February 16, 20179 yr @Manie I agree with @ebrsa and @Czauto you rather need the appreciation. Most of us can understand how difficult it is to attempt to accommodate all these requirements. Agreed at some stage one need to engage the parking brake. Contributing to your challenges is the fact that you had a "functional" system, and opened yourself for suggestions on what the users would actually like to see in the new system. This is a very fine double edged sword. You need to juggle your time between keeping the system functional and entertaining the ideas of everyday users. This is a never ending line to follow. One of the biggest challenges is to ascertain what ideas are doable, and beneficial to the overall system as intended for the target audience. There are obviously a lot of “nice to have’s” but you need to filter these requests. Indeed we all understand that you need to close the window on enhancements and handle those in Ver. 2.0. I believe the time is ripe for you to close enhancements and release Ver. 1.X. so that you can at least try and recoup some of your investment, be it time or controls and other sundries. As @ebrsa mentioned on consolidation, maybe after the release start a new thread, where the users can download the latest stable release, and on that thread they can comment on enhancements they would like to see in the upgrade release, let’s call it Ver. 2.0. From there you can decide what is doable, functional and practical and either include or exclude from the next version. Just remember: 10 people, 15 ideas....... Just my 2c worth.
February 16, 20179 yr @Riaanh to my mind you are optimistic. I rather expect the ratio is more like 1 person 10 ideas, none of which were thought through properly. Just ask people to document their requests in detail and see the ratio drop to 100 people 1 idea. On a lighter note your sound advice is worth buckets more than 2c. After all our esteemed inflater of currency, the SA Reserve Bank, don't even mint those any longer. Just joking about the minting although it is true, not the inflation of our currency to Monoply money value though.
February 18, 20179 yr @Manie: After download and extract V1.1.3 i had to chmod icc (777, not mentiones in install text). Than start failed: No such Table: Settings. (see scren shot) I'm back now aon level 1.1.2
February 18, 20179 yr Make sure you copy it over to the folder where the db isSent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk
February 18, 20179 yr Peter, I did the following for the upgrade. 1) Open the 2nd terminal window on the Pi. It says "LX_Terminal", i think. It will show lines a error text to do with X (screen) 2) Enter "Ctrl C", this will stop ICC and the ICC window will disappear and not restart. I believe one should stop/kill active programs before you "work" with them. Thats just me. 3) On the 1st terminal (click on it to open), or even from SSH, rename the ICC file to ICC_old or ICC_1.1.2. Make sure this is in directory /home/pi/ICC. 4) Drag the fresh ICC (Version 1.1.3, after uncompressing) from your source directory on PC to the pi. If you list the directory on pi (ls -l), you will see that the permissions of the new ICC is not the same as the old ICC. OPTIONAL STEP: (Only required if you are re-installing from a fresh image, which will install 1.1.2) and you want to preserve all your data! 4a) On Pi, directory /home/pi/ICC, make a backup of Solar.db e.g cp Solar.db Solar.db.old 4b) Move (drag) Solar.db.old to PC using SSH 5) type sudo chmod 755 ICC, so they match (sure 777 will work, but may have unintended result somewhere down the line). OPTIONAL STEP:5a) From SSH make a copy of Salor.db.old and rename it to Solar.db, Move (drag) Solar.db to Pi using SSH. 6) Start ICC again. ./ICC or just sudo reboot That should bring 1.1.3 alive, with all your setup/daily/weakly/monthly/yearly/lifetime data preserved. The above worked for me. Hopefully could be useful.
February 18, 20179 yr Sidewinder, thank you for this detailed upgrade description. What i did differently: I unpacked the rar using Mac: On the pi i have apple file protocol installed that allows to access the pi like any other server in the nework. This way its easy to copy files from/to pi. It seems that this method somehow changed the ICC exec file. I save (copy) the solar db once a week, would like to automate.. (i lost it once and had to reenter all the settings). Now the second time i did all tasks (unrar, etc) within pi (UX) and now it works.. Except that the machine ID changed(:<)
February 18, 20179 yr I just want to thank @Tejota for a donation for version 1.1.3. I was not expecting it. Thank you so much. Appreciated !!
February 18, 20179 yr 2 minutes ago, PeterGutti said: Except that the machine ID changed send me a PM . I will send you the key
February 18, 20179 yr Author This is how I do any upgrades: 1. Close ICC Running on Pi 2. Download the Rar file from ICC Website to your pc 3. Extract the Rar file on your pc 4. Start WinSCP on your pc and locate the extracted files on you pc 5. Locate the ICC folder on your Pi 6. Select only the ICC file on pc and drag the file to the ICC Pi folder 7. You get a warning that you are about to overwrite the file – Select yes, to overwrite the file 8. Start ICC on your Pi The upgrade process takes me less than a minute.
February 18, 20179 yr 8 minutes ago, Don said: This is how I do any upgrades: 1. Close ICC Running on Pi 2. Download the Rar file from ICC Website to your pc 3. Extract the Rar file on your pc 4. Start WinSCP on your pc and locate the extracted files on you pc 5. Locate the ICC folder on your Pi 6. Select only the ICC file on pc and drag the file to the ICC Pi folder 7. You get a warning that you are about to overwrite the file – Select yes, to overwrite the file 8. Start ICC on your Pi The upgrade process takes me less than a minute. I am doing the same !!
February 20, 20179 yr What does it means ?? Is this value correct? Manual says: Total amount of energy drawn from the battery The other value I think is correct: Battery Charge Energy, because at 100% SOC is total amount energy absorbed by the battery. Any explanation? Regards
February 20, 20179 yr Author Yes it is correct. You have to look at both Battery Discharge and Battery Charge Energy at the same time. It means you have a Charge Efficiency of 87.9%. When you discharge your battery bank, you will need to charge them an additional 12.1% to get it fully charged again. As an example, If you discharge your batteries 100 Ah, you will need to charge them 112 Ah to get them full charged again. The older your batteries get, and maybe including a few deep discharge cycles as you go along, the difference will become larger and larger. Your charge efficiency will continuously decrease with time, until your batteries reach the end of their life and eventually die.
February 21, 20179 yr Ok, Don. I supossed something like that. I have seen several incorrect values. Take a look: Black circle PV total cannot be zero when MPPT1 is 6544W Red circle PV Amps Total = 23 is not correct because there are 108 battery inputs amps. EmonCMS inputs are correct ---> My emoncms dashboard
February 21, 20179 yr Author Hi @Tejota, 3 hours ago, Tejota said: Black circle PV total cannot be zero when MPPT1 is 6544W You are correct. We have picked up that the PV Total Watts and PV Total Amps are not correctly displayed on the Inverte/Battery Values Tab. Manie has already fixed it and I am trying to test it, but it is raining cats and dogs here. Hopefully in the next few days we will have some sun. 3 hours ago, Tejota said: Red circle PV Amps Total = 23 is not correct because there are 108 battery inputs amps. I am not sure what you are trying to say here? What does the PV Amps have to do with Battery Amps? The Battery amps (108) x Battery Volts (55.9) = 6037 watts. On the Inverter/Battery Tab it shows 5976 watts. That is close enough for me. Just remember you have 4 inverters with 4 solar arrays. All that info is squashed and displayed in one column. The reader reads all those data values about twice a second and displays it in a loop. Those values change continuously. As you take a screen print, one of those values might just change slightly and you think it does not make sense or is not 100% correct. 3 hours ago, Tejota said: EmonCMS inputs are correct ---> My emoncms dashboard Very nice Emon dashboard Tejota. As you said, Emon inputs are correct. Those inputs come from ICC. If the Emon data values are correct, then ICC data must also be correct as well. Except the PV Watts and Amps are not displayed correctly as I explained above. If you add your individual pv array watt values, it is exactly what is displayed in the Total Watts dial.
February 21, 20179 yr 2 hours ago, Don said: raining cats and dogs here. I'll swap you a veld-fire for a rain storm. Deal?
February 21, 20179 yr Author @plonkster. Plonky, this is no joke. Yesterday it was not that bad, but today, rain non stop. We are flooding as we speak. I wish there was some way to divert some of the rain to you guys in the Cape. My PV Efficiency is taking a beating on PVOutput, but I can live with it. When your PV Watts max out on 165 watts for the day, you must know, you have some serious clouds and rain. I got this on WhatsApp today from a family member in Cape Town.
February 21, 20179 yr 4 hours ago, Don said: Hi @Tejota, You are correct. We have picked up that the PV Total Watts and PV Total Amps are not correctly displayed on the Inverte/Battery Values Tab. Manie has already fixed it and I am trying to test it, but it is raining cats and dogs here. Hopefully in the next few days we will have some sun. I am not sure what you are trying to say here? What does the PV Amps have to do with Battery Amps? The Battery amps (108) x Battery Volts (55.9) = 6037 watts. On the Inverter/Battery Tab it shows 5976 watts. That is close enough for me. Just remember you have 4 inverters with 4 solar arrays. All that info is squashed and displayed in one column. The reader reads all those data values about twice a second and displays it in a loop. Those values change continuously. As you take a screen print, one of those values might just change slightly and you think it does not make sense or is not 100% correct. Very nice Emon dashboard Tejota. As you said, Emon inputs are correct. Those inputs come from ICC. If the Emon data values are correct, then ICC data must also be correct as well. Except the PV Watts and Amps are not displayed correctly as I explained above. If you add your individual pv array watt values, it is exactly what is displayed in the Total Watts dial. Perhaps in cluster, loop values in one column are not the best shown info. If you have got two inverters you have a loop of two values, then it may be OK, but 4 loop values in one column not.
February 21, 20179 yr Author I agree with you @Tejota. If I was you, I would not even try and look at that column, it will just confuse you. I get confuse just looking at data for 2 inverters. If you have 6 inverters, even worse. That is why Manie split the inverters in the Cluster Info Tab. But even there is not enough space to show all the inverter data. Maybe Manie can have a look at showing data per inverter over 2 lines to show all the data, but I am not sure if it can be done or if there is enough space to do that? At this stage the only way you have access to all the data is in Emon, per inverter.
February 21, 20179 yr Are black circle values correct? Battery Info yes, but inverter value Battery Output Amps must be similar to Battery Amps Load from BMV700.
February 26, 20179 yr Just downloaded 1.1.3, this was my ICC run time before I shut down the old version. Quite impressive stability me thinks!
March 17, 20179 yr For users of ICC-Pi who want to run their software from a USB disk, here is a link to an explanation that I found on the internet. https://www.maketecheasier.com/boot-up-raspberry-pi-3-external-hard-disk/ I have not tried it yet so cannot say if all is correct but it seems worth a try.
March 17, 20179 yr Another way to do it is to use u-boot. The nice thing about u-boot is it can read the extended filesystem used by linux, so you can load the kernel from the hard-drive. It can even boot over the network (using the usual dhcp/bootp and tftp).
April 29, 20179 yr ICC fails after about 200 hrs: Fatal IO error 11: Recource unavailable. See attached image. No action whatsoever on the server during the time of failure. I just restarted ICC (using regina rexx) and everything was ok again.
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