Midnite,
I have an interesting issue here. As I type it has been about one min and the classic has not done an mppt sweep and/or has not tracked as yet. I have a 12v battery hooked up to the classic and 5 KC-130 panels to it voc is normally around 92v and them Vmp of the panel is 17.6. I have realised that several times in the day when the clouds roll in and the output drops and then the cloud roll out and we have brillant sunshine again the classic gets hooked up on low output and I get ...it unlatched itself and is giving me more power now, that was nearly two minutes it was latched up with the input being lower than the output. I am monitoring this from the power dash. When this happens I get the little blue icon where it say my input voltage is lower than my output and power delivered to the batteries is significantly reduced even though it is not overcast outside. I have only noticed this when I am charging a 12v battery through my classic 200. The classic has the lastest firmware installed. What do you guys think is going on here.
Cheers...
Damani
some screen pics to show what I am talking about.
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That happens here as well. It takes a couple of minutes sometime to get back to what the panels are really putting out. I get some shade form a building only in the first 20 minutes after sunrise. My panels are pointing directly at the sun because the panel tracker orieents them. The panels get full sun for about 10 minutes, then 20 minute of some shade from a long distance. When the panels are then illuminated fully (no shade at all) it takes a couple of minutes to see more than 17 volts.
Maybe that is normal?
Tin,
I don't think that is normal for the classic or any other mppt controller for which I have had 100s of hours of monitoring experience (xw-150 and morningstar mppt-60 to name two). I have three classic installed at my home/office now and it mostly happens on two of them. One is a 200 with lastest firmware and the other is a 150 with the older firmware (which I plan to upgrade soon).
I can confirm that this mostly happen when the classic 200 is on 12v. I had it on 24 or 48 (mostly 24) and it does not happen on those voltage for the classic 200 with the latest firmware. So it seems to me to be mostly occuring when you are connected to a 12v battery system. I monitor it for hours on end during the day. As long as I am at the computer working or playing I have it in one corner so I see immedately when it goes into that lock up and then get back out.
Cheers....
Damani
If the array is indeed shaded enough to bring the MPP V down that low, then fine but I think you have a valid point here.
There are different ways to fix this and I will get to that soon I hope. There are a couple work arounds, one of which will
be in a release pretty soon which will allow you to make an adjustment on how low (minimum) the PV input will
be allowed to go.
boB
Midnite,
I have made a change in the classic 150 that has the old june release firmware. I went into mode and change the function from solar to dynamic and so far it has not latched up like before while charging a 24v bank. What happens is that when it is overcast the input voltage drops down to 40v and when skies are clear again it goes back to between 60 and 70v with no significant drop off in output and no messages of PV shading(voc usually around 90v). This work-around seems to be adequate for the time I have spent monitoring it to see if it does the same drop in output thing. I am not sure if you guys are going to still fix the current issue or not but that particular change seems to be working well. I have to try it on my other classic 200 while charging a 12v battery since that was where I first saw this issue. I will make that change and report back my findings. Maybe Tinman could try that with his RV to see is he gets a difference in tracking after sunrise.
Cheers...
Damani
I'll give it a shot and report back.
Fast tracking is normal now. I'm not sure if the RTC battery had anything to do with it but any sluggishness has disappeared. We have clouds passing today and there is no delay at all.
Like any system, small things mean a lot so perhaps checking the RTC battery, making sure it is absolutely clean on both sides might help. While it could have been the last re-boot, all I know is that fter cleaning the RTC battery the Date/Time held over between restarts too.
Now if I can get the amps to display in the Local App status (not gauges) and daily/lifetime screens I'll be thrilled.
Tinman,
Do you mean remote temperature sensor by RTC? If so that would be interesting because I only have that setup in one of the classsic and that one does not give any issues with tracking . THe other two I don't have the RTS installed I will try that and see if ti makes a difference.
Cheers...
Damani
I think he is referring to Real Time Clock or RTC
Well I have the clock set correctly on the offending controller and it still gets latched up when it is displaying pv shading when a cloud rolls by. So I am not sure if that completely solved the problem here. I still have the controller on dynamic/slow tracking as opposed to fast solar tracking and it has not shown the tendency to get locked into low out/pv shading.
Cheers...
Damani
Midnite,
I have installed the new firmware on all three of my classics. I then promptly put them back on fast solar tracking to see if the pv shading issue was resolved and it wasn't so I reluctantly put it back on slow dynamic tracking. The sluggish tracking was taking place on a 24v bank btw.
Cheers...
Damani