May/13 Prod firmware observations

[laszlo]

Uploaded May 2013 Prod firmware.

I am mostly happy, and especially  on account of the the amphour counter added,  it's great!

Salient issues I encountered are:

1. At rescan intervals, it completely turns off  output to battery  when it is doing a full scan. These "dark" periods  last about 5 seconds.  It's mostly annoying,  I see on MNGP "Sleeping lo light " but in fact it's 105 degrees and full sun. Same behaviour in the u-pick mode while it's getting the VOC. This was NOT the case with the older firmware - I think I used Jun 2011.

2. Forces PV voltage about 4 volts above battery voltage no matter what and regardless of which charging  mode I'm in. The old firmware would allow PV voltage to coast very close to battery voltage, increasing charger efficiency in my case because of my solar panel's IV curve.  Perhaps what would be best is to allow the user to program this value -- let's call it "input/output voltage offset".  It used to be that you could lower the PV array voltage by pushing  the  "down arrow" button on the MNGP but this also does not work anymore.

If there is still room in the flash, would you be able  to add / re-add these features?

Thanks!

Laszlo

[Halfcrazy]

Laszlo
Did you do a factory restore after the firmware update? It almost sounds like the bugs that show from the update with no restore?

Ryan

[laszlo]

Ryan,

No I did not do a factory restore  and would be glad to try that, but will that erase my logs and other tweaks?

Does it still work for you to lower PV voltage momentarily with the DOWN arrow on MNGP?

[laszlo]

Good catch, Ryan! I went ahead and did  a factory restore last night and the symptoms I described above disappeared.

[Halfcrazy]

That is great. Glad that fixed it.

Ryan

[zoneblue]

So is this a good time to ask again what do lite owners do?

Ive seen similar mini sleeps here, but assumed it was normal.

[Halfcrazy]

ZoneBlue and any others with this bug please Email me ryan at midnitesolar dot com and I will help fix this.

Ryan

[boB]

So is this a good time to ask again what do lite owners do?

Turns out that is a great question.

We'll have a fix for that real soon now.

boB

[zoneblue]

Cheres Bob, You guys are awwwwsome.

[laszlo]

I had no idea this mini-sleep may be also observed with MN-lite's as well.  FYI, since the clearing of the configs, my Classic is doing well.