Classic 150 master tick tocking, and blue led blinking strangley.

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I finally put a decent size load on my system today (1500w infrared heater for the shed) and all went well enough. Left it on for about 20 minutes while I went out and put a new cover on our utv to see how much it would bring the temp up from 22*. It's an 8x8 uninsulated shed, and it was 8* outside. Anyway, it was 32 when i came back, but I noticed the master cc said "400ah", and being it was flurrying and cloudy, and I don't have the genny hooked up yet, I thought it best to shut off the heater. Afterwards, I noticed a tick tock sound coming from the master cc. It was around 2.5 second intervals- tick-2.5 secs-tock-2.5secs, tick...  Then as I was listening, I realized the blue led inside wasn't jiving with the slave's light, in that it wasn't doing the quick flash every 3 seconds, but would flash that way, but occasionally stay on a fraction of a second longer than the usual quick flash. I watched and tried to determine how often the longer flash came around. Once it was 3 fast, then a slow flash. A minute later it was 1 fast, 1 slow, 1 fast, one slow, then a few fast flashes. Soon after that, it was doing the quick flashes long enough for me to quit watching them. I scanned through the manual, but had to stop and load up due to the snow picking up and a 30 mile drive home. So, can anybody tell me what I need to look for with this tick tock sound and the unsteady blue light? Are they related? Did I do something wrong? Oh yeah, the status readings were "In"- 75.3v, 0w, AH 2, and the "Batt"- 53.6v, 0.6A and was switching back and forth every 2 seconds between Float MPPT and Resting. This is on a very overcast and snowy day. But this cc seems to stay on resting while the slave is mostly on Float, and sometimes resting.

Sorry if this is all the wrong information to give, but this is what I saw. Thanks in advance for any help or ideas on this. I'm going to go study the manual for awhile. Lee   (I'd have just posted a pic of the screen, but I forgot my phone at home today.)

[boB]

The Classic will operate independently even though they are in Follow-Me. 
That can be a reason for one Classic to try to run and the other to not run.  Slight differences.

Follow-Me only controls the charge stage like, Absorb and Float and EQ.  Also shares the battery temperature.

The PV input voltage of 75V is enough to make that Classic to try and turn on.  I think that is why you are hearing the tick or "click" once every 2 seconds BUT the Classic should not tick-tock at a 2 second interval...   It should stay ON to try and charge for quite a bit longer time. With the snow on the panels, the power would be too low to get anything out of that Classic so it turns off.   

For low power, the Classic should not turn its relay back on for 20 seconds and should be in MPPT for 60 to 90 seconds or so.   Something is funny.  Maybe it needs to be powered down and up again ?

If it is still doing this tomorrow, look at the RFR or Reason For Resting.
From the main STATUS screen, HOLD the left-arrow key and then press ENTER.  Top-Middle should show a number.  Write that down and report here if you can please.   The MNGP connected to the Classic in question of course.   Maybe check both Classics' RFR numbers ?

What was the input voltage of the other Classic ?  The one that wasn't trying to turn on ?
If it went to resting because of too low of power, that would be number 5.


The Blue LED flashing fast and then slow is fine.  If it ONLY flashes long, then the two Classics are not communicating.  As long as the LED flashes short once in a while, you're OK there.

Is this a new observation ?  Has it always done this ?  Depending on what the Classic is doing internally, it may come and go being more or less often to see the long flash.

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Thank you, boB, I really appreciate this information. I'm getting ready to go back down and check on everything this morning. I'm It's overcast again today, but not nearly as bad as yesterday, along with the snow that was falling then. None today. And it's 2* out right now with a high of 12 predicted around 3pm. Per the slave cc, I did write them down. "IN"- 59.6v, 37w, AH8; "BATT"- 52.9v, 0.7A and FLOAT MPPT. Again, these readings were taken around 4-4:30pm with heavily overcast skies and light, steady snow falling. I think I remember the voltage inputs were around 119 and 113 when I got there. Also, before I put the heater load on them, even with the two shed lights (led's with little more than the 16w search sweep that I have on both inverters), everything remained 'as usual'. The SOK batteries BMS systems were showing good, close voltage (5) 100A batt stack). I didn't notice anything strange when the heater was running, aside from the master inverter kicking out of search and inverting. The second inverter remained in search.

One thing I'm curious about is this- The master inverter is the only one that inverts most of the time(admittedly, I haven't had many loads on it yet. The shed lights (rarely), a circular saw (5 minutes), the RV test and the heater yesterday), yet the classic controlling that inverter is normally on resting, while the slave classic, which is a 150sl, is the controller that is nearly always in float, and sometimes resting, yet the slave inverter rarely ever is inverting, and remains in search. I think the only time I've seen both of them kick on at the same time is when I had our 5th wheel's 30A line turned on temporarily to see if everything was alright there. (Turned that off due to having removed the old marine batt that was shot, and didn't want the converter running with nothing to charge. New batt coming in a few days, though).

So, I hope this information clears it up a little. I'm waiting to call Current Connected when they open to ask a battery question (one of the 5 batts' BMS led's were blinking differently from the other 4 after the heater) before I head down to the property. I'm also expecting my new extendable PV panel brush/squeegee to come in today. Of course, that's if they deliver it. It's MLK day, but our post office has been delivering on Sundays and other days I wouldn't expect them to, so who knows? But hopefully, if it is coming, it will arrive before I head south. Then again, the sun may do the trick before I get there. But it IS sub freezing out there. Thanks again, boB, and I will check back in when I get back home later on. Lee

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boB- When I got to the property today, all systems are back to normal. Not sure what happened or why, but the tick tocking was silent, the blue light is doing what it should, and even the one battery that had light issues too (the run light was off instead of on like the other 4, and its alarm light was flashing, instead of steady on like the others) was back to normal. I spoke with Current Connections, SOK's distributors, and James told me how to go into the BMS status to find what the alarm was for, but I couldn't figure out where they were. Or maybe they aren't if it's not flashing, but for now, it works as it should.

I'm embarrassed to say that I forgot to right down your directions to find the path to the Resting codes. The phone signal down there is pretty iffy, and today it wasn't at all, so I couldn't check back here until I got home. (I printed out the page.) Actually, I found the thread that someone had copied your post on finding the "LAST Reason for Resting", so I copied that down too. Thank you. I'll check back here later tonight, but tomorrow I'm taking my wife to the airport in St. Louis. She's flying down to our daughters in Florida for a few weeks to help out and spoil our grandkids, so it will be Wednesday before I get back down to find out anything else. I will say the master, which had the problems yesterday, was still on resting today. Although it was overcast, it wasn't as bad as yesterday so it was showing this "IN" 120.5v, 0w, 0Kwh and "Batt" side showed 55.9v, 0A and Resting. Thanks again for your help. I'm just sorry I didn't take the directions with me. That sure isn't in the manual. I read it front to back today. Lee

[boB]

Weird and strange !

Maybe it was just cold ?

Get those grandkids spoiled !  Important stuff for sure !

boB

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Hey, all, (and boB especially), I finally got back down to the property today. We had a few nice days in the upper 20's, so I did some truck parts replacing and welded up a wallowed out door hinge hole. The fun never ends around here. So today, I utilized the directions I obtained from you and your post. Here's what I found on the master, which is the one perpetually resting.) in. I checked the top center number and it was 13. (Pic 1 below, with pic 2 showing status window) I checked the list and says Vpv is greater than (Voc + 10v  PV_Uset II. I suppose the is PV array volage is greater than open circuit voltage + 10volts, with no clue what the rest of it indicates. Anybody know what this means in connection with why the cc is Resting almost full time?  I see the message but don't know what to do with it.  At first the slave cc was showing this in the lower left (see pic 3), but kicked back to kwh as soon as I pushed the status button.

Something else strange occurred after I checked the resting codes. I flipped the 30A breaker in the service box that feeds the line to our 5th wheel, which I put a new LiFePo 12v 100A battery in today, but it didn't get power to the trailer. The breaker is brand new and last time I turned it on, which was right after I tested the 1500w heater, everything came on in the trailer. The 120v lights worked, the heater/ac fan worked, I could hear the converter that charges the batts come on, but not this time. I checked power at the plugs at the shed and the 5th wheel end of the 100' line (10g), and was getting one leg of 120v. I checked the breakers and fuses at the input and breaker box inside. All seemed good. The 12v lights came on with the new battery installed. I don't get why it worked a week ago but not today. Any ideas on that? Thanks again! Lee

[showme]

Uh, just noticed the heading- Strangely, not strangley. Oops.

[boB]

OK, so kWh and Voc are just two of several STATUS screens so you have to either cycle through them by pressing the STATUS button OR press MAIN MENU and then STATUS again to get back to the original STATUS screen.

FYI, the last STATUS screen before the next press gets you back to main status is the Classic  software version screen, also with the nominal Vbatt setting in the upper right corner of that screen...  12V, 24V, 48V  etc...

RFR = 13 and the Voc is 10 volts (at least) over means that the last time it swept or opened up the PV input, the input PV voltage rose higher.  This could be because the Classic was running for a long time and the temperature got colder so that voltage rose up more ?   Anyway, that check is a sanity check for the Classic's tracking.  In your case it looks like you are using U-Set  which runs its MPPT voltage (Vmp) at the percentage of Voc that U-Set was set for.  Typically that is somewhere between 75% and 84%.   But when the Classic opens up to find the new Voc, it found it more than 10V higher than it did before.  Was the Classic running again when you saw this RFR = 13 ?

It should just wait however many seconds it waits and try again.

Have you also tried Legacy P&O  or SOLAR  tracking modes ?

boB

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Yes, per the voc/kwh, that's exactly what happened. After pushed the main menu button, then went back to status, the voc had returned to kwh. It just throws me off when something I haven't seen, or don't remember seeing it, appears on the screen. I thought I'd screwed up or hit a wrong button. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

As for the code, that makes sense also, since it had been extremely cold out when I checked it. I think it was around 9* outside, 20* in the uninsulated shed. I'm not sure at all what you're talking about when you mention Uset. If I am using it, I didn't know I was.

No, it wasn't running, it was still resting. Seems like it's always resting, although the day I put the 1500w heater on it, it did go into float for a while. But that's about the only time I've seen it out of Resting mode. You know, something that seems mixed up to me is that I have the top/west array inverter set up as master, and the bottom/east array set up as the slave, using the series jumper wire. I would have thought the master would control the charging, is that incorrect? Wouldn't that, then, cause it to be the inverter that would run the float mode? Or is the slave normally floating all the time like this (when no loads are present)? I'm a pretty intelligent guy, but this makes my head spin.

[boB]

If your two Classics are running in Follow-Me where you have two phone cables between the two, neither one controls the charging stage necessarily.  How that works is that when both Classics are in Bulk/Absorb, the FIRST Classic to go to Float tells the next Classic to also go to Float.
This is because there are slight differences in battery voltage readings. They might be REAL close, but not always.

Each Classic runs its own Absorb countdown timer.  If one Classic is in Absorb and the other Classic is say, on and off from Absorb to BULK MPPT, then one counter will go towards zero and go to Float and the other Classic might finish its Absorb timer countdown later and THEN the whole Absorb time for the batteries will be too long.  Possibly longer than you want.

Speaking of voltage differences, it could be that the Classic you are calling "Master", is seeing a slightly higher battery voltage than the other Classic.  If the Classic that is doing the work brings the battery voltage higher than the "Master" and the Master thinks the voltage is already above the Absorb or Float set-point.  There is no reason for that Classic to do anything because the battery voltage is already at or above where it should be from the other Classic OR a secondary charging source.
Maybe the RV's converter brings that voltage up high enough ?

So what you can do to verify if what I just said is the issue, go into the Master's CHARGE menu then T-Comp menu and then VIEW.  This will show what the battery voltage "target" is sitting at, either Absorb or Float voltage.  If that VIEW voltage is any lower than the battery voltage shown in the status screen, then that is why that Classic is Resting.

However, that is not necessarily a problem.    When the Classics are in a voltage regulation mode like Float or Absorb (or EQ) there is no reason for a second Classic to be running UNLESS the loads are big enough where one Classic isn't enough.  In that case, the Classic that needs help will go back to BULK MPPT  or FLOAT MPPT and then, both Classic's Vbatt readings will be well below the VIEW or charge set-point and the other Classic will turn on and help.

But as long as one Classic is in Float or Absorb,  your batteries are getting charged.

boB