Hi all

 

My recently installed kodak 5kva vmiii fan does not switch off automatically regardless of load. Max loads l have put on is 400w (standard fridge, freazer, tv and decorder) but the fan blazes on even when there is no load. At night l have to restart the unit to get it to start turning on and off automatically. Is this normal? 

 

I have also noticed an EEPROM fault warning on the watchpower app. What causes this and how is this fault cleared? 

The firmware version on U1 is 41.30

 

Your help will be greatly appreciated. 

7 hours ago, Blessing said:

My recently installed kodak 5kva vmiii fan does not switch off automatically regardless of load. Max loads l have put on is 400w (standard fridge, freazer, tv and decorder) but the fan blazes on even when there is no load. At night l have to restart the unit to get it to start turning on and off automatically. Is this normal? 

I don't own a VM III, but it definitely doesn't sound normal. It sounds like one of the tasks has crashed; hence the recovery when restarted.

7 hours ago, Blessing said:

I have also noticed an EEPROM fault warning on the watchpower app. What causes this and how is this fault cleared? 

That could be significant. There is a warning bit for EEPROM faults. It does not display on the LC Display, but there is a field in the QWS command (query warning status?) for it (the last digit, as it happens). Also in QPIWS, which is documented, but it just says "EEPROM fault".

It can occur for four reasons:

• A checksum error; each block in the EEPROM is protected by a checksum.
• A tag error; there is a field that should read AAAA hex; if not, this is an error.
• ReadEeprom() returns non-zero; this seems to be a low level routine, so this would be timeouts, etc.
• An error occurs in IICIOCardCfg() or IICIOCardCfgRead(); these functions do low level IIC (Inter IC Communications) protocol to other chips, presumably including the EEPROM chip (it's external to the main DSP).

So here is my wild, only slightly educated guess: you have an actual problem with your EEPROM contents, or possibly the EEPROM chip itself. Maybe the constant errors cause the DSP to spend a lot of time retrying the EEPROM reads or writes. Being a VM model (Value Model), it has a processor with less horsepower than the non-VM models, so it could be that some tasks get starved of runtime, causing all sorts of problems. The fan processing, being a relatively low priority item (though it's called from BusBatProtectTask(), which is high priority), it might not be getting CPU cycles to manage the fan speed.

If I'm right, you'll need that EEPROM chip replaced, or the control board (if VMs actually have a control board) replaced. The EEPROM contains custom data that has serial number and security information, so just replacing the chip is unlikely to be successful these days (error 90 may ensue in 60 days, for example).

But you might be lucky, and it might be good hardware with somehow corrupted contents. Try resetting the unit to factory defaults (there is an option for that somewhere in Watchpower; I don't use it myself so I don't know where to find that option). That should rewrite at least some of the more commonly used blocks with correct checksums and tags, and that might fix your problem.

If not, you have to convince your supplier that you have a faulty machine that needs repair.

@Coulomb, that's a top quality response. Your knowledge of Voltronic Power inverters is absolutely amazing! Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us.

@Coulomb thanks a lot, played around with the settings, changed from ups to appliances that seems to have dealt with the EEPROM fault warning.

As for the fan, it works normally switching on and off at low speed till noon. After which it just runs at full speed and no cutting off.

On 2020/04/15 at 2:59 AM, Blessing said:

played around with the settings, changed from ups to appliances that seems to have dealt with the EEPROM fault warning.

Ah. I'd say that changing any setting wrote the whole block (block 2, where most of the user accessible settings are), and that fixed the checksum or tag error.

 

On 2020/04/15 at 2:59 AM, Blessing said:

As for the fan, it works normally switching on and off at low speed till noon. After which it just runs at full speed and no cutting off.

Oh. So the two problems aren't connected after all. It sounds like a firmware issue; complain to your supplier and see if they can get the Original Design Manufacturer (ODM, Voltronic Power) to fix it with a new version. Don't expect a solution in a hurry, though.

Edited December 23, 20205 yr by Coulomb

Dont know if you got yours fixed @Blessing @Coulomb but here is new firmware for my Inverter i believe its the same as the Kodak VMiii inverter. Fixed a lot of issues.

 

@Henry2501thanks for the update,lm however getting below message saying IAP file does not exist,are you able to assist?

trying to connect via usb on windows 10 laptop and w2hen l connect the usb laptop tells me device not recognized.

12 hours ago, Blessing said:

lm however getting below message saying IAP file does not exist,

You appear to be double clicking the UPSReflashTool.exe file inside the .7z archive; you can't do that. What that does is extract that one file, copy it to a temporary directory, and run it on its lonesome. It needs its DLL files, and it seems also the InvConfigFile.ini file.

Just extract the whole folder, and run the executable with all its other files.