5 minutes ago, Plaashaas said:

Thank you all for you patience and help. I will go try EVERYTHING suggested and if that fails, take the inverter off and back to supplier. 

Good luck, if you succeed come back and post so others can use that as a guide

I had the same problem with the USB Serial Adapter where it cannot open port. Since i had a USB to USB OTG adapter from a tablet, I resorted to the USB flash technique, which was so easy. Copy dsp.hex to flash drive, then insert into inverter. While inverter is running normally, press top left button for 3 seconds, then press top left button again to choose upgrade, then press middle left to choose yes. Then wait like 10min, there is no progress indicator, inverter will reboot when it done. If it doesn't then press top left button again, and wait. I believe you have to make sure your Remote unit is running at least 2.2.

I used this method for a Mecer King and two Kodak Kings in parallel.

When i flashed a Kodak King, I initially got error 32 (communication interrupted) after it rebooted, I then reflashed using USB again, and it then worked.

Edited August 2, 20205 yr by flower
Additional information

Weber and I are considering a fully patched Axpert King (PIP-5048MK) firmware at some point. But this is a lot of work, and it would have to be community tested, since we don't have Kings to work with or test on. With the rapid change in King main (DSP) firmware, we don't want to start this, only to have it obsoleted, and/or have to do it all again to a new version.

So we want to wait till the worst of the bugs we don't know how to fix (such as PV dips and freezes) are fixed, and there isn't a new version every few weeks to cater for new battery models with BMS. Forum readers will be in the best position to judge when the firmware is stable. Is 71.92 this stable version yet? Is 71.93 better?

For example: I've not heard much about the PV dips and freezes lately. Is that because it's fixed? If so, does anyone know what version it was fixed in?

18 hours ago, Coulomb said:

Weber and I are considering a fully patched Axpert King (PIP-5048MK) firmware at some point

This is great news. 

18 hours ago, Coulomb said:

and it would have to be community tested

I have 4 Kings, 3 in parallel and 1 as a semi-online spare mainly used as a battery charger .  I would be very happy to help with the testing when you get there.

18 hours ago, Coulomb said:

Forum readers will be in the best position to judge when the firmware is stable. Is 71.92 this stable version yet? Is 71.93 better?

In the absence of release notes it is difficult to know where they have made changes.  My control system is also constantly evolving so I notice new issues that had perhaps always been there but not detected by me.  My list of issues/bugs is too long too include here (and to be fair I suspect that many of them occur only in paralleled setups) - perhaps one needs a "sticky" thread to log/keep track of  firmware versions and associated bugs?

Much as I would love to see a patched version, my gut feel is that the current firmware needs to evolve a lot before it could be called stable.  Whether Voltronic will ever get around to doing that is another question altogether....

Hi @Coulomb @weber

I see that you've done a lot of work for the PV community, namely when comes to improving firmware of a numerous Voltronic Axpert inverters. I noticed, that you're giving your time for free and also do not posses a sample of Axpert King, which greatly limits your ability to continue with the firmware testing and development.

Although I'm not personally using any Axpert, I am a big fan of self-sustainability and renewable energy sources. Therefore, I'd like to help you a bit:

• I am publicly offering you a one-time sponsorship of 1000 USD, so you will be able to obtain necessary Axpert King sample.
• There's just one condition: you will include me as a HW sponsor in the Readme.txt file of all the future releases of Axpert King patched firmware.

If you do agree, just send me your PayPal address in a PM.

This is not a joke.
Youda

@Youda You sir are a gentleman! 

Maybe a gofundme page? I am sure others share your sentiments. 

1 hour ago, Plaashaas said:

Maybe a gofundme page?

An excellent idea: Despite @Youda's extremely generous offer, I personally would happily also contribute.

Edited August 6, 20205 yr by Calvin
Grammar...

17 hours ago, Youda said:

I am publicly offering you a one-time sponsorship of 1000 USD, so you will be able to obtain necessary Axpert King sample.

That's extremely kind of you, @Youda; thank you. Especially as you don't personally have an interest in the King.

17 hours ago, Youda said:

There's just one condition:

Of course.

18 hours ago, Calvin said:

my gut feel is that the current firmware needs to evolve a lot before it could be called stable.

So let's not do anything unless or until the firmware is stable. Then we can re-evaluate. I've mentioned this to Weber, and he agrees with accepting your offer (if still available) only when the firmware is stable.

On 2020/07/31 at 11:59 AM, Plaashaas said:

Thank you all for you patience and help. I will go try EVERYTHING suggested and if that fails, take the inverter off and back to supplier. 

Did you come right? 

 

I was having the same problem, however mine was occurring in the parallel setup, so the one updated correctly but the other point blank refused. 

i eventually pulled the battery fuses, let the inverter restart and the viola it managed to create a connection and i could update. 

Good morning @Coulomb

yes, of course, the sponsorship offer i still valid

Personally, I have InfiniSolar in my setup, but I have a past experience with an Axpert too and I know that it's a good value for the money. Since thousands of people all around the world are using Axpert flavours, it makes me a sense to support the improvement of the machine.

While the logic about waiting for a stable firmware first is reasonable, I would say that it might be a bit uncomfortable for you and @weber to come back to me later and say "Hey Youda, the firmware looks stable now, please send us the funds." That's the situation I do not want to put you in. Therefore, I would prefer to fund you right now. I perfectly understand that you will wait a month or two with the actual HW purchase, and I am okay with that. Like I said before - there are no other conditions, nor strings attached.

I will PM you right now....

8 minutes ago, Blowdart18 said:

Did you come right? 

 

I was having the same problem, however mine was occurring in the parallel setup, so the one updated correctly but the other point blank refused. 

i eventually pulled the battery fuses, let the inverter restart and the viola it managed to create a connection and i could update. 

@Blowdart18

 

Not yet. I have used 3 different laptops and an old desktop, all with 2 different USB>Serial cables. Managed to get another cable I will be trying this weekend. If that fails I will take the unit to supplier. 

Mine is also parallel setup although at this stage I am just running of one. 

15 minutes ago, Youda said:

That's the situation I do not want to put you in.

@Youda you are a scholar and a gentleman.

13 minutes ago, Plaashaas said:

all with 2 different USB>Serial cables

Hi @Plaashaas,

Like so many here, I have also had many heart-stopping moments flashing new firmware onto my Kings.  I have tried both USB OTG and USB serial adapters with limited success, often resulting in me thinking that I have "bricked" my inverter.  Since I have started using a hardware RS232 port in my PC I have had no issues.

The current state of your inverter was probably caused by an update of the display unit that failed due to a bad USB-serial adapter.  It is however my strong impression that a poor USB-serial adapter is not the cause of what you are now experiencing.

It seems to me that:

1. If there is no serial port on the PC, or it is in use, the programming tool will not show a COM port at all in the drop-down.  If you click Update it comes back with "Cannot find serial port".
2. If there is a port shown in the drop-down,  it means the serial port is present and not in use.
3. If you get the "Can not open serial port step 1" message it means that the PC is not getting the correct response from the inverter.  This will also happen if the serial cable is not connected to the inverter at all.
4. The problem of the update starting, and then hanging up after some minutes is the one caused by a poor USB serial adapter.
5. If you cannot see a countdown on the LCD on power-up, it probably means that the display unit is faulty/bricked. 

If I understand correctly you are struggling with "Can not open serial port step 1", and suspect that this will not be solved by using different cables.

If you can see a countdown, I would try:

1. Power down completely (as @Blowdart18 suggested).
2. Connect to batteries (only), with inverter switched off.
3. Switch on inverter.  
4. Click on update (no delay - it tries for 15 seconds).
5. Now, if it starts and fails at some point, you have a USB serial adapter issue.

If you cannot see a countdown:

1. Try re-flashing the display unit.
2. Try swopping the display units.
3. Take it back to the supplier.

Good luck.

 

9 minutes ago, Calvin said:

Hi @Plaashaas,

1. If you get the "Can not open serial port step 1" message it means that the PC is not getting the correct response from the inverter.  This will also happen if the serial cable is not connected to the inverter at all.

 

Yes this exactly the problem

10 minutes ago, Calvin said:

 

1. If you cannot see a countdown on the LCD on power-up, it probably means that the display unit is faulty/bricked. 

 

Yes the display is off/dead but I am sure it took the 2:49 update.

11 minutes ago, Calvin said:

If you cannot see a countdown:

1. Try re-flashing the display unit.
2. Try swopping the display units.
3. Take it back to the supplier.

Good luck.

Will try everything in that order. Thx

Dear Webber, Coulomb Im a Youda´s friend hopefully, disponing with 3 parallel axpert kings and 14 kW in jinko pannels. I have 3 PIP 5048MK in one phase configuration,
If you are interested in some tests, I may "borrow my machines" to be tested in my lab.

I would say no problems with freezing, I have as I can remember all inverters with 71.80 version on all of them in parallel. I dont know how many times during day PF freezes but I cant see too much drops on PV.  my PIPs are feeding my house more less all the year.
I understood one thing if load reject for example 2 kW from load of the inverter, sometimes if charged battery I do have the PV cut of by the inverter,  maybe due to battery cant suck more power into it, and DC volts rise up rapidly, then disconnection of PV may occur.
Does anyone found this?

by the way this 2020 year it generated more less 6 MWh in total begining 1.1.2020 

In case of any testing of firmware by Weber or coulob is needed, I can offer inverter.

Regards Vit

1 hour ago, vitecekmatrka said:

I have 3 PIP 5048MK in one phase configuration,
If you are interested in some tests, I may "borrow my machines" to be tested in my lab.

In case of any testing of firmware by Weber or coulob is needed, I can offer inverter.

Thanks. We will not be able to test paralleling of Kings, and perhaps 10% of the patches relate to paralleling, as we have to modify some of the CAN packets that are sent between master and slaves. So testing by people like you that have paralleled machines is needed. Someone with 3 machines is even better; two can be testing the paralleling, and if it doesn't work, you still have one to take the house loads while you restore the firmware to a known good version.

7 minutes ago, Coulomb said:

Thanks. We will not be able to test paralleling of Kings, and perhaps 10% of the patches relate to paralleling, as we have to modify some of the CAN packets that are sent between master and slaves. So testing by people like you that have paralleled machines is needed. Someone with 3 machines is even better; two can be testing the paralleling, and if it doesn't work, you still have one to take the house loads while you restore the firmware to a known good version.

Let me send a message if anything to be tested by me. I can try even I have a chance to feed house by national grid, so no worries about feeding
V. 
 

On 2020/07/19 at 11:26 PM, Coulomb said:

For main firmware, you can also use a USB On-The-Go cable to a flash drive with just dsp.hex on it. I don't believe that the same will work for the remote display firmware, though I don't know why. I suspect it can be done, but there may be a wrinkle that the first users didn't realise.

I came across the DSP firmware updating code in the removable display firmware yesterday. It's moderately complex. There is a lot of handshaking, state changing, changing of bit rate, and so on.

It made me realise that there is no way that a King or any other model with a removable display can have its display update its own firmware via a USB drive. [ Edit: was poorly written; it sounded like I was saying you can't update main firmware, which you clearly can. Sigh. ] The bootstrap loader [ edit: in the removable display as well as the one in the main firmware ] is usually designed to be very minimal, so that there are few if any bugs in it, and hence it never has to be updated.

When performing a DSP flash update using the OTG USB cable, the remote display firmware is doing all this (handshaking etc.); when using the ReflashTool on a PC, the reflash tool is doing all this.

When the remote display is updating its own firmware, it can't be using its own flash code to do all this; it has to rely on the ReflashTool on the PC.

So sadly, the remote display firmware will always have to be updated from a Windows PC.

I don't even know if the Bluetooth firmware can be updated at all. I assume that the SCC firmware can be updated from a PC, as with the Axpert MKS models, though I've not seen evidence of this so far.

[ Edit 2021/Sep: The SCC firmware can probably be updated by replacing the removable display cable with a special, unusually wired cable to a USB to serial adapter connected to a Windows PC. I've not come across any SCC firmware since about 2015, nor seen any document on how this should be done, so the point is moot. ]

[ Edit September 2021: reworded my second paragraph; it was very misleading. Thanks to Weber for pointing that out. ]

Edited September 7, 20214 yr by Coulomb

So yesterday I added another us3000b (4 now in total) and updated the remote display and DSP firmware to 2.49 and 71.92.Today i've noticed my king seems to have an issue keeping track of how many batteries I have. It shows on the remote display any number from 1 to 4 randomly! My battery charge limit changes between 30A and 140A randomly too, causing my solar not to run at its full potential. Not sure if this is a Battery BMS issue or a Inverter issue. Anybody else experiencing this ? 

40 minutes ago, RichieRich said:

So yesterday I added another us3000b (4 now in total) and updated the remote display and DSP firmware to 2.49 and 71.92.Today i've noticed my king seems to have an issue keeping track of how many batteries I have. It shows on the remote display any number from 1 to 4 randomly! My battery charge limit changes between 30A and 140A randomly too, causing my solar not to run at its full potential. Not sure if this is a Battery BMS issue or a Inverter issue. Anybody else experiencing this ? 

@RichieRich,

What was your previous main firmware version?  Did everything work correctly with it?

I have 71.93 if you want to give it a try.  PM me if you want me to send you the files.

@Calvin

My previous firmware was 71.76 and 2.00. Is the BMS info processed by the DSP or Remote display ?

See next post.

Edited August 8, 20205 yr by Calvin
duplicated..

1 minute ago, RichieRich said:

@Calvin

My previous firmware was 71.76 and 2.00. Is the BMS info processed by the DSP or Remote display ?

My impression is that most of the BMS processing is done by the display, but @Coulomb may be able to confirm?

9 minutes ago, RichieRich said:

Is the BMS info processed by the DSP or Remote display ?

The removable display. Weber pointed out to me that there was already a remote display for the Axpert MKS models, so we should call it the removable display. Although Voltronic call it the remote display in places.

The removable display sends a handful of commands to the DSP, with the removable display firmware doing 99% of the "legwork". But they have to agree on those commands, so that's why the DSP and RD firmware have to be compatible versions.

On 2020/08/08 at 10:57 AM, RichieRich said:

So yesterday I added another us3000b (4 now in total) and updated the remote display and DSP firmware to 2.49 and 71.92.Today i've noticed my king seems to have an issue keeping track of how many batteries I have. It shows on the remote display any number from 1 to 4 randomly! My battery charge limit changes between 30A and 140A randomly too, causing my solar not to run at its full potential. Not sure if this is a Battery BMS issue or a Inverter issue. Anybody else experiencing this ? 

I'm having the same issue.  The battery charging amps would continously drop to 30 and then back to 100 amps.  The screen from today looks much better than previous days, will post another tomorrow when the system is under a bit more load