Report Card for Beta Units...??

[Halfcrazy]

Mario,

Roger that... do not chanbe system voltage on the fly. I guess one would have to manually increase or decrease voltage parameter whenever one changes system voltages. It would be nice if the kid automatically senses a different voltage and ask you to confirm it and then all set points(float, absorb, eq) would then change and if one want to tweak the voltages they would already be there abouts.

Ok Mario, you have addressed all my queries here except one. Thanks. I may have ran into a problem with one of the beta kids where during fw upload it stop responding and all the leds are on and the lcd screen is blank with the top row all ink blocks. The first kid went smoothly and the second one did not right after the upload of bootlaoder. When it was complete(green led stop blinking) and after the power cycle it did not report "bootloader 2.1" and just locked up with all leds on as reported. Is it bricked now?

Cheers....
Damani

Damani
To change the battery voltage from a 12v bank to a 24v bank you simply go to the Tech menu and do a factory restore. It will pop up and ask is this a 24 volt battery (or 12 depending on which its hooked to)

As far as the bricked unit let me Kick Mario again he must have missed it

Ryan

[Halfcrazy]

we may have a fan option in the future that will give you an additional 10 amps or so.
Cool huh?

Could you do that with a Classic... offer a derated Classic without a fan? 
disclaimer: I haven't a clue what it costs to put a fan in the Classic, or how derated it would be without a fan.

--vtMaps

We have tried that with the Classic and it just is not designed for convection cooling. If memory serves it was about half the output but it has been a long time.

Ryan

[TomW]

Notice that there are some updated and new-ish Documents for the Kid on the MidNite Solar site:

http://www.midnitesolar.com/documents.php?productCat_ID=43&productCatName=Charge Controllers - KID&model=MNKID-M-W or MNKID-M-B&product_ID=531&act=products

Couple of things regarding the Kid Manual;
It appears that the wiring diagrams have been cleaned up a bit as individual diagrams on the above page.   But in the slightly revised Kid manual  'Prelinimary ... P10'  wiring diagrams still have the few slight errors.   These are on some the Wiring Diagram pages in the manual.  Some of the diagrams do not quite have the negative connection to the battery quite connected.   In these cases,  the negative connections STOPS at the edge of the battery box.  No big deal,  it is obvious where this connection is headed.

In addition,  believe that there should be advice in the part of the manual discussing connections to the Kid that  The battery negative,  and the PV negative leads MUST NOT BE CONNECTED to each other in the system wiring.  The Kid CC needs this separation to operate correctly (this was the mistake I made,  as the Kid replaced another CC,  which did not care in the least about this connection to a common Neg Buss outside of the Kid).

I did note the added advice about both battery and PV negative must be connected,  but should state that no connection between these negative busses should be made outside of the Kid CC (IMHO).

FWIW,  looks like the Kid is now becoming an adolescent!   Good Kid!   Thanks,  Vic

Vic;

I fixed your link.

Tom

[dapdan]

Midnite,

[
[/quote]
Damani
To change the battery voltage from a 12v bank to a 24v bank you simply go to the Tech menu and do a factory restore. It will pop up and ask is this a 24 volt battery (or 12 depending on which its hooked to)

As far as the bricked unit let me Kick Mario again he must have missed it

Ryan
[/quote]

Thanks Ryan. I tried to charge a 12 battery this morning while I was bulk charging a 24v bank. This is a no no since the load fuse popped immediately. Apparently that automotive fuse is only good for 12v loads and nothing else. I am not sure what the rating of the fuse was because when I removed it there were no markings on it in realation to voltage. Most automotive fuse are rated up to 32v are these different?. Is it possible to charge a 24v battery through the load function anyway?

Thinking about it as I drove this morning...it would be nice to be able to do opportunistic charging on other banks when the controller starts to cut back on it charging regime on the main bank as it progresses through it bulk stage so that all available power is use and not wasted...that would be sweet.

Cheers...
Damani

[Halfcrazy]

Oh I am confused? You have the Kid hooked to a 24 volt battery? and tried to hook a 12v battery to the load terminals? This for sure would blow something as there is no current limit on the load circuit and it runs at battery voltage too.

[ClassicCrazy]

What I have been wondering is if you could connect the Kid to a 24 volt battery for the input and use it to charge a 12 v battery ?   Or would it not be able to limit the input current?

[dapdan]

Ryan,

That would be correct. I was bulk charging a 24v bank and tried to charge a 12v bank through the load function and the load fuse popped. So since it runs at battery voltage I should be able to charge/maintain a 24v battery bank through the load function. However the fuse seems to have no voltage rating on it. If it was rated for 32v it should be able to pass current to a 24v bank attached to the load terminals.

Cheers...
Damani

[TomW]

Sorry, guys, you cannot charge a 12 volt battery directly from a 24 volt battery without something in between to limit the current like a light bulb / resistor at the minimum.

Otherwise the 24 volt bank will dump all the power it can into the 12 volt bank trying to bring it up to whatever voltage the 24 volt bank is at. Hundreds if not thousands of amps until something fails or fusing opens.

I discovered this decades ago trying to jump start my old 6 volt tractor from my pickup 12 volt battery. Large, ugly, vigorous loss of integrity of the 6 volt battery. Spelled explosion.

You could use a crude system with a 12 volt bulb in series with the 12 volt battery but that has issues as well like over voltage on the 12 volt battery if not watched.

I would not suggest this for most folks as there are too many ways to get into trouble and it is a bit of a hack.

Tom

[Halfcrazy]

Well it is not a voltage issue it is a current issue. The 12v Battery is drawing unlimited current. Of course you can not charge a battery off the load circuit. So the Fuse basically saved the Kid from a fiery death. So that shows the fuses do there job 

[dapdan]

Ok...no current limiting through load function. Well at least the surface mount fuse is a good design. Therefore whilst charging a 24v bank one should be able to attach another 24v battery to the load then as this was done already for 12v, or should I expect another blown fuse. Alos if one had a sufficient discharged 24v battery and one was bulk charging a main 24v banks one could potentioally have a large potential difference and maybe large current flow through the load circuits. Is it advisable to attempt connecting 24v or 48 batteries whilst charging a similar main bank.

Cheers...
Damani

[ClassicCrazy]

I wasn't asking about using it to charge a 12 volt battery from the load terminals but rather to connect the 24volt battery to the PV input and charge a 12v battery that way. If you can hook up more than 30 amps of PV on a Kid and it will current regulate the output  wouldn't it do that same thing  from a 24 volt battery bank to step it down and charge 12v ?

[SolarMusher]

I wasn't asking about using it to charge a 12 volt battery from the load terminals but rather to connect the 24volt battery to the PV input and charge a 12v battery that way. If you can hook up more than 30 amps of PV on a Kid and it will current regulate the output  wouldn't it do that same thing  from a 24 volt battery bank to step it down and charge 12v ?

No kid in my hands, but did it with a SS morningstar to maintain a propane gen 12V starting battery (x2 parallel) from the main 48V bank and it works great since two or three monthes.
Erik

[Mario]

Mario,

Roger that... do not chanbe system voltage on the fly. I guess one would have to manually increase or decrease voltage parameter whenever one changes system voltages. It would be nice if the kid automatically senses a different voltage and ask you to confirm it and then all set points(float, absorb, eq) would then change and if one want to tweak the voltages they would already be there abouts.

Ok Mario, you have addressed all my queries here except one. Thanks. I may have ran into a problem with one of the beta kids where during fw upload it stop responding and all the leds are on and the lcd screen is blank with the top row all ink blocks. The first kid went smoothly and the second one did not right after the upload of bootlaoder. When it was complete(green led stop blinking) and after the power cycle it did not report "bootloader 2.1" and just locked up with all leds on as reported. Is it bricked now?

Cheers....
Damani

Here is what you do: press and hold SETUP button and turn on battery breaker to the Kid and see if anything comes up on the display?
If It says FIRMWARE UPDATE then Try it again.... bootloader_updater_512.out  first, If nothing happens then the unit is bricked and we need to RMA it. Let us know.
Mario

[dapdan]

Mario,

I tried that and same result...nothing.

Cheers...
Damani

[Mario]

I wasn't asking about using it to charge a 12 volt battery from the load terminals but rather to connect the 24volt battery to the PV input and charge a 12v battery that way. If you can hook up more than 30 amps of PV on a Kid and it will current regulate the output  wouldn't it do that same thing  from a 24 volt battery bank to step it down and charge 12v ?

To answer the question.... the kid like any other charger is meant to charge a battery from a source like Solar, Wind or Hydro. the kid does have current limit protection, but charging from a higher battery voltage to a lower battery voltage it WILL NOT BE UNDER WARRANTY.

Mario