See title.
Thanks,
George.
Any news ?
George.
Quote from: grgdgreek on July 27, 2019, 07:29:26 AM
Any news ?
George.
No definite date yet.
Sorry.
It is still progressing very well though as well as the Rosie.
Just taking way longer than we and everybody else would like.
HERE WE ARE - April 26 - 2020 and what is the word ?
Nothing on the main site, nothing here, no progress reports or updates.
Nada on the EV Project, the other projects either. There is a LOT of spare time, so an update on the main website & here would be PRUDENT ! It is looking a LOT like Vapourware ! to outsiders, especially without Regular Progress & Development Updates.
You do realize that MANY people want to stay within a "Family of Products" like Solar Controllers, Inverters etc by ONE Company to make it easier to integrate, manage / monitor and upgrade / grow with.
I love my Classic 200 and would LOVE to recommend Midnite Inverters too but CAN'T !
So I am having to aim people at Victron and others ! and you know, folks are buying them like mad !
We are referring people to gear all the time and the vendors have noticed the uptick in sales from our referrals from our site, these being Victron, Samlex, MPP Solar, Growatt Solar and more...
Maybe Midnite should get on the bandwagon and join https://diysolarforum.com/ and post promo material in the Corporate Deals section. Maybe even consider shipping parts to Will Prowse who owns the site & the Youtube channel to review & promo your gear. https://www.youtube.com/user/errolprowse
Over a week and no comment to the question... well... that is about as encouraging as... nothing much.
Sorry, no actual ETA but most of the engineers are working from their home labs.
A couple engineers are working from work as well. We have kind of taken a bit of a hit with the virus but thankfully nobody at Midnite has gotten sick yet.
We are still hoping for mid summer for better ETAs and information
Any new updates?
boB said Mid Summer, but didnt specify what summer :)
I think we are looking more like Q1 of 21 for out of house alpha testing but we should no more in the next 2-3 months
Have there been test users selected yet or what is going to happen here?
No test sites have been selected, We have a list of people who have emailed me to request being a beta site. Once I have one here that I think is stable enough to test out of house we will be going through that list. I am hoping while it is slow over the winter to get going on that
You do realize that Space-X built and launched a rocket which carried hundreds of Micro satellites to deliver internet globally in less time. Sad part is, y'all are not working on any new technology. Just different packaging and a few more whistles and bells. As far as SMT and Through-hole prototype work, I could knock out a dozen of those in a week on my crappy tech bench. That would include testing them as well. And don't get me started on the whole Covid-19 (Chinese Virus) excuse. The competition will most likely pass y'all by with something better and cheaper unless you make things a priority.
Swheeler,
I don't like waiting either. It has been a few years. But, Midnite makes great stuff and stands behind it. I can call and talk to THE engineer I need to talk to. Try to do that with any foreign company. Also, Midnite does update their firmware.
I for one will, and have waited for Midnite to put out their quality products.
In short, they build it, I buy it. It is worth it!
That said.... GET BUSY AWESOME PEOPLE OF MIDNITE!!! WE CAN'T STAND THIS ANY LONGER!!!! :)
Would REALLY be nice to have some of those Space-X engineers here !
They have done an awesome job !
Of course, this is not rocket science.
Maybe it would be better if it were. It is definitely different with many less engineers on the job.
Space-X has nearly 7000 employees and over 5 Billion in funding. I think MS has about 74.6 employees and maybe $20.00 in funding.
Ok, might be off on the MS funding, but there is no comparing the two companies. Unfair to put them on the same V-rails....:)
I really like the idea that someone could throw something together in a couple of weeks. Wish it were that easy, but we have to deal in reality here.
We were starting and running an air compressor last week with half of a single B17 inverter module. We need to dial in the over current protection of the gate drivers. There are 24 gate drivers on each 3000 watt 120/240VAC inverter module. Mike and PAtrick will be creating the test plan for that and then dialing them in. That is not a hold up though. Bob is now working on paralleling code. That will allow us to do air flow testing in the main frame. Then Bob will finish making the charger section work automatically. There are others involved in this project too besides the inverter engineers and technicians, Mike and Patrick. Mario needs to spend some time on the MPPT power module. He has been up to his eyeballs on the Hawke's Bay and Barcelona. Mario has but one technician, Lee. Mario and Lee are juggling the B17MPPT, Hawke's Bay and Barcelona. His second technician has gone home for hospice care due to pancreatic cancer that 3 months ago he did not have? We will miss PeterB. Peter did redesign many of the B17 and Barcelona boards before leaving us. There are other engineers too working on the controller board for the B17. We call it Justin's board. Justin is the engineer. Justin has been heavily involved in making our products upgradeable in the field. We have MAtt who is doing our phone apps to upgrade the code in the field as well as making it useable for data as well. We have Darren (formerly from Trace) working on boot loaders, and arc fault and MNGP2 menus. We have James working on boot loaders for charge controllers and the MNGP2 hardware. James will soon start a touch screen version of the MNGP2. Don't expect that for a while though. We have Sami (formerly from Trace and OutBack) who is working on B17 circuit board designs. Seems like we are always redesigning circuit boards for every project? We have Jeremy backing us up in SMT and will soon start the "Lunch Time Project". We have 30 SMT machines now, but Jeremy only works on new projects. We have a team of SMT operators for production boards. We have Scott (formerly from Trace and OutBack working on the aux power supply and control board for the B17 inverter module when he isn't designing our own Lithium hot swappable battery system. We have Jim who is writing code that interfaces Canbus to the B17 and Rosie and will soon begin the Classic to ComBox interface. We have Monroe who is doing the web server inside the ComBox. We have BobQ and Doug who along with me do all the mechanical designs on all projects. We have Gordon who we use to build prototypes. We think Gordon is actually from Mars. We have Linnea who is our very experienced board assembly person dedicated to engineering projects. We have Tony from Trace and Magnum who is attempting to coordinate all of the engineering projects. There are more than you are aware of. Andy gets his hands involved in just about every project including the B17 even though the Rosie is his baby. The Rosie is really coming along nicely. We have Dan who is getting our environmental chamber up and running as well as writing the production app for all the new projects. Dan also works with the NRTL agencies. We have Dawn who is the engineering buyer. We keep her pretty busy getting parts for everything. She also keeps the squirrels outside her office supplied with peanuts. We have PeterH who is designing a bench power supply. Hmmmmmm, it would appear that PeterH is the only person in engineering not working on the B17 in one form or another. We have been granted 8 patents on the B17. I think that means that maybe we aren't just reinventing the wheel. This stuff just isn't easy. I have worked with some great engineering teams over the years at Trace, Xantrex, OutBack and Magnum. I can truthfully say the MidNite team is far and away the best I have ever worked with. Nobody is taking any longer than they have to. Like I said, This just isn't easy!
Where can I get the b-17 specs.
i.e. Input and battery voltages available?
I'm looking at replacing 6+ Classic 150s, and two 12K inverters...
Not that I need too, but because would be cool to have the B-17 system.
** But a technical improvement reason would be good too. :)
If possible 96 volt battery bank and higher input voltages such as 300 plus would be sweet.
Randal,
The most formal description is here"
http://www.midnitesolar.com/pages/b17/index.php
FWIW, Vic
Thanks for the Link Vic.
I assume once they get closer to release there will be more detail.
Cheers
Randal
Rest in Peace Peter. Thanks for all the efforts to make things better for us all. I look forward to using the thinks you helped make better!
Just bumping this thread to see if any release date (or pricing) is imminent for the MNB17?
Quote from: Nautilus on July 22, 2022, 11:46:21 AM
Just bumping this thread to see if any release date (or pricing) is imminent for the MNB17?
+1
Two year old thread without
Quote from: FNG on October 15, 2020, 11:30:18 AM
boB said Mid Summer, but didnt specify what summer :)
I think we are looking more like Q1 of 21 for out of house alpha testing but we should no more in the next 2-3 months
This thread was started two years ago and this is the best info thus far??? What is going on?
Quote from: littleharbor2 on July 26, 2022, 09:56:21 AM
Two year old thread without Quote from: FNG on October 15, 2020, 11:30:18 AM
boB said Mid Summer, but didnt specify what summer :)
I think we are looking more like Q1 of 21 for out of house alpha testing but we should no more in the next 2-3 months
This thread was started two years ago and this is the best info thus far??? What is going on?
What is going on is that we are spouting out things before we should be.
Aside from saying things that we should not be saying, I suppose we are mentioning progress.
If you really want to see what is happening, if you are in the area, please come by and we'll try to show you why this stuff is not easy.
Thank you littleharbor2 !
What ever happened to littleharbor1 ?
boB
I really wish I could stop by. That would be a real treat. Unfortunately I live in Mexico so it's a bit of a commute.
Little harbor #2 is the campsite I camped at perpetually over about 15 years so I created my email address with it. Decided it works as my name on these solar forums.
Mike McCormick aka Littleharbor2
Quote from: littleharbor2 on July 26, 2022, 01:54:08 PM
I really wish I could stop by. That would be a real treat. Unfortunately I live in Mexico so it's a bit of a commute.
Little harbor #2 is the campsite I camped at perpetually over about 15 years so I created my email address with it. Decided it works as my name on these solar forums.
Mike McCormick aka Littleharbor2
Thanks Mike ! I knew a few people that moved to Mexico. And we have several here at MidNite that cam from Mexico. Great worker and people !
Oops, forgot to add Little Harbor is on the backside of Catalina Island/ I lived on Catalina for 48 years.
Update from August 2022
Bob and Mike continue their quest to finish the inverter module. It is truly awesome. I had to ask Bob to stop for a bit to add Lithium menus on the Classic. Some people wanted that and it shouldn't take too long, but Bob wants to do a bit more.
So I moved Mike, the tech to the Barcelona department since we are actually shipping some of those and the Hawke's Bay now. We just finished a bunch of testing on the Rosie with ETL last week. Not totally done yet, but we did the hard tests. After ETL left we decided to see just what the Rosie was good for. We had to trick the over current protection in order to surge it beyond the limits designed in. We got a real honest to goodness 20,000 watts out of one Rosie for a short burst. Then at 22,000 watts we broke some fets. This thing is really powerful! I was surprised when we did a 14,000 watt surge and saw it was still regulating at 241VAC. Typically inverters will droop at that kind of overload. The Rosie didn't care. The ETL testing showed we have a 7000 watt inverter with a 120 amp charger. Both of those figures will increase in the future. I am guessing at least 7500 watts and maybe 8000? The charger may be able to go to 150 amps. We are just in our infancy with the Rosie. We can already sell as many as we are able to build just into the RV industry. We don't want to dedicate all of our production to the RV industry though as people are going to want the Barcelona and Hawke's Bay to go with their Rosie. We have $millions of dollars of parts in house now for these new charge controllers, so it would be a real shame to dedicate all production to the RV industry. We start production in October on the Rosie.
We are also working on an inverter called the Little Rosie. That one is specifically for the RV industry. It should be high volume.
So back to the B17, I expect we will ship some beta units this year. We still need Justin's board (communications) before we can ship. The inverter is mostly done now. Bob needs to finish the charging part of it. Mario needs to get his MPPT modules done too. Mario has been up to his eyeballs getting the Hawke's Bay and Barcelona into production. The B17 MPPT is basically a Barcelona, so we do not expect a lot of problems.
So, by the end of this year we should see units going out for beta testing. Production will begin as soon as bugs are mostly worked out. Code can be updated in the field so not all features need to be finished. One feature we do need to finish is to be able to update code in the field. That isn't done yet.
We are showing the B17 at SPI in Anaheim this September. We have a great live demo of its capabilities as it exists today. Please stop by if you can. We do have some guest passes available too, so feel free to ask. We will pass them out until they are gone.
E-mail me personally. robin@midnitesolar.com
WOW !! Great progress report on many products, Robin.
Greaat work, as well, getting parts into inventory.
Am anxious to get hands-on the 600 V Charge Controllers, and a Rosie, when it is time.
Edit to add: Thanks to ALL of the MidNite folks for doing all of that hard work! Sure sounds like it is all coming together.
Thank you very much for the update, and have a great SPI, that should be a lot of fun-work.
Take care, Vic
Very positive news! ;D