23 minutes ago, Coulomb said:

You state that you followed the instructions...

I see that the latest instructions don't mention the OCX registration process (user friendly software, huh). There is a PDF file in the folder with the other SCC update files that tells you how to register the OCX. Solamahn who sometimes posts on the AEVA mentioned an assert failure; when I prompted about the OCX registration his next post stated that he "had it working now". I'll update the instructions on AEVA.

8 hours ago, Coulomb said:

I Googled this error, and came up with:

"Most likely you have a DDX call to an control ID that doesn't exist on your dialog. Did you delete anything from your dialog and not delete its associated member variable?"

(DDX is Data Exchange, old Microsoft terminology).

Poking around in the code confirms this. So most likely there is a bug in the upload code (all original manufacturer code, not patched) that is normally not invoked, so it doesn't normally get seen (and hence fixed). My guess is that it's to do with a dialog that has been removed, and that would be the one for the comm port. I think they had a lot of trouble getting the code to work with a selectable comm port, and thought to hell with it, we'll always use COM1 and make the user change their comm ports to be COM1. Then they forgot to delete some code that references the now deleted comm port.

You state that you followed the instructions... did you somehow forget to change your USB to serial's device to COM1? This applies only to the SCC firmware updating; the DSP firmware (72.70b) updating uses a totally different upload program, which allows for COM1-COM9 (but not COM10 and beyond).

Mind you, when I just tried running it with no COM1 present, it just said "Invalid port number" and didn't throw up the assert failure. So the light works fine in my office.

I tried running it from a folder with a space in the name. No assert failure.

I don't suppose you have Visual Studio (free "Express" or "Comminity edition" is fine), so you can press "Retry" and see the call trace, and post it here?

I might be wrong on this one, but when using a USB to Serial adapter on most modern laptops and (probably PC's as well), it wouldn't always default to Com1 as the first option since other devices like the trackpad, wifi card, bluetooth adapter, etc already utilize those resources - i.e. IRQ's and interrupts. And then some printer / scanner / drawing pad / etc drivers would lock the first associated  Com port for itself. a USB to serial adapter would thus generally use the first available one, where possible. So it would be better to check which com ports gets assigned, in the Device Manager, in Windows, so see which com port to use. 

5 hours ago, SilverNodashi said:

other devices like the trackpad, wifi card, bluetooth adapter, etc already utilize those resources

The 90s called, they want their serial trackpad back!

:-P

6 minutes ago, plonkster said:

The 90s called, they want their serial trackpad back!

:-P

LOL

18 hours ago, SilverNodashi said:

I might be wrong on this one, but when using a USB to Serial adapter on most modern laptops and (probably PC's as well), it wouldn't always default to Com1 as the first option since other devices like the trackpad, wifi card, bluetooth adapter, etc already utilize those resources - i.e. IRQ's and interrupts. And then some printer / scanner / drawing pad / etc drivers would lock the first associated  Com port for itself. a USB to serial adapter would thus generally use the first available one, where possible. So it would be better to check which com ports gets assigned, in the Device Manager, in Windows, so see which com port to use. 

Well, it would be better to write the upload software properly so it can use any comm port up to 99 (or whatever the practical limit is) , but that's not an option with what we're provided with. The SCC upload software is hard wired to only use com1, period. 

I've never seen Com1 in use by other hardware, it seems to be reserved unless you have a real (non-virtual) comm port. So that mitigates the forced use of com1. But with millions of Windows PCs and laptops out there, I can believe there could be exceptions. 

I don't know if the use of com1 implies certain other resources, such as IRQ vectors or memory buffers with particular addresses. But library code should be dealing with those issues automatically. 

6 hours ago, Coulomb said:

It seems to be reserved

I believe the first four com-ports are reserved, historically, for actual UARTs on the board. Giving away my age here, but that was usually IRQ=4, IO=0x3F8, and IRQ=3, IO=0x2F8. And you wanted the 16550 with the large buffer and not the 8250 that was prone to overruns...

And no... I left all that hardware in the 90s. Didn't bring any along... and I ain't going back. Pulled out the tooth with the tracking device too so they can't track me...

2 minutes ago, plonkster said:

I believe the first four com-ports are reserved, historically, for actual UARTs on the board. Giving away my age here, but that was usually IRQ=4, IO=0x3F8, and IRQ=3, IO=0x2F8. And you wanted the 16550 with the large buffer and not the 8250 that was prone to overruns...

And no... I left all that hardware in the 90s. Didn't bring any along... and I ain't going back. Pulled out the tooth with the tracking device too so they can't track me...

hmmm, if I were to guess, you would be in your late 20's? 

I think I do actually still have some working PC's with serial ports in the garage. 

@Coulomb On which ports does your PC / Laptop detect the inverter, either via USB, or serial to USB?

1 hour ago, SilverNodashi said:

hmmm, if I were to guess, you would be in your late 20's? 

Okay, let's go with that. The first machines I worked on (hardware-wise, high-school era) had one serial port, on an add-on card, a 8250. It also had two 5.25" floppy drives, 640kb RAM, and an awesome screen with 16 shades of amber, just for context. But there was at least another decade of fiddling with serial ports after that (because that is how we got on the internet, see! Internal modems sucked so badly... a proper serial modem was THE way to get online). Thankfully, by this time, most hardware had two serial ports onboard. Aaanyway, so round about the late 2000s I half-bricked a Dreambox one day and had to reload the software via serial port, which meant scrounging in the garage for the old Pentium that stil had serial ports... loading windows 98 on it "quickly" just to get the job done... and that was the day I realised serial ports are on the way out, seeing as I had to salvage hardware from the parts bin.

:-)

Just now, plonkster said:

Okay, let's go with that. The first machines I worked on (hardware-wise, high-school era) had one serial port, on an add-on card, a 8250. It also had two 5.25" floppy drives, 640kb RAM, and an awesome screen with 16 shades of amber, just for context. But there was at least another decade of fiddling with serial ports after that (because that is how we got on the internet, see! Internal modems sucked so badly... a proper serial modem was THE way to get online). Thankfully, by this time, most hardware had two serial ports onboard. Aaanyway, so round about the late 2000s I half-bricked a Dreambox one day and had to reload the software via serial port, which meant scrounging in the garage for the old Pentium that stil had serial ports... loading windows 98 on it "quickly" just to get the job done... and that was the day I realised serial ports are on the way out, seeing as I had to salvage hardware from the parts bin.

:-)

ouch, I was being a bit too modest with my compliment

My first machine was an 8086 with 2x 5.25" floppy drives. Parralel ports were used to drive "sound to light" equipment for our mobile disco. worked way better than self built of "commercial" sound to light equipment. I progresses from an 8086 to an 8088, 206, 386, 486, 586, etc, etc. Those were the fun days  Trying to play Worms or StarCraft over 14.4K was painful, yet entertaining. 

6 minutes ago, SilverNodashi said:

Trying to play Worms or StarCraft over 14.4K was painful, yet entertaining

Thankfully, by the time Starcraft came on the scene I was at university and we had at least 1mbit connectivity between all points on campus :-)

Just now, plonkster said:

Thankfully, by the time Starcraft came on the scene I was at university and we had at least 1mbit connectivity between all points on campus :-)

I never had that privilege. 

6 minutes ago, SilverNodashi said:

I never had that privilege. 

Yeah, I should check it, right? :-P

You okes were spoilt. First a Sinclair ZX 80 which you connected to a tape recorder followed by the old man's Sharp PC 3201 with 64k RAM which he spent nearly a thousand rand upgrading to 128k RAM. This was followed by Apple ][ s which were so advanced. The first IBM PCs were in a different league. A cousin of mine was in the computer industry in the 70s. He came home to farm and has not touch one since, bar drawing money from an ATM, but that hardly counts. He is adamant there is nothing a computer can do (within the confines of his needs) that he cannot do with a calculator and a pen. The computer revolution has passed him by by his own choice.

 

13 hours ago, SilverNodashi said:

 

@Coulomb On which ports does your PC / Laptop detect the inverter, either via USB, or serial to USB?

I find usually COM7 to COM9, sometimes COM5, but it depends on which USB port I plug into, the time of the day, and the phase of the moon, One Windows 7 machine from a friend of mine usually comes up with COM11 for one of the ports; so we have to change it or use another port (for DSP firmware updating). One of my ports is now locked to COM1 after trying to reproduce the SCC upload assert failure.

12 hours ago, plonkster said:

The first machines I worked on (hardware-wise, high-school era) had one serial port, on an add-on card, a 8250.

Oh. So you skipped the SC/MP, Z80 and 2650 with S100 bus, Amiga, and making your own SCSI hard drive interface? 

And get off my lawn!  

8 hours ago, Chris Hobson said:

First a Sinclair ZX 80 which you connected to a tape recorder followed by ...

That's more like it   I remember home-made cassette interfaces that worked at 1200 bps and the chip could lock onto a quarter of a cycle.
Also a DecWriter (more modern Teletype) that I hacked for 600 baud operation (300 baud standard).
Early firmware updating: cocktails Asteroids video game (6502 processor) turned into a vector graphics interface for my Z80/S100 main computer, and modifying Flight Simulator (bought on cassette tape, I think) to drive the graphics. I even hacked the database to create a canyon to fly into. Those were the days 

Um, we're not drifting off topic now, are we? 

6 hours ago, Coulomb said:

Um, we're not drifting off topic now, are we? 

That's what we do best. Giving meaningful solar advice comes in second place.

You gents are way too clever for me

I this inverter good for the 72.70b?

 

13 hours ago, fritserasmus said:

I(s) this inverter good for the 72.70b?

It sure looks good to me. But to be doubly sure, what are the two existing firmware versions (DSP, U1, and SCC, U2)?

🤦oops, got spoiled by watch power and never worked directly on inverter.
Using ICC now so have to set/read on inverter.
How do I check the versions?

Sent from my EVA-L19 using Tapatalk

@fritserasmus

Look at the user manual of your inverter. page 26. If you don't have a copy handy, go to www.voltronics.com, select your model (MKS-5k-48) or simular and download it.

If you ran Watchpower briefly, it displays the version numbers, bottom left of the main screen, from distant memory. ICC may also display them, I would not know. Don't run Watchpower and ICC at the same time, and exit Watchpower fully (from the system tray from memory), don't merely close the window. 

@Coulomb

It was not too hard for a noob to press buttons. :-)

I am used to point and click

 

The firmware versions are:

UI 72.40

U2 04.00

1 hour ago, fritserasmus said:

The firmware versions are:

UI 72.40

U2 04.00

Ok, that pretty much clinches it. You should be fine with 72.70b Pb firmware. Just make sure you don't try to set setting 02 (maximum total charge current) to 60 A or lower, or the SCC will refuse to charge from solar. You could update to SCC firmware 4.10 to fix this, but it's not essential, and SCC firmware updating is a little harder.

@CoulombThank you very much for your help and clarification.

Setting 02 for my system is set to 50A, so I am in luck