Today I decided to update my two classics to REV 2079.
Both classics were running Rev 1849. Lucky I decided to just do one classic at a time on the odd chance there was a problem . At least the other classic could be used to keep the offgrid system going.
(I have never had update issues in the past)
So I downloaded the windows 10 classic programmer. Plugged the USB cable into the classic. It found the classic port. So I started the firmware update on the classic . All went well and it showed successful. Great... :)
I then tried the MNGP update and it all went well and showed successful. Though when turning the classic back on I now have a completely black screen on the MNGP.
I tried again updating the MNGP several times (always showed successful each time) but same completely black screen. I then tried a VMM using the jumpers on the classic . The VMM worked but still I have a black screen on the classic.
The classic did update to 2079 as I can log onto it through the local app and it's showing rev2079. So it worked on the classic.
(https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1699/25140293776_d52bdc4a01_n.jpg)
(https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1541/25140305866_534a1dcef0_n.jpg)
Kurt
Maybe the classic menu map http://www.midnitesolar.com/pdfs/classic_menu_map_rev_1933.pdf
will show (page 3) the button pushes to get to the screen contrast menu. That may solve it.
Maybe reloading the Registers from your import/export file can reset the MNGP ?
Looks like the red Communication Led is on solid. Did you try resetting the cable between the MNGP and the Classic or at least look at the pins. Try the top jack or the middle jack on the classic. I see now MN is recommending putting some silicon grease on those cable pins so there apparently have been connection issues with some units.
I did try a new blue cable and plugging it into the centre socket. Though I guess I could try reloading the firmware on the centre socket as that was mentioned in another thread.
The funny thing is that classic has worked for years and the MMGP screen was fine until I loaded the new firmware to the MNGP. Strange that the plug contacts would suddenly go bad at the same time.
Willing to try anything though.
Kurt
Kurt
Is this the first time using the Win10 loader?
:o
Hmmmm, I will adopt the idea of it aint broke then do not fix I think.
Sorry to hear the problems Kurt.
Sorted or still pulling hair out and wife saying I told you not to play with it??????
Lol, hope you have enough pv through the other reg for ongoing needs.
Russ
Kurt
Since that 1849 firmware is from 2014 you might try reloading that version just to see if it brings the MNGP back. I think at one time Ryan said he updates the MNGP and then the Classic. Something to do with if boB added additional Modbus registers but that's just a guess on my part. But I have always use the sequence you used but have not tried the Win10 updater due to not being on site since November.
Did the MNGP do anything when you did the VMM? Usually you see it transfer a bunch of data.
The Classic that was updated is probably still working, it could be used normally and if the settings have been reset to factory then just use the local App to set these as required or check they are still ok.
Classics work fine without the MNGP connected, you just need to manually set the clock.
dgd
Thanks for the suggestions.
Russ,
I was in a getting things done mode on the weekend and made the mistake of trying to squeeze one more job in at the offgrid house befor leaving Sunday afternoon. So yes Russ the wife was in my ear asking "are we going soon , it's getting late?" and my daughter was complaining that now because of my silly solar controller by the time we drive the 1 1/2 hrs back to the city now her tv show will have ended.....but no pressure!
Yes DGD, the controller updated fine and it works. As mentioned I logged into it via the local app and it's working and showing the correct new firmware. Though I shut it down for the week as I didn't have time to go through the settings and reset everything after the VMM. So yes if I need the extra power I can run it with a blank MNGP. (though I think I will loose the time and logs for each day when it resets at midnite without the MNGP)
Resthome, yes it was the first time using the windows 10 loader.
I will try and put 1849 back on it and see if I can get the MNGP working again. and try the update doing the MNGP first this time. I didn't see the MNGP do anything special after the VMM . I get a few leds flashing briefly when I power cycle it and then just the red led and blacked out screen.
I have a windows xp laptop I can use if need be.
Quote from: offgridQLD on February 21, 2016, 05:08:41 PM
Thanks for the suggestions.
Russ,
I was in a getting things done mode on the weekend and made the mistake of trying to squeeze one more job in at the offgrid house befor leaving Sunday afternoon. So yes Russ the wife was in my ear asking "are we going soon , it's getting late?" and my daughter was complaining that now because of my silly solar controller by the time we drive the 1 1/2 hrs back to the city now her tv show will have ended.....but no pressure!
Yes DGD, the controller updated fine and it works. As mentioned I logged into it via the local app and it's working and showing the correct new firmware. Though I shut it down for the week as I didn't have time to go through the settings and reset everything after the VMM. So yes if I need the extra power I can run it with a blank MNGP. (though I think I will loose the time and logs for each day when it resets at midnite without the MNGP)
Resthome, yes it was the first time using the windows 10 loader.
I will try and put 1849 back on it and see if I can get the MNGP working again. and try the update doing the MNGP first this time. I didn't see the MNGP do anything special after the VMM . I get a few leds flashing briefly when I power cycle it and then just the red led and blacked out screen.
I have a windows xp laptop I can use if need be.
offgridQLD sorry to hear of the mngp and hope to see what you work out, Im also grateful seeing some family humor here, just hoping there isn't to much stress!
Quote from: russ_drinkwater on February 21, 2016, 03:51:26 PM
:o
Hmmmm, I will adopt the idea of it aint broke then do not fix I think.
Sorry to hear the problems Kurt.
Sorted or still pulling hair out and wife saying I told you not to play with it??????
Lol, hope you have enough pv through the other reg for ongoing needs.
Russ
Russ---Your the best!
All good now :) yes you have to see the funny side of things in life or your will be forever stressed.
I made the trip up today with my old windows XP laptop and loaded the MNGP firmware through that. Worked first go with XP and I have my MNGP display back and working :)
Just updating the other classic now with the XP laptop. So cross fingers I will have two classics updated without issue........... (yes it worked fine on the 2nd classic to)
(https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1551/25065320322_c2771363fd.jpg)
I might dedicate this old xp machine to software updates.
Thanks again for the tips.
Kurt
Quote from: offgridQLD on February 21, 2016, 09:13:49 PM
All good now :)
I might dedicate this old xp machine to software updates.
Thanks again for the tips.
Kurt
I have just THAT .
I run Toughbooks with XP loaded on shuttle harddrives .One just for solar & has firmware , info , all videos with a backup copy .
Windoze 10 is a flop & why !
I made it to Win-7 & then linux
over.
Something so important should have it's own computer and just for that. Run proven systems.
I use a different HD shttle for Here & Web surfing , fleebaying and the rest .
Just my thoughts & im glad your back up.
VT
Yes sounds like a good plan.
The laptop I used today is a old Dell Latitude business laptop. It was a flagship business laptop in it's day (2005-6 ish). Big bright 1900x1080 screen. I got it for next to nothing (under $100) on ebay not long ago.
I think it must have been old stock. From some company that hadn't used/opened it as it was in the original packaging. Had all the plastic film on every thing and had that new plastic smell. I'm sure it was brand new old stock. Bit of a time warp :)
Solid heavy thing by today's standards with steel catches and frame but pure function, 9 pin serial ports on the back, huge battery, full size keyboard, cd/dvd rom and stock with xp - pro.
I got it just because of the serial ports that I needed to interact with another device I have that's fussy with most usb to serial adapters.
(https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1694/24819590229_a8902b6f12.jpg)
Kurt
Kurt,
Good to see you have the FW updates completed successfully :)
Whats that blue box in the photo between the two MNGPs? Epower, is that a meter box for the inverter?
Also I see from the MNGPs that the one to the right is showing a PV input of 121V so do you have one of the PV arrays still wired as 3serial strings, I'm guessing its the small array and each pv is about 36volts.
The other MNGP at 75v input must be the 2serial strings
dgd
Yes I have 3 arrays now one new array is just temporarily hooked up this last few days to one classic. Though I swapped it over to another inverter/charge controller combo unit that it was intended for this afternoon . It just runs a big Air conditioner and a electric car charger.
The other two arrays that are usually on the classics are about 70ish volts 4000w on the house and the other array on the shed is about the same voltage and 4200w.
8200w total between the two classics + (2500w for the air con/ electric car charger system).
you can see most of the shed system and the house system in this pic. 3rd array is now on the lower section of the house deck roof.
(https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2947/15219574800_eb6c4f24fa.jpg)
That blue box has two 200A contactors and some electronics in it. It has ALL PV in and ALL load out and a tiny thin wire that connects via a one wire loop to all the little cell level BMS boards on each of my 16 lifepo4 lithium cells. If any cell reads high voltage, low voltage or temp alarm it will connection the load or charge interdependently depending on the alarm. It also has a little display on the front volts, SOC and a shunt inside but I don't really use the display.
(https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7541/16048032695_25e337423d.jpg)
The classic and WBJ are where I take my readings.
Thats a really nice PV setup, the shed array pointing north and the house array west?, that should even out the power available through the day.
So is that a commercially available BMS system, the Epower box and the cell monitor boards on each cell?
Have you found it necessary and has it actually detected low/high cells and adjusted the charging?
(its not the cell monitoring system RossW was designing/building in 2014?)
I have sixteen LifeYPO4 300Ah cells that I will soon press into service once my Oz 6Kw Inverter nears completion, I was not planning on a BMS but just going with an initial bottom balance then regular voltage checks on each cell.
My RE system will be about half the capacity you have, 4.2Kw total PV using 2 Classics (which will run cool with only 2.1Kw PV each), plus a 2Kw turbine on a Classic 250.
Fortunately I have not found it necessary to air-con my power room despite summer 30c temperatures outside.
dgd
House array is facing NE and shed Array is facing NW.
my cells are 400ah lifepo4 is more than enough (I don't use a lot overnight) Typicaly 50 - 100ah overnight.
The BMS is just for safety. I don't let my cells get anywhere near the upper and lower limits so no it hasn't triggered. Though its good to know if I did have a runaway I have a backup or save you killing a cell if something went adrift.
The cells boards are also bypass shunts that can be used to balance the cells at cell level. Though I don't use the balancing feature. About every 3 months take the cells up a little in voltage and manually balanced with a cell level charger.
Edit:
I should mention the BMS and cell boards can't adjust anything to do with charge/discharge. they just activate the contactors on alarm trigger high low voltage. (basicaly a cell level high low voltage auto kill switch) but they are extreme high low that are never reached in normal operation.
Balancing its typically a tiny amount to get them within 15mv or so . (perhaps 800mah top up on a cell or two that behind the others) You could more or less go the year without it but I like the health check every 1/4 just to keep tabs on things and take just a few min to top up.
Yes the unit is a prebuilt box and the cell boards are from Rod at EV power in Perth WA. Same place the batterys were purchased from.
You will love the lithiums. The voltage is so stiff and they are so efficient at taking a charge. 98.5% is wht I have my WBJR set at for efficiency! I feel kind of guilty angle grinding and welding on so - so PV days when I can her the other systems on our street with generators running topping up lead acid banks. The joy of knowing that a lifpepo4 bank sitting at 50% SOC is a happy bank (it will take you a while to get the lead acid thinking out of your head) but once you do not having to worry about SOC bellow full works hand in hand with offgrid/PV unlike lead that want to be full all the time. Then any small break in the clouds and they just suck up everything you can give them until they are almost full. amazing what you can recover in a short time.
The main reason I have extra PV is we charge a electric car that can take 16kwh or so to fill up.
Kurt, Good to see you are back up and were successful installing the MNGP firmware.
Sound like Midnite has some unfinished work with the Win10 firmware loader. I really hope Midnite takes this beta time to resolve the issues with this new Win10 Loader. The issue you had is particularly a problem since the code they are providing said it completed successfully when that wasn't the case and left you with an unusable MNGP. Seems like there should be some kind of chksum to insure it did install correctly.
I wish there was a tally of how many have updated with or without a problem with the new Windows10 installer. There hasn't been a lot of feedback on the forum.
Kurt if you are still coming up here at easter time I think we will not do the upgrade on my classics! ;) ( A joke mate, ok?)
I finally got all the pieces for the whiz bang jnr and the telco cable for the follow me.
Dominated by/with cattle work at the moment. Cutting, branding and buffalo fly management.
Good to see you have the classic sorted mate. ;D
Yes Russ that's the plan for Easter. Will bring the teardrop camper (bug out camper ;) I built so not to impose to much. Will need to talk to you in more detail about the job so we make sure we have everything on hand to get the split system finished and tested without overlooking anything as it's a long round trip If I forget something :)
I'm happy to bring the Old laptop with me and update your classics...seriously (It's a 5 min job and will work 100% with the windows XP laptop) All the black screen trouble I had was just because I used a windows 10 laptop the 1st time.
I have the US style phone plugs and cable and crimp tool if you need some for follow me. I just made them up to length
Ps, if Easter is to short time to purchase the split system I can push it out to a later date if you like just let me know.
Kurt