer it will change some.
you can charge any battery voltage from 12v all the way to 48v (36v is included), so when you connect to the battery it will guess either 24v or 48v but you can change the Battery Nominal by pressing the up or down keys and selecting 36v.
then adjust your Battery set point voltages for the needs of your battery.
36v is an even number of cells just like 12,24,36,48 so there should not be any problems even when using the BTS and Tcomp.

Mario

[Mario]

Midnite,

How does one adjust the absorb and/or equalization time for the kid. Or is it that these time are only adjustable when the custom battery setting is selected.

The second question can the kid be used to charge a 36v bank. The manual only indicated 12,24 & 48. Further to this, is it possible to custom set the bulk and absorb voltages say if you were charge an odd number of cells say 7, 13 or 25 cells.

Cheers...
Damani

So When you do a factory reset, and you select the different battery types that is used to get you settings close to the actual settings the batteries need depending on the battery manufacturer it will change some.
you can charge any battery voltage from 12v all the way to 48v (36v is included), so when you connect to the battery it will guess either 24v or 48v but you can change the Battery Nominal by pressing the up or down keys and selecting 36v.
then adjust your Battery set point voltages for the needs of your battery.
36v is an even number of cells just like 12,24,36,48 so there should not be any problems even when using the BTS and Tcomp.

Mario

oh and the absorb time and the EQ time get set by pressing the Main Menu and selecting Battery.
Here is how to think about it:
Main menu will get you to the different main sections of the kid (Battery, Load, Input, Aux, Misc...), now the top line on the top of the name in main menu give you a really brief Description of what you can find inside by pressing Enter.

Adjust                   Setpoints
           <BATTERY>

in there you will find all the diff settings for the Battery.

Whats new: inside EQ menu(where it says OFF and START) you have to Press the Setup button to change the EQ Voltage and EQ Time
Hope this Helps.

Mario

[Mario]

Midnite,

Another question. I have realized that when the back light of the display goes off the screen is absolutely unreadable in natural light...is this normal? I read that you guys plan on changing the colour of the display...will the new display be readable without the back light on.

Cheers...
Damani

the Blue LCDs do that, you can make the kids backlight not to go off if you go to the MISC menu and select LCD and set it to NRML, that will keep your Backlight to be always on.
Mario

[Mario]

Midnite,

I have also realized that the setup soft key does not function when on the main screen. My question is how does one change the setup voltage. I change voltage regularly between 12 and 24. When I tried changing the voltage from 24 to 12 the setup soft key does now allow me to do this. How does one change system voltage on the fly. I even tried a power cycle to see if it would allow me to change setup voltage without success.

Cheers...
Damani

Nope you dont want to change the Battery nominal on the fly.... not even the Classic does that. you need to do a Factory reset every time you want to switch battery nominals.
Mario

[dapdan]

Mario,

Battery adjustment voltages...check. I have also figured out how to change the absorb and EQ times as well.

Thanks...
Damani

[dapdan]

Mario,

Roger that... do not chanbe system voltage on the fly. I guess one would have to manually increase or decrease voltage parameter whenever one changes system voltages. It would be nice if the kid automatically senses a different voltage and ask you to confirm it and then all set points(float, absorb, eq) would then change and if one want to tweak the voltages they would already be there abouts.

Ok Mario, you have addressed all my queries here except one. Thanks. I may have ran into a problem with one of the beta kids where during fw upload it stop responding and all the leds are on and the lcd screen is blank with the top row all ink blocks. The first kid went smoothly and the second one did not right after the upload of bootlaoder. When it was complete(green led stop blinking) and after the power cycle it did not report "bootloader 2.1" and just locked up with all leds on as reported. Is it bricked now?

Cheers....
Damani

[dapdan]

Mario,

I am experimenting with the load function (mostly diversion, float, light on). Is it possible that you guys could indicate the limits, function of all of the selection in this area of the controller as it not explained in detail in the current manual. I have been trying to charge two batteries at once with some success. I would want to know how one can limit current and voltage on the load if possible when using these various load functions.

Will future fw upgrages allow additional programming for the light on load feature(as in programming varions on/off times)

Cheers...
Damani

[Vic]

Think that I should mention that either the cutout in the kid's metal casting may not be quite wide enough,  perhaps there is an issue with the LCD's plastic lens thingie, or perhaps the PCB or LCD registration with the casting is imperfect.   This results in the leading character of what is displayed on the LCD (left side)  to be difficult to read.

Perhaps this may just be the result of a bit of distortion in the utmost left edge of the lens.

And speaking of the casting,  at times it seems a bit difficult to get down to the UP - DOWN - LEFT and RIGHT buttons.   Is it possible that the reliefs for fingers could be made a bit larger,  allowing easier  access  to these buttons?

FWIW.   Thanks,   Nice Kid!   Vic

[Bunkie314]

Now all the guys with the Battery drift problem does it always drift the same way?

When the kid battery voltage drifts does it always drift up (displayed as a higher voltage) or always down (displayed as a lower number) or is it just random?

Mario

Mario,

The kid is always reading lower voltage than actual.

[Vic]

Notice that there are some updated and new-ish Documents for the Kid on the MidNite Solar site:

http://www.midnitesolar.com/documents.php?productCat_ID=43&productCatName=Charge Controllers - KID&model=MNKID-M-W or MNKID-M-B&product_ID=531&act=products

Couple of things regarding the Kid Manual;
It appears that the wiring diagrams have been cleaned up a bit as individual diagrams on the above page.   But in the slightly revised Kid manual  'Prelinimary ... P10'  wiring diagrams still have the few slight errors.   These are on some the Wiring Diagram pages in the manual.  Some of the diagrams do not quite have the negative connection to the battery quite connected.   In these cases,  the negative connections STOPS at the edge of the battery box.  No big deal,  it is obvious where this connection is headed.

In addition,  believe that there should be advice in the part of the manual discussing connections to the Kid that  The battery negative,  and the PV negative leads MUST NOT BE CONNECTED to each other in the system wiring.  The Kid CC needs this separation to operate correctly (this was the mistake I made,  as the Kid replaced another CC,  which did not care in the least about this connection to a common Neg Buss outside of the Kid).

I did note the added advice about both battery and PV negative must be connected,  but should state that no connection between these negative busses should be made outside of the Kid CC (IMHO).

FWIW,  looks like the Kid is now becoming an adolescent!   Good Kid!   Thanks,  Vic

[Robin]

All great stuff here. The things that have been brought up here are so much better than when we did the Classic beta units. You guys have all changed the way we will be doing beta units in the future!
We have increased the length of some of the KID buttons. I'm not sure when production parts show up, but the tooling is done and samples work very well.
We have changed the plastic window covering the LCD. IT is now flat. That will help eliminate the distortion.
Wiring diagrams will leave to Doug and Ryan.
Doug just made a sticker that goes on the terminal block that says not to connect the minuses together.
We will put the limits of the functions in the manual.
(Doug). Not sure Mario is done yet though.
I like the idea of charging a couple of batteries with one KID. You can bulk charge the main house battery bank and let the load output charge a starting battery. I do not know what voltage drop the load circuit will see as compared to the main output. This is a cool feature that needs to go in the manual as soon as we figure it out. Mario is working on current limit for the load circuit now. State of charge from the WB Jr. comes next!
Here is a good one to comment on......We have a potential customer that wants to run these in a hot climate. The regular KID is only a 20 amp controller in 40C ambient. That just sounded wimpy, so I asked Mike to rig up a small fan into the back and make the exit holes over the inductor. This turned out to work very well. I can't remember exactly now, but the KID did 30 or 35 amps at 40C with that little fan like what is inside the Classic.
How much would it do at normal ambients? Probably 40 amps. By the way, 20AWG wire is rated at 40C in industrial applications, so we may have a fan option in the future that will give you an additional 10 amps or so.
Cool huh?

[dgd]

Now all the guys with the Battery drift problem does it always drift the same way?

When the kid battery voltage drifts does it always drift up (displayed as a higher voltage) or always down (displayed as a lower number) or is it just random?

Mario

The kid is always reading lower voltage than actual.

same here, always lower

[dgd]

...
Here is a good one to comment on......We have a potential customer that wants to run these in a hot climate. The regular KID is only a 20 amp controller in 40C ambient. That just sounded wimpy, so I asked Mike to rig up a small fan into the back and make the exit holes over the inductor. This turned out to work very well. I can't remember exactly now, but the KID did 30 or 35 amps at 40C with that little fan like what is inside the Classic.
How much would it do at normal ambients? Probably 40 amps. By the way, 20AWG wire is rated at 40C in industrial applications, so we may have a fan option in the future that will give you an additional 10 amps or so.
Cool huh?

I really like this development.  Those that want  the max 30A output from a noiseless KID get what they want.
An attachable fan (or even one of those peltier devices) to improve cooling and the bonus is up to 40A output. 
Cool indeed...

dgd

[vtmaps]

we may have a fan option in the future that will give you an additional 10 amps or so.
Cool huh?

Could you do that with a Classic... offer a derated Classic without a fan? 
disclaimer: I haven't a clue what it costs to put a fan in the Classic, or how derated it would be without a fan.

--vtMaps