A few questions about the Local App

[plongson]

Now I've had some time to mess with the app, I have a couple of questions...

I'm running v 0.3.10

1.) How do you change the name from "Classic' to something custom?
2.) I had a gap of  many hours, in the recorded data even though it was running minimized all day. Am I doing something wrong? How often does it ping and record?
3.) Does it record or is the Classic recording and this just passing on the data?
4.) What are you guys doing with the raw data that is exported to Excel? Making graphs? Any templates out there?
5.) Sure would be nice if the graphs were scale-able, too small for my old bad eyes.

It seems to be working pretty good, I just need to get use to it...

Paul

[Halfcrazy]

Now I've had some time to mess with the app, I have a couple of questions...

I'm running v 0.3.10

1.) How do you change the name from "Classic' to something custom?

To change the Classic's name you must have newer firmware that allows 2 way communication, Then you go to the "Config" Menu, the classic may attempt to write a password if so just close the box. Scroll down and enter the password for the Classic (It is the numbers out of the serial number) and hit the submit button. After this is sent and the classic is unlocked click on the "Basic" tab. Here you will find a box with the Classic's name in it. You can change it and hit submit. Note that the newest firmware under Beta on the website will show this name on the classic display as well. It will be in all caps on the classic.

2.) I had a gap of  many hours, in the recorded data even though it was running minimized all day. Am I doing something wrong? How often does it ping and record?

That seems odd? The App logs its own data every 2 seconds when connected. My guess is that Classic dropped off the App for that time and then came back?

3.) Does it record or is the Classic recording and this just passing on the data?

It does both, The app will when told to log every 2 seconds. It will also download the Daily history out of the Classic.

4.) What are you guys doing with the raw data that is exported to Excel? Making graphs? Any templates out there?

They are just columbs of data. Excel does have some good graphing abilitys. We have not made any templates yet but I suspect it will not be long and there will be a bunch floating around.

5.) Sure would be nice if the graphs were scale-able, too small for my old bad eyes.

I assume when you mean Scalable you are referring to its physical size on the monitor not the amount of time shown? The graph can be scaled by time shown now.

Ryan

It seems to be working pretty good, I just need to get use to it...

Paul

[plongson]

THANKS Ryan! That really clears a few thing up. Ya, by scale-able I meant making the graph bigger. Very nice piece of work.

EDIT: I just opened the app from the task bar, it said "connection closed". Something must be timing out, maybe something in he modem or the DYN account. Heck maybe even this local PC.

[plongson]

Well, this is getting interesting...

The logging feature logs just fine as long as something seems to be going on here on the laptop but soon after it stops logging and leaves a big gap in data until I return. I left at 0700 this morning and returned at around 1430 to find no data until I closed the app, restarted it, opened/closed "values to chart" and got data from 1430 on.

I'm still confused about where the data comes from though, Ryan mentioned both the Classic and from the app doing some data harvesting, but I'm just seeing big gaps.

When the local PC goes  off due to inactivity (however many minutes) it seems the app stops harvesting data. It is not so evident on a line graph, but obvious on a bar graph. Is it a setting on my end or is there a glitch?

Also, the graph does not update automatically, it requires at least some action with "Live" and at most, close the app and reopen. If this is normal, I'll just live with it but would like to know.

Paul

[Halfcrazy]

Ah there's your problem. If the PC running the app is going to sleep or whatever it will not log. The app physically asks the classic every 2 seconds for a group of data. So if the pc is asleep it will not be able to ask. And if it did not get it it can not ask for it later.

Ryan

[plongson]

Thanks Ryan, I just changed the settings to never sleep when plugged in, let's see how it goes...

[Westbranch]

can you set the pc to wake up and poll then back to sleep?

I have a Palm pilot that worked that way with an XBM on my old system.

[Halfcrazy]

Well seeings it polls every 2 seconds would not give much sleep time?

Ryan

[plongson]

Insomnia...

This Laptop is on grid power at this location, so it's no biggie to leave it on.

Besides, it is working fine now with no gaps, I should'a caught that myself...DUHHH

Thanks Ryan

[SolarMusher]

Ah there's your problem. If the PC running the app is going to sleep or whatever it will not log. The app physically asks the classic every 2 seconds for a group of data. So if the pc is asleep it will not be able to ask. And if it did not get it it can not ask for it later.

Hi Ryan,
Is there a way to update the Loc app with Classic datas when one can't keep a laptop powered all the day in an off grid-system?
Paul,
You're on the way to become Loc App expert 
Erik

[SolarMusher]

Oups, excuse me Ryan I was talking about amps datas log and if I understand this feature is not alive right now in the loc app?
Erik

[Halfcrazy]

With the newest beta firmware and App the AH function works. Unfortunately AH is not a Daily logged value but KWH is. The Offline Data on the app will contain 380 days of past history and one of those values is KWH. The offline data can be grabbed once a year or once a day it resides on the classic and the app simply asks for it when you click Offline Data

Ryan

[TomW]

The offline data can be grabbed once a year or once a day it resides on the classic and the app simply asks for it when you click Offline Data

Ryan

Ryan;

Is it a group of registers or a file?

Can I get the raw data with modpol?

Every answer I read just triggers another question.

Thanks.

Tom

[Halfcrazy]

I believe it is some Registers. boB will have to chime in though. I will point him to this.

Ryan

[boB]

The offline data can be grabbed once a year or once a day it resides on the classic and the app simply asks for it when you click Offline Data

Ryan


Ryan;

Is it a group of registers or a file?

Can I get the raw data with modpol?

Every answer I read just triggers another question.

Thanks.

Tom



OK, which data are you looking for again ??   If you want to retrieve the daily or the minutely logging data, there are two
ways to do it.   One way uses a combination of 2 or 3 modbus registers and yes you could retrieve the values that
way BUT you will want to do a bit of programming on the PC side to make sense of them unless you are just looking
at one individual value.   This can be somewhat complicated but not real bad...

The registers are, as far as modpol is concerned, where it doesn't add that 1 to the register number,

4253    DayLogCombCatIndex
4254    LogValueRead
4255    MinLogCombCatIndex

4254 is where the requested  data for a particular "category" will appear.

The request for the recent history or "Minutely" log values are placed into register 4255
That register, in this case the MinLogCombCatIndex must change from its previous value
before the LogValueRead  register at 4254 will be updated from the internal EEprom.
If it is the very first write to this register, then it probably will be different because it
starts out as zero.

Register 4255, MinLogCombCatIndex, is a 16 bit number which is the combination
of the category of information you want to grab, (power, voltage, state, time etc.),
and how many records back you want to grab from the log memory (the "index")

An index of "1" should be the most recent value, 2 the next to recent, 3rd is 3 logging
records back, etc.  (I may be wrong... It 0 might be the most recent record).

MinLogCombCatIndex  is divided up like this...  I have created 2 new variables,
MinLogNdxRequsted   and MinLogCategory  that are extracted from the combined
MinLogCombCatIndex  request register...

        MinLogNdxRequsted  = MinLogCombCatIndex & 0x03ff;                    /* extract Minute index */
        MinLogCategory       = ((MinLogCombCatIndex & 0xfC00) >> 10);    /* extract Category */


  (I hope this all formats OK on here)


And the categories are...

MinLogCategory == 0    Average watts displayed
MinLogCategory == 1    Average PV voltage  at this time
MinLogCategory == 2   Average battery voltage  at this time
MinLogCategory == 3   Time stamp Low
MinLogCategory == 4   Time stamp High
MinLogCategory == 5   Combination charge stage
MinLogCategory == 6   Amps Out at this time
MinLogCategory == 7   kW-Hours at this time



The Combination charge stage, which is divided up into two 8 bit
numbers  (you want the HIGH 8 bits),  are...


#define StatDispResting      0   /*  Resting */
#define StatDispAbsorb       3   /* Absorb */
#define StatDispBulkMppt     4   /* Bulk MPPT */
#define StatDispFloat        5   /* Float */
#define StatDispFloatMppt    6   /* Float MPPT */
#define StatDispEqualize     7   /* EQUALIZE  */
#define StatDispEqMppt       18  /* Equzlize MPPT */


Time Stamp Low and High  is created by this method  (DOM = Day Of Month)...

TimeStampLo = ((MONTH & 0x0f) | ((DOM & 0x1f) << 4) | (((YEAR - 2000) & 0x7f) << 9));

The minimum YEAR is 2000  and that is why the date shows 2000 when the clock has not been set.

TimeStampHi = (MIN & 0x3f) |  ((HOUR & 0x1f) << 6);


********************************************

And the Daily logging info is requested a similar way...

DayLogNdxRequsted =  DayLogCombCatIndex & 0x03ff;              // EXTRACT day index
DayLogCategory    =  ((DayLogCombCatIndex & 0xfC00) >> 10);    //EXTRACT Category


DayLogCategory == 0   /* Daily  kW-hours */
DayLogCategory == 1   /* Daily  amp-hours */
DayLogCategory == 2   /* Daily Time (minutes) in Float */
DayLogCategory == 3   /* TimeStampLow (normally 23:59) */
DayLogCategory == 4   /* Daily  High power watts */
DayLogCategory == 5   /* Daily  High FET temperature C */
DayLogCategory == 6   /*  TimeStampHi */
DayLogCategory == 7   /* Daily  High PV voltage */
DayLogCategory == 8   /* Daily  High battery voltage */




******************************************************

There is another way to retrieve this information by way of modbus file transfer.
I don't know if modpol can handle modbus file transfers or not.  The MNGP and
local app uses this method.  The MNGP does use the single register method
for displaying the text versions of data logging values but graphing is done
via the file transfer method.

I'll leave file xfer for later

boB