This one is especially for Zoneblue or anyone that had trouble with the Whizbang Junior amps
bouncing around too much. There were a couple of things to improve. I'm curious if this
helps.
http://fusion.midnitesolar.com/MidNiteSolarUpdate_1760_2-10-2014_v4.21.exe
It is mainly the Classic itself except for some VMM initialization numbers from the MNGP.
If you want to wait on updating the MNGP because it takes a bit longer than the Classic itself
to update, you can just run the VMM from the Classic jumpers behind the blue terminal
block. Power it up and before one minute, install the two most left and most right
jumpers and the LEDs will flash when it is done. Pull off the jumpers and re-power the
Classic and should do it.
The WB Jr. amps are filtered a bunch more now. There may still be a wee bit of bounce
but it sure looks a lot better here. Also, the Ending Amps were looking for the peak
and not the averaged amps. I just set my Classic to end absorb at 1.1 amps and the
WB Jr. display was showing 0.9 amps and it worked like a champ.
The last version of code was also reading a wrong EEprom byte on initialization so
the averaging was not enabled when you'd think it was.
Sorry about all the updates.
boB
Thanks boB
The other day I was watching it go to float and it was jumping between 12.9A and 15.3A.
I figured out how to make it work much better, quit watching it and go get something done.
A nice steady progression will cause me less stress as the sun is headed over the mountain.
Wade
Quote from: toothy on February 10, 2014, 03:56:09 AM
Thanks boB
The other day I was watching it go to float and it was jumping between 12.9A and 15.3A.
I figured out how to make it work much better, quit watching it and go get something done.
A nice steady progression will cause me less stress as the sun is headed over the mountain.
Wade
Hi all,
About the same for me here, first end absorb with 1758 was fine but yesterday I had to increase WBjr EA above 1.5A (2A) to make it float and loc app live datas with Voltage needle were down until the Classic reached float. Once in Float, Batt V needle was fine but live datas were still down.
Thanks boB,
Erik
Thanks Bob! I just finished loading 1760 to my Classic. I will let you know how it performs. I really appreciate the Midnite customer service.
boB, I don't know what are the changes you've made, but you've got it !!!
It is working nicely with no spikes within maybe .2 or .5A.
You're my idol ;D!
Erik
PS: in fact, i'd say that it is performing better than the BMK !!!
My end current is around 8.2/8.4amps (830Ah capacity) so I set the WBjr to 8.6A and didn't believe it when I saw it going to float flawlessly.
Thanks x1000!
It was cruising along nicely. 1.5 kWh generated so far today and then for some reason the Classic restarted itself. Now I am showing 0 kHw / 0 Ah generated for the day. WBjr is also showing 0 net Ah. It would appear that the Classic completely rebooted itself.
Quote from: Tons001 on February 10, 2014, 01:18:34 PM
It was cruising along nicely. 1.5 kWh generated so far today and then for some reason the Classic restarted itself. Now I am showing 0 kHw / 0 Ah generated for the day. WBjr is also showing 0 net Ah. It would appear that the Classic completely rebooted itself.
Yep. They do that. Working on it too.
Glad to hear that Solar Musher's finding out that things are smoother.
Would like to also hear from others and Zone Blue.
Thanks X 10^245 guys !
boB
Been sleeping here on the under side! Will install now, should catch the absorb yet.
Thanks guys. BUT, I have a strong feeling that this 1760 is going to be very short lived.
I would say wait another day if you have not already installed it because there will be
another version soon. Almost guaranteed.
Sorry ! (again)
boB
Is there any reason we should go back to 1758 or just hang tight till the new one comes out?
Nahhh... You should be fine with this 1760 version.
It most likely works better than the older stuff. Just not nearly as good as it's going to work !
(he says, assuringey !)
boB
Well seen as you are about to knock off (maybe) heres what ive got, (still drawing 15amps in absorb), very bright but cloudy day.
And heres a yellow "load" curve. = Icc- Iwb.
And the float transition. More or less bang on EA 5amps! (edit: no that was most likley 1.5hrs max time reached, drat).
Last thing, before i forget. The reboot to install 1760 lost todays net Ah. It was 203Ah before and after the reboot was reading around 245Ah.
You probbaly know that!, but might well affect SOC.
...back to work :)
Zone, I think you're really going to like the next rendition...
Averaging is about smooth as melted butter now.
boB
Hi Bob,
You are a miracle worker! Playing with my dataset it looks quite tricky to do.
1. The first graph is for today. You can see at about 8.30am the noise goes up by an a order of 10. I figure thats probably caused by our sound system.
2. the second graph is an early morning detail. It shows, absent load noise, a pretty clean WB signal in general.
3. in the third graph i try out different moving averges. 5-10s seems about 'optimum' for this data.
4. the final graph is the first graph put through a 10s moving average filter. No negative loads, and the EA is more discernable but not perfect. I really dont know how you could get it bang on.
Today WB EA occured at about 2.5A, when set to 5A.
Well, I'm glad it's working OK but this one is SO much better ! Revamped the whole averaging and
rounding code.
The MNGP code is still build 1760 from 2-10-2014.
Classic is 1769 2-13-2014. You will probably only need to update the Classic itself.
http://fusion.midnitesolar.com/MidNiteSolarUpdate_1769_2-13-2014_v4.22.exe
The main WB Jr. current is of course rounded to +- 0.1 amp at modbus address 4370.
(register 4371) Looks like this is what you have been reading all along though.
boB
its around 9am here, 1769 is in, will see how EA works today.
Yes, using reg 4371. Do you have other registers holding the averaged data, how does this all work now? If you have anything scrawlled on the back of an envelope for the new WBJr/SOC/etc registers, thatd be great.
Re my "Iload" datapoint, did you manage to get the Iwb and Icc figures averaged in the same time span? If not, ill have to rely on my proposed post process filtering i guess. (6s moving avg, then resampled at 60s intervals).
Quote from: zoneblue on February 13, 2014, 02:44:11 PM
its around 9am here, 1769 is in, will see how EA works today.
Yes, using reg 4371. Do you have other registers holding the averaged data, how does this all work now? If you have anything scrawlled on the back of an envelope for the new WBJr/SOC/etc registers, thatd be great.
Re my "Iload" datapoint, did you manage to get the Iwb and Icc figures averaged in the same time span? If not, ill have to rely on my proposed post process filtering i guess. (6s moving avg, then resampled at 60s intervals).
No, I did not adjust any time constants for the Classic amps and the WB amps. Maybe some time...
Now, you may be interested in a couple of other registers regarding this.
For instance, Register 4391 (address 4390) will give you averaged but Pre-rounded WB Jr. amps that
show 10s of milliamps. May be accurate to 50 mA or better.
Pre-averaged non-rounded WB Jr. amps is in register 4390 (address 4389), also at 10s of milliamps resolution.
As for Classic amps, if you want "raw" unprocessed amps, register 4272 (Ibatt) holds this value BUT it is offest by around 4.0 amps (value = 40) that is subtracted out before being used. That offset is not available on the list of modbus registers though. It's there if you want to use it for time constant verification though.
boB
Bob,
4371 certainly is now a LOT smoother. One thing is strange though. In places it reads higher than 4117. See graph.
Will post float transition in a minute.
Float transition was only 8 minutes off.
I just went and measured the house load current (fridged cycled off) with a clamp meter (4.4A). Thats the background load here all morning. So there should be a 4.4A gap between the two curves... one of those readings is off by about 2 amps.
Quote from: zoneblue on February 13, 2014, 06:06:07 PM
I just went and measured the house load current (fridged cycled off) with a clamp meter (4.4A). Thats the background load here all morning. So there should be a 4.4A gap between the two curves... one of those readings is off by about 2 amps.
Not sure what you are measuring exactly but reg. 4117 is the classic's shunt which will read different than the 4371 WB Jr. shunt. I would not expect them to always read the same.
For Ending Amps, you should be using the WB Jr. Of course, Ending Amps may be a short lived way of ending Absorb because of new light coming to the world of charging strategies and battery life awareness... (Do I sound like a politician or visionary now ?)
Using E.A. only all of the time it seems will possibly make batteries sulfate if a nice long absorb time or EQ is not done every week or two.
I would trust the WB Jr. current measurement into/out of the battery.
Please keep us posted on your findings. This is good stuff !
boB
THe way im thinking is this. If there is no load on the battery at all then 4117 and 4371 should agree 100%, right?. However with loads: Iload=Icc-Iwb, ie the difference between the two curves. Iwb can never be greater then Icc, at least not in the same polarity. So something amiss. Will check my math again to make sure.
BTW this only started with this last firmware.
Quote from: zoneblue on February 14, 2014, 07:06:22 PM
THe way im thinking is this. If there is no load on the battery at all then 4117 and 4371 should agree 100%, right?. However with loads: Iload=Icc-Iwb, ie the difference between the two curves. Iwb can never be greater then Icc, at least not in the same polarity. So something amiss. Will check my math again to make sure.
BTW this only started with this last firmware.
Those two numbers should agree except for the idle current of the Classic. When the PV is live and it
is charging, the idle is powered by the PV side and both of those numbers ~Should~ agree very closely.
But even with the idle, they shouldn't be "amps" apart in reading. Did you say you say something
like fourteen (14.0) amps of difference ? That's gotta be a math problem ? This just does not
make "sense".
So, from the main status menu, hold down the left arrow key and tap the enter key. When the
Classic is Resting, those current + and - numbers should be sitting at around 40 which means
4.0 amps of offset from zero. If there is some kind of problem with the current sense, those
numbers will be quite different that 40. 35 to 45 is normal. But that is offset. If there is
a gain problem, that's different. But just a change of software shouldn't change that.
I will look closer on this end and have others look to make sure things are OK.
I would really like to know what's going on with your system. Which one is wrong ?
And, DGD, you wired your WB. Jr. backwards and had to re-wire it ? There IS a bit that reverses the
polarity... Not a menu item though but a modbus enable bit (a Murphy bit).
boB
No it was only a couple amps i couldnt account for on feb 14th. Problem is i havent been able to reproduce it to that extent. Today (Sunny day) it looks perfectly reasonable, see pic 3 below..
Re idle/tare. Ahh, yes, i had forgotten about that, was sort of cognisant that the the classic amps didnt go negative at night. But... that would explain iwb being higher than icc at rest, by a predictable enough 0.1-02A.
But during bulk/absorb?. During my testing here, i have a couple times during the day shut down all loads except the blackbox. When i do that i get Iwb being 0.1 - 0.2A higher than Icc.
This may just be an accuracy issue on Icc that was previously undetectable inside the prev WB noise floor. Or might be an artifact of the new averaging filter?
It seems to me that even if the the classic was drawing tare from the bank but not accounting for it in Icc, the net result would be a higher Icc, not a lower Icc as is experienced here. Its impossible to get more amps at Iwb than Icc. Thats free energy type stuff.
Sample raw data pic 1, another instance: pic 2. Both in bulk. 0.1-0.4A out. Given that blackbox draws 0.1A, inverter tare 0.4A, and sundry dc converter tare loads, computers in standby etc puts my absolute min load at around 0.7A, also not accounted for.
It would be nice if there was a good relationship betw Icc and Iwb, becasue the Iload datapoint is an incredibly useful one, probably number 2 in terms of importance, after Vbat/SOC. It takes the reliance on inverter data completely out of the equation and avoids resorting to another shunt, and asociated ADCs. However its not super critical, we can probably live with it. Work up some fudge factors etc.
In terms of end amps, its all looking pretty darn tight to me. People need to remember that EA waits 90s for the peak noise layer to clear EA, thus if the noise layer is about 0.5A, then set your EA 0.5A higher than your desired EA. By 4pm charge acceptance here was down to 0.3A (AGM), and setting EA as low as 1A, looks like it will work with this new firmware. Nice job.
OK, zone. Looks good.
A couple of tenths of an amp difference is probably OK... It's when you see 13.1A and 15.6A that I do not understand.
At night, or when Resting, the Classic will show up as -0.2 or -0.3 amps on the WB Jr.. And can be higher IF you catch
the Classic running, but sitting at Voc as it may do from time to time when either starting up or recovering from a sweep
or something like that. If the Classic's input is sitting at a high voltage, say, +130 volts and the relay is on, it can draw
quite a few watts but what I think I am seeing in your tables is the WB Jr. showing higher charge current than the
Classic Ibatt 4117 register... A out 0.2 amps more in a lot of spots. That's OK I think. The Classic could have probably
stood to be calibrated somewhat better maybe.
The Classic's current sense can be very accurate... But from what I have been seeing from WB Juniors, I would tend to
believe the WB Jr. over a calibrateable Classic current sense. The WB Jr. doesn't have any adjustments. It should be
repeatable without any adjustment at all and I am very happy with what it reports back as far as accuracy.
This, even over a large temperature swing. It's just not very fast at sampling current.
boB
Quote from: boB on February 16, 2014, 04:19:01 AM
A couple of tenths of an amp difference is probably OK... It's when you see 13.1A and 15.6A that I do not understand.
From the first table at 8:43am? Isnt when Icc is higher than Iwb ok, becasue some of Icc is going to load? I would have thought its the reverse where you end up with a situation where something doesnt add up. Like say the two previous minutes, at 8:41 and 8:42am where Iwb is a full half amp higher than Icc. How can more come into the batterys than is being generated? And like i said its not just a half amp, because there are also loads running on top of that. The discrepency could be as high as 1.5 or even 2amps. Hard to say without better testing. I might be not understanding what you are saying about the tare, as i want to say this might account for it, but not sure.
Sure makes my head hurt thinking about negative negatives ;)
Quote
At night, or when Resting, the Classic will show up as -0.2 or -0.3 amps on the WB Jr.. And can be higher IF you catch the Classic running, but sitting at Voc as it may do from time to time when either starting up or recovering from a sweep or something like that. If the Classic's input is sitting at a high voltage, say, +130 volts and the relay is on, it can draw quite a few watts
I think im following you. Kinda. If the classic did decide to draw some tare off the battery during bulk, but not account for it in Icc (4117), what happens... Iwb reduces, right?
It seems to show up in real changey sun conditions.
boB,
Do you have another link to the latest firmware 1769 or up. I'm running 1758. Wanted to update to see a smoothing of EA.
The link posted a few replies up brings back a 404.
Thanks.
Cloud
Another day with no problems, sunny, but some fast moving clouds mid cycle. No current anomolies. EA remains steady at 0.5A after target.
ZB, are those hours along the bottom? If so do you really peak at ~ 09:30?
Yes... floated at 10.55am. Its sunny old summer down under, but that bank always floats early in the day, for better or worse. After the EA testing is done, ill give days between bulk a whirl, unless you have any better ideas.
Another day with nothing unusual.
Making an effort to maintain a stable (~2A) baseload during the morning.
1% for this bank is 4A, but just to confirm lower EAs work ok, just lowered EA setting from 5A to 2.5A.
Quote from: zoneblue on February 16, 2014, 09:14:16 PM
Yes... floated at 10.55am. Its sunny old summer down under, but that bank always floats early in the day, for better or worse. After the EA testing is done, ill give days between bulk a whirl, unless you have any better ideas.
Looks like you could at least double the size of that battery bank and still have PV power to spare.
Bigger fridge for more beer? heat water?
dgd
Quote from: Cniemand on February 16, 2014, 05:47:34 PM
boB,
Do you have another link to the latest firmware 1769 or up. I'm running 1758. Wanted to update to see a smoothing of EA.
The link posted a few replies up brings back a 404.
Thanks.
Cloud
Yes, sorry... I didn't know we were linking to that page and I was trying to "clean up" a bit...
I think the old stuff is back as well as this brand new one... Not much change but a little.
Mainly a different VMM QuickSet thing (makes Aux2 default to WB Jr.) and Classic doesn't
reset its date to 2003 everytime is reboots unless the power goes off or the date gets
corrupted.
http://fusion.midnitesolar.com/MidNiteSolarUpdate_1775_2-17-2014_v4.24.exe
boB
Thanks!
Today is about a smooth a curve as youll get i think.
EA was set to 2.5A, max absorb 2 hours.
It went into float at 1 hour 56 minutes at about 2.7A. Thats a tad early, cant really explain why that might have been.
By the end of day charge acceptance down to 0.4A, which is 0.1% of the bank Ah.
Updated Classic FW to 1772 a few days ago. The WBjr amp readings are much, much more stable now.
Thanks a lot boB, it is now even easier to set WB EA than before.
The WBjr is sure a great addition to Classic battery charging.
Will UD to the latest FW for both the MNGP and Classic in a day or so, to have a look at the SOC function ... Thanks for that, too! Vic
Same weather today, this time EA=2.5A, Max absorb:2:30. Back to its previous pattern of a slight overshoot, floating at 2.3A. My guess is the smaller the taper, the smaller the overshoot.
Anyway, no reoccurance of the missing classic amps. This will be my last curve for now but i will keep an eye on it.
Quote from: zoneblue on February 19, 2014, 06:03:07 PM
Same weather today, this time EA=2.5A, Max absorb:2:30. Back to its previous pattern of a slight overshoot, floating at 2.3A. My guess is the smaller the taper, the smaller the overshoot.
Anyway, no reoccurance of the missing classic amps. This will be my last curve for now but i will keep an eye on it.
What I see here is that when it went to Float, the battery voltage took a minute to drop and so the Classic cannot put out any current to keep it at Float since the battery voltage is still above the float set point.
So, right after the switch from Absorb to Float, the current will drop going into the battery and then after the surface charge dies off, the Classic will continue putting current into the battery at the lower voltage and current.
boB
You learn something interesting about charge control everyday with you around!
By overshoot, i was just refering to the 0.2-0.5 odd amps difference betw EA setpoint and actual transition. I guess thats a product of waiting for the 90 seconds below EA. Its not a problem at all, if people just set their EA a tad higher.
I want to echo Vics thanks for building such a great addon, and software for it. Its making a lot of people real happy campers.