Anotherpower.com Forum
Renewable Energy Questions/Discussion => Solar (heating or electric) => Topic started by: Wolvenar on January 30, 2012, 04:58:33 pm
-
Off to my next part of the pv system, a charge controller.
Anyone have recommendations, experience with, features unique to, and particular commercial (or non) brand?
-
Off to my next part of the pv system, a charge controller.
Anyone have recommendations, experience with, features unique to, and particular commercial (or non) brand?
MUCH more info required.
Power? Nominal array voltage? Nominal battery voltage? Logging or no?
I got a FlexMax-80, and it's been very good. Will handle nominal battery banks of 12, 24, 36 (?) and 48V, and arrays up to a maximum of 150V. The "80" is 80 amps out, so it'll do about 4KW for a 48V bank, 2KW for 24V or 1KW for 12V.
-
24v banks with 2kw of solar, with logging if at all possible that can be easily fetched via computer without manual interaction
-
What voltage is your system, and how much installed PV capacity?
One thing I've found out about solar controllers is that you tend to never buy one that's big enough. A lot of people have a tendency to try to save a dime now so you can spent a dollar later. So you always got one for sale every time you add some panels because you need a bigger, or another, one. I'm not using this one on solar - got it on my wind turbine - but this is the "Cadillac".
[attachimg=1]
It'll scale from a "starter" PV array to 2.5 kW or so. You can't blow it up on a cold day by wiring your panels at Voc close to its voltage input limit, it logs data for 380 days, and if you hook up an ethernet cable from its ethernet jack to your home router you can use the nice desktop application for it that shows how your system is performing from the comfort of your office:
[attachimg=2]
I've spent a small fortune on solar controllers every time I add more panels. I got two Morningstar TS-MPPT's and they're both going to be replaced soon with one of the above units.
I would've spent less money if I would've bought one of the above units in the first place. Just from here.
--
Chris
-
To add to what Chris said the App he showed is software based and can be used from off site as well as long as you port forward the port the Classic is on in your router. MidNite is also working on a web based version as well this should be rolling out soon.
Andrew at MidNite has been adding two way communication to the software I am playing with one here that allows me to alter the Aux settings and start an EQ cycle. Next should be wind curve editing on the fly.
Ryan
-
To add to what Chris said the App he showed is software based and can be used from off site as well as long as you port forward the port the Classic is on in your router. MidNite is also working on a web based version as well this should be rolling out soon.
Andrew at MidNite has been adding two way communication to the software I am playing with one here that allows me to alter the Aux settings and start an EQ cycle. Next should be wind curve editing on the fly.
Ryan
How many of these units do you have in the field now?
I kind of remember the start of it all and that seems not that long ago?
Tom
-
I wonder how hard it would be to reverse engineer the command interface to gather the data so I can do what I wish with it.. I had been thinking about your and Ross's controllers when I posted that question.
What I am looking for is that data acquisition that I can manipulate..
Secondly the ability for it to dump power into devices, OR use data from the controller I can devise something that triggers events such as this. My main goal is to use the inverter to take over from the grid power when the conditions are present to do so. After that if we have an outtage, it will take over. At least until I can get enough resources available to completely rid myself of the grid.
Nutty part is years back I heard of Minnesota proposing legislation that would require an off grid house to meter it in a way that auto reports your usage, and tax you on it. That went out the door I think when the feds introduced the tax breaks,, but they are now making it harder and harder for a person to install such systems without the state getting their cut in any way possible.
-
Ho Wolv,
With 2Kw of PV the MPPT is the way to go and for peace of mind and safety a FM60 or 80 would be the go to be the main controller/watchdog for your battery array. Now as we talked about those Duinomite boards on IRC before you could program one of them to also keep an eye on things and report to a pc via VT100 and the XModem commands. With having control of over 20 I/O's one could use that for engaging a dumpload just before the FM60 decides it's going to short the pv panels as the batteries are full. also there are a heap of other options one could program in like real time logging, temps etc and by either transmitting the data via usb or storing it in a text file(.csv for spreadsheet) on the SD card, one can get full data with all the fruit and biscuits.
But having a FM60 or 80 as the main will give you the MPPT for the best power and the knowledge of the batteries being looked after for you automatically, that would be the best insurance.
Regards Bryan
-
I wonder how hard it would be to reverse engineer the command interface to gather the data so I can do what I wish with it.
I don't know about the FX but if you're using the MidNite Local Status panel for logging with a Classic, the data is recorded once every two seconds with a time stamp formatted in milliseconds since Unix Epoch and exported in CSV format.
I re-read this and decided to comment on a couple more thing:
My main goal is to use the inverter to take over from the grid power when the conditions are present to do so.
Wouldn't it be better in the long run to get an inverter that does this instead of using an external controller? If your goal to move off-grid eventually and you run lots of computers and stuff (which it sounds like you do) it would seem that a suitably sized pure sine wave inverter that has all those options (grid xfer on power out, bat xfer on incoming RE power, etc.) in it makes more sense.
Nutty part is years back I heard of Minnesota proposing legislation that would require an off grid house to meter it in a way that auto reports your usage, and tax you on it.
I don't see how that's ever going to fly. There'd be people grabbing rifles and shotguns, jumping in pickups and heading for St. Paul, and they'd level the place (or more likely turn it into a smoldering crater) if politicians were ever stupid enough to try it.
--
Chris
-
I don't see how that's ever going to fly. There'd be people grabbing rifles and shotguns, jumping in pickups and heading for St. Paul, and they'd level the place (or more likely turn it into a smoldering crater) if politicians were ever stupid enough to try it.
Wow, it sounds like you know (northern) Minnesotans!!
-
Wow, it sounds like you know (northern) Minnesotans!!
That's right. My grandpa and grandma originally came from Norway and settled near Northome in 1899. To this day all of northern Minnesota, north of 95, is a Sovereign State. You got your Border Towns there like Cambridge where there's some civilization. But once north of there, all the way to Warroad, Baudette and The Lake Of the Woods the State Capital in St. Paul is The Enemy Stronghold :)
--
Chris
-
To add to what Chris said the App he showed is software based and can be used from off site as well as long as you port forward the port the Classic is on in your router. MidNite is also working on a web based version as well this should be rolling out soon.
Andrew at MidNite has been adding two way communication to the software I am playing with one here that allows me to alter the Aux settings and start an EQ cycle. Next should be wind curve editing on the fly.
Ryan
How many of these units do you have in the field now?
I kind of remember the start of it all and that seems not that long ago?
Tom
Tom we are will over 2000 units out the door now. These things have been extremely reliable I handle all RMA's and it is a very small number I will say that. A great percentage of this number is actually people doing stuff beyond the Classics control.
Also the Classic uses open source ModBus protocol to talk to stuff, we freely publish this protocol so it is very easy to talk to the Classic with your own programs as well. We took a ton of flack at Outback when we did the MX60 and Mate and the FM stuff for the proprietary communications protocol so we decided to make it simple at MidNite.
Ryan
-
Sounding better all the time.
-
NAWS has the cheapest price for the Classic 150 I've found on the net. http://www.solar-electric.com/mnclassic.html (http://www.solar-electric.com/mnclassic.html)
Midnite Solar has some neat on line software that lets you go through the menus on the Classic.
Mine is set for delivery tomorrow.
-
I did get mine switched out. I had two panels that I couldn't wire in series with the rest on a 150 because the voltage would go too high. So I put those two separate on a BZ MPPT500 controller that I had.
[attachimg=1]
I eliminated my RD-1 and instead am using the Classic's Aux 1 in diversion mode to turn on a 2 kW water heater element when the bank reaches float. The element is 240 volt, powered by the inverters. This "fools" the solar panels into staying at full power during float and the controller shuts the element off when it switches back to Bulk MPPT, or if it drops out of float because of not enough incoming solar power.
--
Chris
-
I also thought I would throw out here for those that do not know the same 2 guys that owned outback and built the MX/FM controller own MidNite and have been designing and building the Classic so have no fear it will be even more robust and dependable as the FM series. We have also listened to the Installers/Users and added a lot of function as well as making the Classic use an openly published ModBus protocol.
The Classic will also have the ability to bridge ModBus commands through it so say you wanted a Morningstar Tri star plugged in as well as a relay driver and want to write your own software the Classic will pass there language through.It will also be using this other language to show stuff on the Local App as well as My MidNite when we go live with that.
The general Idea here is to have a monitoring system that will be flexible and user programmable to monitor anything we can read. Unlike we did when we designed the Outback by making it a proprietary language ::)
The Classic can also do data dumps out of its USB port as well so we have multiple ways of communicating with the Classic. The USB has a few functions and can have many more based on whatever people ask for.
Keep the ideas and suggestions coming that is how we tailor this product to everyone's needs.
Ryan
-
Ryan;
The open protocol approach is actually quite a good model in many ways.
You may sacrifice a little cash flow on the front end not selling proprietary software, devices, etc to communicate with the device. Anyone sufficiently interested could reverse engineer almost anything so "secrets" don't really last.
In the long run you enable a pool of developers when people massage your devices for more functionality. This leads to enhanced sales as the devices become more useful to a broader group.
Been an advocate and user of open source software for decades and I am convinced it is better in many ways than proprietary usually because users expand and extend the functionality to suit unseen needs in the original. I predict your products will benefit from this open approach.
While I may never own one of your products I applaud your approach and the posts on forums keeping folks abreast of your process getting it all going.
Tom