Firmware 1761 For Beta Testers

[Westbranch]

I do have a larger inverter but do not see why more load would be a good thing.

because 2.4A is about 2% of a single deep cycle battery and you are just tickling it as far as depletion and when you are dealing with an almost fully charged (>90%) battery you get some strange seeming charge related symptoms...

[xsnrg]

I have a battery with maybe 90AHr at best.  It starts drawing on the battery around here at about 4pm, where incoming solar = outgoing load.  In the morning, solar picks up the slack about 9AM.  December rather sucks in IA.  It is also in a cold garage, so I lose a bit more capacity.  The fun of solar in the winter...  Anyway, 90Ah - (2.4A * 17h) = ~50Ah remaining.  This is drawing the battery down to 12.0v, and I really don't want to take it lower.  One could argue I don't have enough battery for the load I have even.  My WBjr is reflecting this pretty accurately, which is quite excellent.  My only point in all that is I think the KID should handle 2.4A without any problems, and it does most of the time.  I wanted to report this because I feel it is an anomaly.

I did not manage to switch over to the solar program today, so it was in solar2 all day.  The problem did not manifest today, and everything ran as I would think it should, with the voltage ranging from 55 to 62 on the input throughout the whole day.  The day was overcast today, and it never did reach float, but did reach absorb.  Yesterday was mostly clear with light clouds off an on, and so reached float.  That was the only difference I can think of.  Temperature was about the same.  I got tired of going out to check the display, so set up a webcam to view the LCD.  Not a great camera, but it works   Image attached from today's overcast output.

It is now flipped back to solar for tomorrow.

[jcfaber1]

Hello XSNRG, I noticed you have Renogy 100w panels.  Are they the flexible ones?  If so how do you like them?  I am sorry this is a little off topic.

John

[xsnrg]

Nope, sorry, I have the solid frame guys.  I have heard good things about the flex panels, though no first-hand experience with them.

To bring the post back on topic, Today was excellent sun, hit float in the morning even, and had no issues at all with the KID.

[caribou]

It is possible to use AGS function and WBJR in the same time?

Jean-Francois

Ok every one I will tell you how to Unleash your Kid... but its a secret.... go to the password and enable password, wait 5 sec and then press left then select 125 and press Enter, the bottom row will show "Kid Unleashed" then select 142 and press Enter, select no Password and press the SAVE button.

Now the kid will be able to do AGS on the WBJR terminal. Select Aux press UP and Select AGS, Press SETUP button to configure the parameters, the kid only provides 12v out 150mA max to the terminal, the need of a contactor may be necessary to turn the Gen.

Another function that will be unlocked is Smart night light on the Load, which basically turn on at dusk and stay on for user adjustable amount of hrs and then go off then turn back on before dawn for the amount of hrs set by the user.
Then Hourly load on, basically tell the load from what time to what time to stay On. Warning The kid does not have a RTC so it uses the solar panels to create an astronomical clock that gets recalibrated every midnight, it does not have DST, and it is an approximate time to the actual time zone.

Both the Smart night light and the Hourly need at least 4 days of functioning in that mode to work properly.

I would appreciate much, if some people can test these functions and let me know if they find problems.

Mario

[mondo]

Under the calibration menu, what is the prematching number mean?  I assume the min watts is output of the kid.  In bully mode the master can't see the WBJ, states the wire is disconnected. The Wimpy kid WBJ still works. 

What are the other aux functions LBD High and LBD low for? Could we have an example?  Can two different load functions be used in bully mode on each kid?

I am curious too about the -0.3 prematching number setting.

[xsnrg]

Back in Dec I posted about some strange voltages I was seeing on the PV input on my KID.  Since that point, I have upgraded my panels and some wiring, but on occasion I am still seeing the voltage not tracking for mppt on the pv input.  This morning is an example.  The voltage was holding at 23.4v for a couple hours.  It finally broke loose about 10AM and went 40+ in one shot, bulking changed from 30w to 125w.  The sky conditions did not change, with it being heavy overcast.  This also seems to be the conditions when I see it happening -- overcast early morning.   I have no shading.  Are there stages or steps in the mppt algorithm where this would be the normal operation?  I would expect it to be more linear as the photons become available. 

I realize the variability of the cloud cover and angle of the sun penetrating them, etc.  The solidly clamped input voltage is an indication of something else it would seem.

This is not a big deal as it seems to eventually snap out of it, but since I was seeing it again this morning, I thought it was worth a mention.  Everything else about my KID is spot on.

I am running the solar program with 1761.

Update:  it has swept down to 29v now, and is holding there.  It is certainly brighter outside though, and can be proven by my solar radiation sensor.  I do love having empirical data.  Holding at 29v for a while, but have the photons available for much more. 

http://www.howardweb.org/weather/solar/

Update 2:  Yes, something is not quite right.  I went out to the garage and toggled the input.  The voltage went from clamped at 29v to 92v, wattage from 45 to 155.  It is now sweeping normally again.  I did not restart the KID, just toggled the input.  The attached battery voltage shows when I toggled it and the power came up drastically to charge the battery.  It also shows where the KID seemed to be working normally for a while between 10:10 and 10:30.  I did not do anything to it during this time.  After about 10:30 is where it clamped at 29v input until I manually intervened at 11:19... At 11:28, It just locked input at 29v again.

[xsnrg]

I am seeing this again today.  The input voltage is not ranging.  It is stuck on 24.7v on the input, greatly reducing the power from the panels.  I didn't think this was a big deal, but on an overcast day like today it is the difference of reaching float or not.

Adding today's battery graph... Easy to see the two times it ranged properly and how much power is missing.  The two voltage peaks do not correspond to changes atmosphere either.  I will add that graph as well.

Jim

[xsnrg]

Today in full sun, at morning angle, the input voltage locked in at 18.9v.  It is generating 63w where it should be closer to 250 or more. Still solar program.

[ClassicCrazy]

If you go back to the old firmware does this problem go away ?

[xsnrg]

A good question.  I will have to check my notes. IIRC it was happening before as well.

When it finally snapped out of it this am, it went from 6A to 25A.  Completely clear here today.

[longtimber]

 Two deployed so far and turned my back on them, Systems great ( I think )
Not upto speed on Mr kid's menus yet.
Are there daily logs (or planned?) one can scroll thru?
Like PV Ah, watt/hr, Min-max or Dawn-dusk voltage?

[SM-Viper]

Back in Dec I posted about some strange voltages I was seeing on the PV input on my KID.  Since that point, I have upgraded my panels and some wiring, but on occasion I am still seeing the voltage not tracking for mppt on the pv input.  This morning is an example.  The voltage was holding at 23.4v for a couple hours.  It finally broke loose about 10AM and went 40+ in one shot, bulking changed from 30w to 125w.  The sky conditions did not change, with it being heavy overcast.  This also seems to be the conditions when I see it happening -- overcast early morning.   I have no shading.  Are there stages or steps in the mppt algorithm where this would be the normal operation?  I would expect it to be more linear as the photons become available. 

I realize the variability of the cloud cover and angle of the sun penetrating them, etc.  The solidly clamped input voltage is an indication of something else it would seem.

This is not a big deal as it seems to eventually snap out of it, but since I was seeing it again this morning, I thought it was worth a mention.  Everything else about my KID is spot on.

I am running the solar program with 1761.

Update:  it has swept down to 29v now, and is holding there.  It is certainly brighter outside though, and can be proven by my solar radiation sensor.  I do love having empirical data.  Holding at 29v for a while, but have the photons available for much more. 

http://www.howardweb.org/weather/solar/

Update 2:  Yes, something is not quite right.  I went out to the garage and toggled the input.  The voltage went from clamped at 29v to 92v, wattage from 45 to 155.  It is now sweeping normally again.  I did not restart the KID, just toggled the input.  The attached battery voltage shows when I toggled it and the power came up drastically to charge the battery.  It also shows where the KID seemed to be working normally for a while between 10:10 and 10:30.  I did not do anything to it during this time.  After about 10:30 is where it clamped at 29v input until I manually intervened at 11:19... At 11:28, It just locked input at 29v again.

Yes. I have noticed this problem on my Kid as well.  I just didn't know how to describe it. But, yes, I have noticed it too. Toggling the input does seem to snap it out of it.

-Sean