any ideas about connecting my computer to my Sunnyboy

[Other-Power]

Hello all.

I have a Sunnyboy SWR2500 and would like to connect it to my computer.

I have the piggyback device installed and have wired it up via serial connector RS-232.

I have done this as per http://www.poohbah.com/public_html/sb/sb_docs/Com_RS485.pdf

the PDF says I need some software called Sunny Data, in the trouble shouter section of the PDF, it says make sue you have Sunny Data and not Sunny Data Control,  I can not find Sunny Data software. 

Does any one use a a sunnyboy, is anyone able to communicate with it.

Any help would be great thanks.

Regards

Jonathan

[Other-Power]

Right, i have now found the Sunny Data, I will give it a go, fingers crossed.

Jonathan

[Other-Power]

Hmm no luck with that,  I think my laptop serial may be cream cracked, any body any ideas how long the detection should take?

I have used a USB to parallel adapter with good success so I could use a USB to serial and give that a go.

Any thoughts would be welcomed.

Jonathan

[davebodger]

Jonathan,
             I'm not personally familiar with the SunnyBoy but with my Soladin you have to connect whilst it's operating, as it shuts down when there is insufficient solar input.

Looking at the times of your posts, how much sun was available ?   

All the best.

Dave.

[Ted]

I have the older Sunny Boy Control Light - and this requires that the inverters are awake and producing power to connect.

[Iain]

Hi
I don't suppose you are on Vista? I had problems with Sunny Data Control and Vista.
http://www.navitron.org.uk/forum/index.php/topic,8417.msg93967.html#msg93967
Iain

[rogeriko]

You must set the baud rate of the serial port to 1200 no faster this you can do in device manager and click properties for your port

[Other-Power]

Hi there,

Thanks for the thoughts.

I had another play today.

Looks like the Piggyback device I had in the inverter was a RS485 device and not a RS232 device.

I have a RS323 device that I got from another inverter and used that once I found the correct pin out.

I have also turned off the FIFO setting for the serial port and this has all resulted in me being able to now connect to the inverter.

I have also found the installer password and can play with the parameters.

Re solar input, I have used a UPS and a bridge rectifier as the input source to wake the inverter up.

Is the MPP able to be changed at all with this age of SMA?

What is special about turbine mode?

Many thanks for the help.

Jonathan

[Ivan]

Yes, you should be able to select between 'wind turbine mode', 'mppt mode' (for PV) and 'constant voltage mode' (I suppose this is ideal for water turbines, but I've found it's also pretty good for wind)

wind mode follows a two point curve (you can set the points) and you can alter the speed of reaction of the inverter to changing turbine outputs

mppt - tracks the maximum power point of a solar array

constant voltage - varies the load to try to keep the voltage of the source at a constant level (user-defined).

I'd accidentally got my 1.32kW array on constant voltage mode for several weeks, and it didn't seem to affect the energy gain particularly.