resting, and requirements to wake ?

[mike90045]

1) I now have an easily documented issue with resting and wake up.   I have 2 arrays of Evergreen panels: 
3Kw South,  on a MorningStar mppt60  (110VDC string), and
2kw SouthEast  on a Classic 200  (160VDC string)

2) the classic is warm all the time (great for an arctic install, bad if I'm wanting to not be running a 40w heater in my battery shed in the winter (or summer) )  By contrast, the MS is always much cooler - day and night, than the Classic.  Next few nights, I'm going to try to get my clamp-on meter onto the classic's BAT+ connection to see what sort of power it's sucking at night when it's supposed to be resting.    The MS mppt60 has web server in it too, ice cold at night.

3)wake up in the AM, the Classic array is pointed SE, to give me power for morning toast and wife's hairdryer.  It wakes 20-30 minutes AFTER the S array is going, and even then it's much less power than the S array (not the 2/3'ds of the south array, but about 1/10th )  After another hour, it catches up, and eventually surpasses the S array.  And when I looked at the performance comparison charts, I saw it was not scored against Morningstar.   Now these arrays are wired to different voltages, which is why I chose a Classic 200, to cover my 160V array.  But it's looking like if I had dropped a panel, and went to 3 strings of 3, instead of 2strings of 5, I'd be ahead of the game, I never thought the MPPT losses would be so high.

So if anyone has ideas of how to conserve power while resting, or why waking is so slow, I'm all ears.

[Westbranch]

Mike, is the 200 set for Solar, Legacy,  P&O or other mode? 
Latest FW?
Wake up settings are:?
Minimum V to charge?

hth

[vtmaps]

By contrast, the MS is always much cooler - day and night, than the Classic. 
<snip>
I saw it was not scored against Morningstar.   Now these arrays are wired to different voltages, which is why I chose a Classic 200, to cover my 160V array.  But it's looking like if I had dropped a panel, and went to 3 strings of 3, instead of 2strings of 5, I'd be ahead of the game, I never thought the MPPT losses would be so high.

Mike, what is the string voltage on the Morningstar?  Dropping the string voltage on the Classic will cool it down quite a bit during the day.  This recent post gives some real numbers to the daytime heat production:
http://midniteforum.com/index.php?topic=2008.msg18796#msg18796

I'm not sure why the Classic should run warm at night... I thought its resting tare loss is about 3 or 4 watts.  Let us know what you measure.

--vtMaps

[mike90045]

Wake Up settings ?  never heard of them.   Insomnia is OFF

Is the latest FW, Classic Rev: 1849 Network Rev: 1839
Min Volts = 45.9v

String voltages:
Morningstar  (110VDC string), and  Classic 200  (160VDC string) (edited my orig post to include that data)
Battery is 65V float. (NiFe cells)

3-4 watts is not going to heat up the PCB, inductors and case.   The one I shipped back was doing this same thing.  I see defaults for 60 & 72v batteries, so hopefully, my high battery voltage (50-54V at night) is not causing some sort of unexpected power leakage.  5 watts into that case/heatsink/PCB would barely make it warmer than ambient. 

I'm running the default Solar mode, 3 sec sweep

and I found I cant get my meter jaws around the wires in the classic, so it's into the ePanel tomorrow..

[Westbranch]

Mike, sorry no Classics here, at the cabin, so I can not open up LApp to look but in there there are some settings that tells the Cl how many volts > BatteryV  PV In has to be before charging will start, IIRC.. could be wrong but...

[Vic]

mike ..,

You did start another Thread here,  and boB did indicate that he had some thoughts on what might be happening,  but  you have not been back to reply  in that Thread, since ...:

http://midniteforum.com/index.php?topic=1947.0

One point that I had tried to make there,  was that  if on MUST use high string voltages,  because that is the correct tradeoff for cable sizecost vs CC efficiency,  then one really needs to accept any additional losses involved in using these high string Vmps.  And that there are few reasonably-priced alternatives to Classic 200 and 250s,  IMO.

Added heatsinking may help CCs  like the Classic dissipate more heat,  but the internal fans still will need to run to try to extract and move heat from warm components,  like the Inductors.   And,  had also attempted to indicate that your ambient temps seemed a bit high in the power room/shed.   High ambients will cause the fans to run more,  as the Classic is trying to keep its temps below some set values,  and the electronics create a certain RISE in temperature above ambient ...  reduce the ambient temps,  and the fans will run less frequently,  in general ...  also just my opinion ...   FWIW ...  We run A/c as priority in the power rooms here ...   always have for the past nine years ...   it is a good thing ...   and so on ... Good Luck,      Vic

[boB]

The Classic should not be warm at night when Resting.  The Resting draw is somewhere between 3 and 5 watts (max).

The Classic will run warmer at higher input voltage though, but shouldn't be warm at all during the night.

Let us know what you measure, please.

The reason you didn't see the Classic vs. the Morningstar was because they were pretty much neck and neck.
The Classic grabbed slightly more kW-Hours per day than the MS did but not enough to add to the chart.
We also ran out of channels to do all of the CC comparisons for a longer time.

boB

[mike90045]

You did start another Thread here,  and boB did indicate that he had some thoughts on what might be happening,  but  you have not been back to reply  in that Thread, since ...:
http://midniteforum.com/index.php?topic=1947.0

Just posted there.  So I'm designed into a corner, and was stuck with 160V PV array and 200' of run, with conduits full of either #4 or #6

So, I will get to the array tomorrow night and try to measure power @ dark and report Thursday.

11:30pm, about 3 hours after sunset, and still warm in this screen shot.   5 watts can't heat that much, 7w is a night light bulb.

[dgd]

11:30pm, about 3 hours after sunset, and still warm in this screen shot.   5 watts can't heat that much, 7w is a night light bulb.

This looks pretty normal to me.
The Classic temps do not drop quickly when  power production stops. The ambient temps here stay high for several hours after sundown and it takes most of the night to get really cool. The coolest time is just before sunrise.
The Classic stays warm for some time and gradually cools throughout the night.

Maybe a similar situation occurs at your location

dgd

[Halfcrazy]

I would also point out in that first Local App shot the VOC is 145 so if the array has a VOC of 160 it must have some shading or something as 15 volts is a good drop with the Classic Resting?

[mike90045]

I would also point out in that first Local App shot the VOC is 145 so if the array has a VOC of 160 it must have some shading or something as 15 volts is a good drop with the Classic Resting?

Sort of.  left side of screen shot, is the MS monitor, slightly larger array, and it is in production already, aimed further south. Hazy smokey weather here, 3500 acre fire 15 miles away http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/incidents/incidents_details_info?incident_id=1015
But I see this behavior daily, with the MS array in production earlier and later then the Classic. 
I may try swapping the MS array onto the Classic (but they are both Evergreen panels and should behave the same) after the fires and I can get a good charge back into the bank.

So I'm wondering if there is some setting I've goobered up for what is close to a 60v battery bank setting?

...The Classic temps do not drop quickly when  power production stops.

agreed, battery shed is heat soaked for an hour

The ambient temps here stay high for several hours after sundown and it takes most of the night to get really cool. The coolest time is just before sunrise.

got 1400' of altitude here, temps fall at dusk and things chill down pretty well by 10pm it's in the low 60's if not 50's

The Classic stays warm for some time and gradually cools throughout the night....

I'd expect it to get cool like the controller next to it. ( which has more passive heatsinking )

Anyway, I should get a full charge today, and be able to open up the epanel to measure the amps.

[mike90045]

 Got the clamp-on meter rigged up, and it's reading about 0.14A (140mA) which at the 54V at the batteries,
gives me about 7.5w  Dang, it sure seems like that case is cooking along at about 40 watts, but that's what
my meter claims, 7.5W

[TomW]

Got the clamp-on meter rigged up, and it's reading about 0.14A (140mA) which at the 54V at the batteries,
gives me about 7.5w  Dang, it sure seems like that case is cooking along at about 40 watts, but that's what
my meter claims, 7.5W

Mike;

As far as I know, most clamp on ammeters do not read low values accurately.

Perhaps there is an error in the reading?

I would not have much faith in the low range readings.

Tom

[zoneblue]

I think you might be getting knickers overly twisted a bit here? Not sure.

1. mixed multicontroller systems will always fight to some extent, making throughput comparisions tricky. 0.1V differnet in setpoints could change the whole balance.
2. midnite controllers do feel warm, no one can argue with that
3. but production is all that counts
4. your fet temp - bat temp at rest is exactly the same as mine, 5*C.  It feels cold to the touch because ambient is  below 10*C.
5. 0.14 amps on a clampmeter is pretty much within the noise floor of these type of meters. Ive measured mine on 10A range with 0.1% meter and got 3.01Watts (lite). MNGP will use a little more.

PS. I feel midnite should have shown the morningstar data in their shoot out... and ill go further and suggest they release the full dataset. The missing effciency curves for the classic creates system planning difficultys like yours.

[Vic]

1) I now have an easily documented issue with resting and wake up.   I have 2 arrays of Evergreen panels: 
3Kw South,  on a MorningStar mppt60  (110VDC string), and
2kw SouthEast  on a Classic 200  (160VDC string)   ...

   ...   But it's looking like if I had dropped a panel, and went to 3 strings of 3, instead of 2strings of 5, I'd be ahead of the game, I never thought the MPPT losses would be so high   ...

Alright mike,

I do not mean this as a challenge in any form.
Have been trying to understand the string configuration of your system (I DO have plenty of "corner paint"  of my own,  but this has been nagging at me).

So your 3 KW array is 15 ea  Evergreen 205 PVs (?)  "string voltage 110 V"

The 2 KW array is 10 Evergreen      PVs          "string V  160 V"  --two strings of five.

What is the model number of the PVs in each of these strings?

The only 205-ish STC watt Evergreen PVs that I can find,  have Vmp and Vocs that do not seem to make sense vs what you appear to be running.

Thanks again,   Good Luck,    Vic