I bought a Kid two weeks ago and turned it on for the first time today. The first thing I noticed was that the menu buttons don't appear to work very well. Pressing a button one time seems to yield a random chance of no button press being detected at all, a normal button press being detected, or multiple button presses being detected. I was wondering if this is a perhaps just an issue with my unit or if it's something exhibited by all Kid controllers.
Scrolling through the battery type menu on the initial boot, I had to spam the arrow buttons to get it to scroll and eventually ended on "Custom" at which point the controller would no longer accept any amount of up or down button presses. Left and right still worked, though pressing right made the controller rush through the next two menus without me even getting to see the one in between. Frustrated, I turned off power to the controller to reset it and started over. The up and down arrows worked again, but the spotty behavior of the menu buttons persisted. I just had to be very careful. This seems like the sort of thing that could be fixed with firmware. We need some software debouncing rolled into the button press handler.
Have you updated the firmware yet ? What version is it ? There have been a number of firmware updates - recent ones available on Midnite webpage.
I tried to start the firmware update process, but it doesn't seem to work. The controller never presents as a mass storage device to a computer. That being said, restarting the controller suggests I have 1733 instead of the 1722 firmware available online. I appear to be on a beta between the last stable and current beta release?
Quote from: Particle on June 01, 2014, 02:40:44 PM
I tried to start the firmware update process, but it doesn't seem to work. The controller never presents as a mass storage device to a computer. That being said, restarting the controller suggests I have 1733 instead of the 1722 firmware available online. I appear to be on a beta between the last stable and current beta release?
Particle;
What operating system on your computer?
We need that info to even try to help.
I did not realize there were any issues with the drag and drop upgrades on the Kids?
Tom
Oh, duh. Sorry. There is an intermediate update needed before you can drag and drop updates. I did it so long ago I forget (anything before lunch is long ago) :o
I will see if I can find that info. Don't get discouraged.
Tom
Best info I could find:
http://midniteforum.com/index.php?topic=1655.0 (http://midniteforum.com/index.php?topic=1655.0)
Seems to only apply to the Beta Kids so not sure it counts?
Tom
Tom, for the BETAs units ONLY, a new BOOTLOADER file is needed.
Other than that AFAIK it's Drag and Drop
Yeah on My windows 7 laptop it never showed up as a pop up I had to go into "My Computer" and it was there as a drive.
Quote from: Halfcrazy on June 01, 2014, 07:36:29 PM
Yeah on My windows 7 laptop it never showed up as a pop up I had to go into "My Computer" and it was there as a drive.
This is the same with mine, but once I figured that out....updates have been a snap.
I believe that the unit I have is a production version as I bought it from Northern Arizona Wind & Sun two weeks ago. It appears to have Bootloader 2.2 on it and firmware revision 1733. The computer I tried to do the update with is a Windows 8.1 (64-bit) machine.
I plugged the controller into the computer using a mini USB cable and started the firmware update process on the controller after that. I also tried starting the firmware update process on the controller and plugging in the cable only after that point. Neither time did a mass storage device appear to be detected by the computer, neither in My Computer nor checking with disk management. I checked with disk management in case the drive was detected but had no drive letter assigned as does occasionally happen with card readers and phones. No luck there--it just isn't present.
I'll try with a different computer tomorrow and see what happens, but if anyone has any ideas in the mean time I would certainly be appreciative.
There was a batch of USB cables shipped with the Classic were turning up to be bad.
Have you tried with another USB cable just to be sure? You might also try a different USB port on the PC if you haven't already. My Windows 7 machine only recognizes certain USB devices plugged into very particular ports for some reason. Thanks, Microsoft.
Quote from: atop8918 on June 02, 2014, 03:51:13 AM
My Windows 7 machine only recognizes certain USB devices plugged into very particular ports for some reason.
I can confirm that peculiarity on a Wdoze7 machine too >:( >:( >:( what a pain!
QuoteThere was a batch of USB cables shipped with the Classic were turning up to be bad.
Oh man. Any idea what ser #'s those are ? I don't have any of the nano size cables (90 minutes from a city with a store likely to have one.)
Classic 200, Win 8.1 Sleeps at 30C @ midnight - sucking power from my batteries. USB=No talkie.
No, I'm afraid I don't have that info -- only some of the cables were bad so it wasn't a lot problem -- probably a bunch that were at a corner of the shipping pallet or something. If you have a small digital camera or something it will most likely have that mini-USB connection on it if you need to test it out.
Sometimes it also takes a while for windows to load the driver (minutes). You may also have to boot windows in safe-mode or open mode in order to install the driver from the installer since it isn't signed. At least that's what one had to do sometimes with Windows 7, I dunno about 8?
Mike the miini USB fits my cell phones. If it works with them should be ok for the Classic.
hth
I tried a different computer without success today. Still no drive letter nor storage device at all listed in disk management. Despite this I had some fun as I connected PV input to the controller for the first time today. It seems to work well. It's nice not throwing away all that power that I used to with a PWM controller. Unfortunately, it's a cloudy day such that 740W of PV is only yielding 100-150W depending on cloud cover at any given moment. heh It's not quite enough to power the inverter itself when it drops down to the low side of that range, but I'm closer than I would have been otherwise. I'm looking forward to a sunny day.
Particle when you are trying to connect to the Windows PC are you following this procedure?
- Turn off Kid Power ( both breakers Battery and PV)
- connect Kid USB cable to the square hole on the bottom of the unit? --Make sure the Cable is connected all the way--
- connect the other end to the PC USB slot --- If Laptop maybe try w/o the charger plugged in, if possible--
- Press and hold the SETUP button and turn on the Battery Breaker
- the LCD on the Kid Should Read "Boot Loader 2.x"
- at this point Windows should start installing drivers automatically and a drive should appear in your Computer directory.
Another action to take is to make sure the cable you are using is functioning correctly.
Mario
AFAIK Windows 8 and 8.1 will not work with drivers not coded and compiled specifically for the Windows 8 driver interface.
If a device has a USB signature which matches one of the known device types for which Microsoft has Windows 8 drivers, then a download will take place if needed.
Otherwise you may not even get a pop-up allowing you to manually load drivers from somewhere else.
Sometimes running a Windows Update will improve the situation as the list of supported devices is constantly changing.
Quote from: inetdog on June 09, 2014, 05:39:39 PM
AFAIK Windows 8 and 8.1 will not work with drivers not coded and compiled specifically for the Windows 8 driver interface.
To tell Windows 8 it is OK to trust the driver you want to install. Do this, follow the steps below:
1. From the desktop, open Settings (move your mouse to the bottom/top-right-corner of the screen and wait for the pop-out bar to appear, and then click the Gear/Settings icon).
2. Click ‘Change PC Settings’.
3. Click ‘General’.
4. Scroll down, and click ‘Restart now’ under ‘Advanced startup’.
5. Wait a bit.
6. Click ‘Troubleshoot’.
7. Click ‘Advanced Options’
8. Click ‘Windows Startup Settings’
9. Click Restart.
10. Press 7 to boot windows with Driver Signature Enforcement disabled to allow you to install the drivers.
The Kid is designed to use the Windows native MSD driver which should ship with Windows out-of-the-box and so should not need any driver manipulation at all.
This being said perhaps Windows 8 does a check against "registered" devices (i.e. those who have paid the $10k to be on the list) and isn't letting the Kid connect.