I've had my Classic CC online for a few months now, but I'm still trying to interpret all the data it's producing. Are there any manuals/docs out there that can help explain the various results that MyMidnite produces? I'm going to show my level of ignorance with my questions here, but I'm hoping some of you can help me interpret the data.
1. What I most want to track is the amount of production each day by my PV array - which data point (either on the graph or in the downloadable data) can I utilize to track what my daily production totals are?
2. What does the "Power" data point graph?
3. What do the "Energy", "Output Current", and "Input Current" data points graph? I don't see them as a downloadable data field available.
4. Anyone have narrative definitions for all the downloadable fields? I'm uncertain as to what most of them represent ("i_batt", "i_batt_minus", "i_pv_minus", "i_pv", "charge_state", "info_flags", "mppt_mode", "resting", etc).
5. If it helps, I've attached the data from my most recent download. I think I need to upgrade the firmware on my CC and reset it (it will need to wait until I go to the cabin next) - a lot of the values are coming across as zero.
5. Anyone have an easy way to input the "Timestamp" field into excel so that it reads as date and time?
Quote from: mjp24coho on December 15, 2013, 09:38:22 PM
I've had my Classic CC online for a few months now, but I'm still trying to interpret all the data it's producing. Are there any manuals/docs out there that can help explain the various results that MyMidnite produces? I'm going to show my level of ignorance with my questions here, but I'm hoping some of you can help me interpret the data.
1. What I most want to track is the amount of production each day by my PV array - which data point (either on the graph or in the downloadable data) can I utilize to track what my daily production totals are
2. What does the "Power" data point graph?
3. What do the "Energy", "Output Current", and "Input Current" data points graph? I don't see them as a downloadable data field available.
4. Anyone have narrative definitions for all the downloadable fields? I'm uncertain as to what most of them represent ("i_batt", "i_batt_minus", "i_pv_minus", "i_pv", "charge_state", "info_flags", "mppt_mode", "resting", etc).
5. If it helps, I've attached the data from my most recent download. I think I need to upgrade the firmware on my CC and reset it (it will need to wait until I go to the cabin next) - a lot of the values are coming across as zero.
5. Anyone have an easy way to input the "Timestamp" field into excel so that it reads as date and time?
1- Energy will show you KWh's per day.
2- Power is instantaneous watts at that time
3- Energy is the KWH's at that time, Output current is the Amperage leaving the Classic and Input current is the current coming in from the PV array (Realize the Input current is not real accurate)
4
i_batt = Output current
i_batt_minus = Andrew or boB will have to answer this?
i_pv = input current
i_pv_minus = Andrew or boB will have to answer this?
Charge_state = what state the classic is in at that time bulk, float, resting etc
info_flags = things like Arc Fault on or off, Lomax on or off etc
mppt_mode is the mode the classic is running in Wind, Solar, Hydro etc
As far as 4 and 5 I think there was a template floating around that did the time calculations I will have to go look for it. Some one here on the forum built it
Ryan
Yes - Phil (Resthome) recently posted a spreadsheet - I believe it was for using data downloaded using Local App
Take a look here for the spreadsheet
http://midniteforum.com/index.php?topic=1495.msg12614#msg12614
Thanks for the responses. The formula in the template was helpful, but from what I can see, it only converts time (not date). Has anyone else out there solved this?
Regarding Ryan's response on the total daily production data, the "Power" data points - do they show KWH production at a point in time, or a running total for the day? Is there a summing that has to be done by day to show the accumulated production throughout a 24-hr period?
Quote from: mjp24coho on December 16, 2013, 09:51:01 AM
Regarding Ryan's response on the total daily production data, the "Power" data points - do they show KWH production at a point in time, or a running total for the day? Is there a summing that has to be done by day to show the accumulated production throughout a 24-hr period?
"Power" is instantaneous power (watts) right then. "Energy" is the days cumulative KWH (Kilo Watt Hours) and it resets every midnite. At least mine does. Energy is simply Power over time. Power is watts "right now".
Not uncommon for folks to confuse Energy and Power.
Tom
Quote from: mjp24coho on December 16, 2013, 09:51:01 AM
Thanks for the responses. The formula in the template was helpful, but from what I can see, it only converts time (not date). Has anyone else out there solved this?
If you want to show the date and time you can change the cell format in Excel to show various date time formats, but there isn't one that shows the date and time with the the time expanded out to seconds. So the times will all show up as the same minutes until the minutes change.
You also must put your time zone offset in from GMT. It's cell for this is in the hidden rows all the top of the sheet. Just unhide those rows. My offset was for PST so it was -7.
Does anyone know what each of the numbers/values in that cell represent? If I know what the numbers represent (which are days, years, months, hours, etc), I can build a formula to separate it out into two cells for date and time. I just can't decipher what the values represent.
Nevermind - looks like I was able to tweak the formula to give me what I need (using the formula shown elsewhere in this forum, I just had to format it differently).
Now one more question - does the "Energy" data value show the total KWh produced by the panels that day, or just the KWh produced and put into the battery? For example, if the batteries were 98% full to start the day, fewer KWh would need to be put into the batteries. Am I thinking about this right?
Quote from: mjp24coho on December 16, 2013, 09:52:47 PM
Nevermind - looks like I was able to tweak the formula to give me what I need (using the formula shown elsewhere in this forum, I just had to format it differently).
Now one more question - does the "Energy" data value show the total KWh produced by the panels that day, or just the KWh produced and put into the battery? For example, if the batteries were 98% full to start the day, fewer KWh would need to be put into the batteries. Am I thinking about this right?
It's the total KWh produced by the panels. For the Classic to understand what is going in an out of the batteries you need an external shunt and a WBjr attached to the shunt and connect to the Classic. The current firmware then can show + and - AH and Net AH.
Thanks for clarifying. That's interesting - I haven't been dove too much into the WBJr capabilities to assess the need. I've really been looking for something that I can use to monitor remotely the power consumption of my offgrid system, not as a net AH in/out, but separately KWh in (PV production in, which the Classic already tracks), and KWh consumed by my system. I assumed I would have to get that from some sort of monitoring system that monitored KWh produced and consumed by the inverter. Would the WBJr allow me to calculate that just the same, based on the AH consumed, read from a separate external shunt? I would like that even more, since it would show a complete consumption number (including what was consumed by the inverter). Can all that data from the WBJr be accessed from MyMidnite (via the classic, or separate from)?
- The classic knows only what it is producing, nothing about the battery current or load current.
- The whizbang knows about battery current.
- Together, if you subtract one from the other you get load current. (classic currently doesnt make this step yet, see [1])
As a bonus you get
- battery net AH/SOC
- true end amps asbsorb termination
[1] If you are really into monitoring i suggest you take a look at blackbox. http://code.google.com/p/theblackboxproject/
I know this is an old post but I think my question follows the original content.
I have a classis 150, WBJR, and build 1849 firmware.
The following is the data I download from mymidnite.
timestamp power v_in v_batt i_batt kwh i_batt_minus i_pv_minus i_pv float_time charge_stage info_flags mppt_mode resting
1400969131 158 97.6 27.3 5.8 3.2 0 0 1.4 1692 5 805614080 0 0
- what is i_batt_minus and i_pv_minus? Should I see some values for these?
- what are info_flags? is there a look-up table for these?
- What is resting - the value doesn't seem to change from 0.
- Am I correct in assuming that at this point the data from the WBJR is not available on mymidnite?[
Thanks for any info.
Bob
Hi, Bob,
To answe your questions:
i_pv_minus and i_batt minus were some legacy values vrom way back when . They shouldn't be there. 0 is a perfectly legit value for them.
There is currently no table for info_flags though this is what triggers the icons to pop up.
The Resting flag is the "Reason for Resting" I'm not sure if we publish these or not or if they are debug only. If the Classic is resting then the RFR will tell you why. If it's 0 it means you're producing power -- no news is good news.
WBJr values are not currently available on MyMidNite although I am currently working on getting them in there as well as making some more modifications to the site.
Thanks!
-Andrew
Quote from: Bob D on May 25, 2014, 12:59:13 PM
- what is i_batt_minus and i_pv_minus? Should I see some values for these?
- what are info_flags? is there a look-up table for these?
- What is resting - the value doesn't seem to change from 0.
- Am I correct in assuming that at this point the data from the WBJR is not available on mymidnite?[
Thanks for any info.
Bob
1. Pass.
2. Infoflags are documented in the modbus specification:
http://www.midnitesolar.com/documents.php?productCat_ID=21&productCatName=Charge%20Controllers%20-%20Classics&model=CLASSIC%20150&product_ID=256&act=products
3. Not sure, but resting could be RFR reason for resting. In which case its documented variously, best here:
http://midniteforum.com/index.php?topic=1728.msg15750#msg15750
4. Yes, there working on it.
AHA!
Thanks for setting my answers straight, ZB.
Quote from: atop8918 on May 25, 2014, 04:06:01 PM
Hi, Bob,
To answe your questions:
i_pv_minus and i_batt minus were some legacy values vrom way back when . They shouldn't be there. 0 is a perfectly legit value for them.
There is currently no table for info_flags though this is what triggers the icons to pop up.
The Resting flag is the "Reason for Resting" I'm not sure if we publish these or not or if they are debug only. If the Classic is resting then the RFR will tell you why. If it's 0 it means you're producing power -- no news is good news.
WBJr values are not currently available on MyMidNite although I am currently working on getting them in there as well as making some more modifications to the site.
Thanks!
-Andrew
Thanks for the info. I am able to get a rough idea of net AH using the data.magnumenergy site ( I have a magnum inverter with their Battery monitoring), but that site doesn't provide for data downloading.
I have the local app running at the cottage but I am looking at the data remotely.
Probably don't need the info but just put in a new battery and want to keep an eye on it.
I look forward to being able to access the WBJR data remotely.