WB jr. Q&A

[TomW]

Just gotta get the WB Jr. board to physically connect up to your shunt.

boB

boB;

Been pondering this one since you released this product. Came up with a couple ideas on "how" including a "universal"  adaptor. Nothing elegant but just hillbilly engineering type ideas.

I have no need for it so haven't got very far into it.

I will fire off an email with the general ideas if interested.

Tom

[Vic]

Have just gotten back to one of the sites which will receive one of the WBjrs.

Will need to extend the Purple wire to about 2.5 M -- about 100 inches.  This lead will run in EMT conduit 90% of this distance.  The only other leads in this conduit are the Classic RTS,  some low-level control cables,  and RTSes for SW+ inverters (only about 20 cm of the distance is shared with the SW RTSes).

I am assuming that there should be no problem with noise,  and that this purple wire would not need to be shielded.

This visit is just a drive-by,  and will not have a chance to do the total install for a week or so.

Thanks,  Vic

[boB]

Have just gotten back to one of the sites which will receive one of the WBjrs.

Will need to extend the Purple wire to about 2.5 M -- about 100 inches.  This lead will run in EMT conduit 90% of this distance.  The only other leads in this conduit are the Classic RTS,  some low-level control cables,  and RTSes for SW+ inverters (only about 20 cm of the distance is shared with the SW RTSes).

I am assuming that there should be no problem with noise,  and that this purple wire would not need to be shielded.

This visit is just a drive-by,  and will not have a chance to do the total install for a week or so.

Thanks,  Vic

I don't expect you to have any problem at 100 inches of wire.

boB

[TomW]

I don't expect you to have any problem at 100 inches of wire.

boB

boB;

Can you tell me at what point wire length may start to be a problem for future reference?

Thanks.

Tom

[Resthome]

I don't expect you to have any problem at 100 inches of wire.

boB

boB;

Can you tell me at what point wire length may start to be a problem for future reference?

Thanks.

Tom

I ran mine around 156" spliced into 18g Ancor Marine grade wire and haven't seen any issues. In fact the Net Amps reading matches my Link 10 monitor attached to the same shunt.   

[Vic]

OK,  Thanks boB and John.    Vic

[ClassicCrazy]

Happy to say I just got done installing the Whizbang Jr !  Also updated the wiring for battery charging circuit to 4 gauge and 100 amp breaker at the same time to handle extra panels.  The existing Trimetric sensor wires on the shunt are also connected on the Whizbang extension screws.

So far it looks like everything is reading as it should. I notice that the Local Status app shows the system amps on the main screen which is nice so I can easily compare it to what the Trimetric meter is showing . From what I can tell they are within 0.2 of an amp of each other though today the sunlight is changing in intensity so the readings are fluctuating quickly - could be that one of the meters reads faster than the other.

I changed the Tweaks setting to reset at midnight so guess tomorrow will tell how that works.

It will be nice when the Local Status app or some other software will display all the Whizbang Jr data , otherwise I will be tempted to bring the MNGP inside - more wires !

Larry 

[SolarWind]

Have installed the WB jr. and appears to be functioning but have no sun today. Does the Aux2 have to be ON for the WB to work? As I said I am getting some data from it but with no sun don't know if I'm getting it all. I have updated the MNGP and set the Aux2 to Whizbang of course.

Solarwind

[ClassicCrazy]

Have installed the WB jr. and appears to be functioning but have no sun today. Does the Aux2 have to be ON for the WB to work? As I said I am getting some data from it but with no sun don't know if I'm getting it all. I have updated the MNGP and set the Aux2 to Whizbang of course.

Solarwind

I think you have it set up correctly . I just set the Aux2 to Whizbang and that was it. I also set the Tweaks setting to reset at midnight .  If you look at the Local Status app you should see an amp reading on the Status screen and it will be a positive value if charging or negative if power is coming out of the batteries.

[Resthome]

Have installed the WB jr. and appears to be functioning but have no sun today. Does the Aux2 have to be ON for the WB to work? As I said I am getting some data from it but with no sun don't know if I'm getting it all. I have updated the MNGP and set the Aux2 to Whizbang of course.

Solarwind

If the LED is flashing once every 5 seconds on the WB Jr. You have it set up correctly and it is communicating with the Classic..

[ClassicCrazy]

I have a question about the Net Amp Hours daily reset .
On my Trimetric Meter it will count down every night , then in the morning count up to zero - it does not really accumulate above that.

So if I leave the default option in the Tweaks to Off , then the Net Amp Hours will accumulate ?  If I start out at zero  and use 50 amps it should show net amps as -50 ?  The next day if it charges 200 amps it will show +150 ?  The next night you use 100 it will still show Net Amps at +50 ?   

I would kind of like to have it act more like the Trimetric so I know how many amps I take out each day and then know when it replaces all of those .  What benefit is there to show a continual positive Net Amps ?  Or am I understanding this wrong  ?

If I want it to act more like the Trimetric then I would want to turn the Tweaks option to Yes to reset the Net Amps each day ?  From what I read in the installation instructions the -AH will still read in the morning from the night before . So then the Net Amps will begin to count up each morning as the solar charges ? 

I guess I can find out the answers by trying out both options though I only have tomorrow to play with it until next weekend.

It will be great when Mymidnite reports any of the Whizbang data.

[Westbranch]

What it will tell you over eg. a week or more is if you are getting fully charged over that time period or are in a Net Loss situation.  If so it is telling you you should run the genny to bulk up. YMMV

Have you looked at the MN BCM?, It was made for places where the users may not have any PV knowledge but if the light is green you are fully charged within the last week yellow  in the last 2 weeks, red not fully charged in more than 2 weeks so you better fire up the genny...

hth

[ClassicCrazy]

What it will tell you over eg. a week or more is if you are getting fully charged over that time period or are in a Net Loss situation.  If so it is telling you you should run the genny to bulk up. YMMV

Have you looked at the MN BCM?, It was made for places where the users may not have any PV knowledge but if the light is green you are fully charged within the last week yellow  in the last 2 weeks, red not fully charged in more than 2 weeks so you better fire up the genny...

hth

The Trimetric accumulates the negative  and only resets at Zero so it pretty much tells you if you if the batteries filled up all the way over time. In my original question I was probably forgetting that as the batteries fill up the current drops off so there probably won't be as much of a positive amp reading as I was thinking would accumulate.

[zoneblue]

Theres not much in the firmware yet for the whizbang. As i understand it they plan to add code to calculate and show state of charge in the not too distant future. That will be cool, yeah.

[Resthome]

I think as boB has eluded to there is more to come in firmware upgrades for the WB Jr. Whether the Classic itself will ever have a true SOC function or whether that is put into the Local App is a dilemma as with the limitation on Adobe Air I doubt Midnite wants to continue to invest in updates to the Local App. And I'm not sure they want to make the Classic a full fledged battery monitor.

To be a true SOC monitor there needs to be a way to input more info such as battery capacity in AH, a set of charge parameters voltage setting that the batteries must be above and  a current setting that is 1- 2% of C that the current must drop below for a given period of time for the batteries to be considered full, CEF, and Peukert's Exponent a number which describes how battery capacity shrinks as the rate of discharge is increased.

The CEF determines the rate at which the AH counts back up during charging to compensate for the inefficiency of the charging process. A CEF value of 90%  means that you must return 10.0 amp hours to store 9.0 Ah in the battery.

The conditions for resetting net apps, +AH and -AH should meet some criteria like the following used in the Link 10 monitor.

1. Discharge 10% of declared battery capacity to trigger algorithm.
2. Recharge until 100% of the kWh removed have been return.
3. The voltage must be above the Charged Voltage Parameter.
4. The current must below the Charge Current Parameter
5. Conditions 3 & 4 must be meet for some period of time like 5 minutes.


There are probably other ways to do this but as has been discussed here and elsewhere really determining the SOC of the batteries is complicated and varies with the type of batteries and a lot of other conditions.