Back in Business!

[keyturbocars]

Thanks to boB, Mario, Ryan, and the rest of the crew at Midnite for repairing my Classic!  UPS delivered my Classic 150 today.  I'm back in business!  I hooked it back up and everything works great.  I really appreciate the fact that Mario and boB were able to retain all my settings and curves in memory.  Made my life a lot easier today.  I just mounted it back on the wall and hooked up the cables and it was ready to roll.  We've got a little wind now and it's making some power.  Much more wind predicted for tonight and tomorrow, so I'm looking forward to that.  I was going through wind power withdrawals without my Classic.

boB, I noticed in the AUX1 menu, there are now DELAY and HOLD (seconds) settings.  What do you recommend that I set those to considering that my AUX1 controls my "Clipper" with the Triac (3 phase SSR) which dumps power to a 3 phase heater/resistor box?

I'm happy to be up and rolling again.  Great service from Midnite!

Edward

PS.  Thanks for the personalized status name boB! 

[Halfcrazy]

we need a picture of the personalized status screen

[Volvo Farmer]

Glad to hear you are up and running again! I hope I never let the smoke out of mine, but it's good to know that the Midnite folks are doing "customer service" right.

[keyturbocars]

Here's my personalized Classic...   

[boB]

boB, I noticed in the AUX1 menu, there are now DELAY and HOLD (seconds) settings.  What do you recommend that I set those to considering that my AUX1 controls my "Clipper" with the Triac (3 phase SSR) which dumps power to a 3 phase heater/resistor box?

Glad you're back up and running !!

So, aren't you just using the "DIVERSION SLOW +" OR "PV V TRIGGER +"  Aux setting ??   There has always been the DELAY and HOLD adjustments
in the TIME adjustment menu as far as I can remember.   You sure you're not seeing things ?

Anyway, for an SSR and diversion I would set these to the lowest time possible.    zero and zero is what I would use otherwise
it will be slower to respond and if the HOLD is too long then the turbine may slow down too much.  I can never remember
which AUX you are using for battery and which one for turbine though...


The custom name in the status screen will be common to all Classics here soon.  There is an 8 byte ID field in the modbus register map for that.
It's just not implemented yet for being displayed on the MNGP but will replace the  simple modbus address number, if present.
You can call it FRED if you want to.  BTW, you have newest and unreleased code (as of today anyway) so that's why
I wanted yours to be a bit different.... We can tell that isn't quite like the others.  Let me know if you see any weirdness.

Consider yourself a guinee pig for this week I guess.  I didn't think you'd mind.

boB

[keyturbocars]

So, aren't you just using the "DIVERSION SLOW +" OR "PV V TRIGGER +"  Aux setting ??   There has always been the DELAY and HOLD adjustments
in the TIME adjustment menu as far as I can remember.   You sure you're not seeing things ?

Yes, I am using the "PV V Trigger +" on AUX1.  I guess I somehow didn't notice that in the past (DUH!), and I always just had the defaults of 0 in those settings.  Not sure how I missed that, or how I totally forgot about it.  I must be getting old and senile already.    Thankfully, it sounds like 0 seconds was OK for what I'm doing with the 3 phase SSR and homemade Clipper.

Consider yourself a guinee pig for this week I guess.  I didn't think you'd mind.

I don't mind.  Is there anything in particular that I should watch out for (areas of changes where there might be some unexpected issues)?

Thanks again for getting my Classic fixed so promptly!

Edward

[boB]

So, aren't you just using the "DIVERSION SLOW +" OR "PV V TRIGGER +"  Aux setting ??   There has always been the DELAY and HOLD adjustments
in the TIME adjustment menu as far as I can remember.   You sure you're not seeing things ?

Yes, I am using the "PV V Trigger +" on AUX1.  I guess I somehow didn't notice that in the past (DUH!), and I always just had the defaults of 0 in those settings.  Not sure how I missed that, or how I totally forgot about it.  I must be getting old and senile already.  

 Thankfully, it sounds like 0 seconds was OK for what I'm doing with the 3 phase SSR and homemade Clipper.

Consider yourself a guinee pig for this week I guess.  I didn't think you'd mind.

I don't mind.  Is there anything in particular that I should watch out for (areas of changes where there might be some unexpected issues)?

Thanks again for getting my Classic fixed so promptly!

Edward

I can't tell you what to not expect...  (Does that mean that I CAN tell you what TO expect ??)

Old and Senile ?   I guess that we must be pretty much alike....

They're coming to take me away, heee hee, haw haw, ho ho...

boB

[keyturbocars]

OK.  I'll keep my eye out for any unusual behavior with my Classic.  The only weirdness I see right now is with the weather and winds.  They keep shifting around so much, that they are not very useful for power generation.

Edward

[keyturbocars]

boB,

I've got some weirdness going on.  We now have some winds that are around 7-10mph and in a steady direction.  They are enough to reach the 62V cut in point of my wind curve.  However, when the Classic "clicks" on as the IN volts passes 62V, my Classic is making some weird "beeping" sounds (like I talked with you about on the phone just prior to my Classic "popping").  I think you mentioned that the inductors are what might be creating those faint beeping sounds.  Anyway, I was just watching the IN voltage go up to 75V or so as the wind was increasing a little, and no power is being generated.  All I get is the funny faint "beeping" sounds.  0.0A and 0000 watts.  Weird.

I already tried to change to a different wind curve, and that did nothing.  I am now going to try to shut down and "reboot" my Classic and see what happens.  Before I did that, I wanted to share with you what was happening and get your mental juices flowing as to what might be happening.  Yesterday, we had a little wind, and the Classic was behaving normally and as expected.  Then the winds died down and we didn't really have much useful wind until now.  Even now, the winds are not very good.  2mph on the weather station at the moment.  10 minute average winds are only 6.8mph.  Anyway, not much wind to speak of, but occasionally it has gotten closer to 10mph and the Classic has cut in.

Edward

[Halfcrazy]

Dumb thought but the charging set points did not get deleted and the Classic is thinking it is in absorb? What does it say in the bottom right of the screen?

[keyturbocars]

Hi Ryan,

When the cut in voltage is reached and it clicks on, it shows BULK mode at the bottom.  Although there is no charging going on. 

I am shut down for now.  The wind started to pick up as I was standing in front of my Classic with the weather station console in my hand.  Winds started getting into the teens and I was carefully watching my IN voltage.  Voltage were climbing past 90V (with BULK mode shown but NO charging goign on 0.0A and 0000 watts).  I immediately shut down my turbine.  I'm glad that I did, because then the winds starting blowing in the 20's and I am afraid I would have overvoltaged if the IN voltage kept climbing as quickly as it was.  I don't know if my AUX1 Clipper would have kept things under control.  I was a little too chicken (careful) to just let it run up while the winds were gusting in the mid 20's.  I might wait until the winds die down and go back and play with it a little and set my AUX1 voltage trip point to something really low and make sure AUX1 is really working right.  Something is definitely not right, because the Classic is not charging and it is making those faint beeping sounds like I heard before my Classic "popped". 

The only idea I have is to go back to an older version of software.  At this point, I can't tell if the issues are software/firmware or hardware related.

Edward

[Halfcrazy]

Well I am a little lost as well it did work though after you got it back correct? It knows there is power there as it is waking up and turning on just not loading it down. i will alert boB and he can work with you to trouble shoot this.

[keyturbocars]

Some more info... winds are now blowing in the 20's and gusting close to 30mph at times.  Great wind for power, but not great for careless testing.  I have my turbine shut down.  I did set my AUX1 trip voltage to around 80V and it was working, but the Classic was just "beeping" and not charging at all.  Again, it was showing BULK but with 0.0A and 0000 watts.

Wind showing 29mph right now.  Again, apart from a hardware problem which I can't do anything about, the only thing I can think of is to revert back to an older version of the software and be very careful with the wind curve editor (no 2 points with same amp setting).

I'll wait to see what you guys think.

Edward

[keyturbocars]

Well I am a little lost as well it did work though after you got it back correct? It knows there is power there as it is waking up and turning on just not loading it down. i will alert boB and he can work with you to trouble shoot this.

Yes, yesterday afternoon when I hooked it all up we had a little bit of wind and everything worked normally.  This morning there were some light winds and it was charging.  I haven't done anything to it.  It just all of a sudden changed to where it will not charge any more (and started making those odd beeping sounds). 

boB asked about weirdness.... ask and you shall receive! 

Edward

[Halfcrazy]

Edward

Go ahead and try reverting back to the older Classic software and see what happens I am curious about the beeping as the Classic beeps when it is in Arc Fault or Ground Fault maybe you can give me a call at 207-416-2006 and I can help make sure both are disabled although it should show arc fault or ground fault in the display?