CC resting in middle of the day

[dapdan]

Midnite,

I have recently installed a new classic 150 at home and have spent alot of time monitoring it. I have noticed on wierd quirk. It goes into resting mode for about 2 secs in the middle of the day. I notice this when i heard the relay click off and resting is displayed and it stay there for about 2sec and then it goes back to bulk mppt. The kwh does not reset. It has done that now for 2 days now. I have started to log the time it has done it incase there is some sort of pattern. I will continue to  monitor it.

Cheers...
Damani

[Halfcrazy]

Damani
After the Classic has done its go to resting thing in the middle of the day can you access a hidden menu for me? It has to be after it went to resting during the day as it only displays the last reason for resting. From the main status screen hold down the left arrow key and tap the enter button then let go of the left arrow. Can you get me the numbers you see there? I am especially interested  with the top middle one.

Ryan

[niel]

just when is the classic supposed to go to resting as mine does this too? i really don't know what is normal/abnormal with it yet or all of the ins and outs, especially when my pv capacity is low right now for the cc's abilities. i will have to try and remember to check that menu to see what it says. i do shut it off at sunset due to tare losses and flip it back on in the morning, weather allowing. i never timed the intervals mine goes into resting, but it is in resting for about 2 seconds every 5 minutes or so. i will check on that too. i thought it was just resetting the mppt, am i wrong?

for the record i haven't snipped those wire posts off of the pc board that were left on it yet, let alone downloaded updated software so it is as it was shipped to me.

[boB]

Resting for 2 seconds could be a couple of things depending on what mode you're running the Classic in.   Could it actually be slightly less than 2 seconds though ? Maybe just over 1 second ?  There is one reason for resting (RFR)  that makes it rest for at least 2 seconds but that one is where you actually turn the mode off manually so that's probably not it.

Assuming it's one of the 1 second turn-back-on delays, which may be closer to 2 seconds because of other inherent delays in the Classic, maybe it's one of these ?

1)
In U-Set or Legacy P&O I think, if the PV goes 10 Volts or more above the last sensed Voc voltage, it will re-start and take a second to wake up.

2)
Sometimes, usually immediately after waking up from resting the input voltage match isn't 100% correct and it may see a slight reverse current of around an Amp from the battery side for a moment, and that usually shows up as RFR of number 9, but I've found recently that once in a while, RFR number  28 will show up which I believe is really due to a software mis-interpretation from actions of RFR #9.  I know i sounds a bit confusing but the next version of software should take care of the RFR # 28.  There is an adjustment that can help RFR #9.

Most of the other Reasons For Resting are for 10 seconds. I believe that #2 above may be likely here.  This really should be adjustable as a "TWEAKS" menu item and so this will go into the Tweaks menu  soon.  Let's see what your RFR number is first before we start tweaking things though.

Some older software would display "Resting" briefly when the Classic did a fast sweep, but the relay doesn't click off and on for that one and isn't really "Resting".

Thanks,
boB

[dapdan]

boB,

It is more nearer to 1 sec. It click off and then click back on. I am actively looking for it to happen again so I can check on that number.

Cheers...
Damani

[boB]

That reason for resting (RFR) number does not change until the next time it goes off, so if you just suspect that
it has gone off in the last couple hours or so, check the number anyway.  Later in the evening or in the morning
it will of course go off and on at least a couple of times so you won't need those numbers.

Thanks,
boB

[niel]

i'm still waiting for it to do it yet. any other time it would be doing this at will, whoever he is. at this point i don't even recall at what charge stage(s) it occurred in and i think i do remember the relay kick on mine at some times, but like i said, i did not pay that close of attention to it and at what points it did it. remember, i have the mms1012 also keeping the batteries up as 64w of pv does little except to float charge 400ah of agms even when setting the classic to 14.4v bulk. i did have it set to basically float charge and set bulk to 13.4v and float to 13.2v. this gives priority to the mms1012 charger until it's charging is done and the classic takes over and holds the voltage at float thus negating the mms1012 charger from reactivating for quite some time. i was shutting off the mms charger due to the long timespan the batteries held their voltage and the process started over again next day. if i thought the voltage was sinking too low due to clouds i did reactivate the mms charger until it reached float stage and i then would shut it off again.

as i said i have recently been giving the batteries a bit of rest from charging as agms can hold their charge longer than standard batteries making the constant charge process unnecessary. currently it is float charging on the mms, but the classic just dropped out of absorb to float. i did reset the classic by turning it off manually today and forgot to look at the menu. i will have to wait and see if and when it goes to resting and pay more attention to what stages are affected and if the mms is charging and at what stage it's at when it does.

i will apprise you if i make some more concrete findings so you can say if it's normal or not.

[niel]

ok, it is doing it for me in the bulk stage. resting 6 seconds then bulk 1 minute and 27 seconds with the relay kicking out and then back in. i turned it on about 10am and the sun angle is a bit weak to me at that time with shading. i left the mms1012 charger on yesterday and i just turned the mms1012 charger off about 10:00am so the batteries are technically full and show as 12.9v. it did the resting routine from the onset of bulk charging which was about 10:15am. bulk set to 13.4v and float to 13.2v and there's no clouds around.

now the pv isn't in full sun to start as it is partially shaded and continues to be to a degree until about 11:15am. it does not come up on the classic as pv shading and just does this resting routine. soon after 11:15am it has stopped the resting routine so this is related to pv shading or possibly solar insolation upon the pv. the voltage on the batteries has risen by 11:15am to 13v on a 400ah agm battery bank and was up to 1.7a to the batteries also at that time. remember, i'm only feeding it with 1 unisolar 64 tilted at about 45 degrees and aimed about 23 degrees west of south.

normal or not?

[boB]

ok, it is doing it for me in the bulk stage. resting 6 seconds then bulk 1 minute and 27 seconds with the relay kicking out and then back in. i turned it on about 10am and the sun angle is a bit weak to me at that time with shading. i left the mms1012 charger on yesterday and i just turned the mms1012 charger off about 10:00am so the batteries are technically full and show as 12.9v. it did the resting routine from the onset of bulk charging which was about 10:15am. bulk set to 13.4v and float to 13.2v and there's no clouds around.

normal or not?

Niel,
From what I am gathering, I would say Normal...

1 minute and 27 seconds is the 90 seconds that the Classic waits before going off because it saw less than 15 or 20 Watts of power during that time.
I don't know your Voc or MPP V but if you have partial shading and the MPP V is below around 12V then there just isn't enough power then to
warrant keeping the CC on at that time.   Right now, it's waiting 6 seconds  (probably 10 seconds in software really) to turn back on.  It should
maybe be a bit smarter not to come on so soon though.

Are you in SOLAR mode ?  What is your Voc (approximately) and how many panels in a series are partially shaded ??
If you had, say, 2 --  12V modules in series and both of them were partially shaded, even just a tiny tiny bit, that would
be enough for too low of power.

Also, if you press the STATUS button, you should go through the different status screens (sometimes, the right arrow button),
and view your Voc last measured.   And, holding down the left arrow key and tapping the ENTER key will reveal the
last Reason For Resting as the top middle number.  That could tell us something, but it's probably the Too Lower Power
reason.  (can't remember the number off the top at the moment)

boB

[niel]

boB,
it's now 3:07pm here and it shows the last voc to be 17.8v. while it showed resting this morning the voc was high enough to operate as it was over 19v and during mppt it was over 15v. i am using 1 us 64 and the vmp on it is rated at 16.5v so i'm really under-utilizing the classic until i can get more pvs up. the other us 64 i have is mounted differently and used for a single pvx 1040t agm battery dedicated to ham radio. upon going into the left arrow +enter i see 5 as the top center number shown. hmm, i had to go do this once before by ryan's request when the classic did something strange back when i first got it. i remember he said the number didn't jive with what was going on at the time and i have since forgotten what transpired back then for me to need to do that. i haven't updated the classic as of yet either so it is as it was sent.

[boB]

Yep.  That's it, Niel.   Just not high enough voltage and any shading at all with one module in series will stop it
from working.  I think this will be changing or you pretty soon though.

And looking at RFR 5 I see.....

   ReasonForResting = 5    Too low power and Vbatt below set point for 90 seconds

That's exactly it !!

boB

[niel]

thanks for clarifying that for me boB.

i hope damani finds his to be ok too as i didn't mean to take over his inquiry.

edit to add: i was wondering why my ears were ringing with all of that talk about me.

[dapdan]

niel that is not a problem. Just like you I have been watching and checking by pressing the buttons as instructed but the same event have not taken place as yet. I will keep watching and inform if the event takes place again. It was somewhat a strange comfort that someone had a similar issue as mine so that I was not alone in this occurence. Niel seems to have had his issue explained so I am with out that company that misery loves  .

Cheers...
Damani

[boB]

niel that is not a problem. Just like you I have been watching and checking by pressing the buttons as instructed but the same event have not taken place as yet. I will keep watching and inform if the event takes place again. It was somewhat a strange comfort that someone had a similar issue as mine so that I was not alone in this occurence. Niel seems to have had his issue explained so I am with out that company that misery loves  .

Cheers...
Damani

That's OK, Damani.  We still love your company, miserable as we may be !!