Hi,

I'm working on getting some of the wishlist stuff into a 1.3 version.

So far I have:

<UL TYPE=SQUARE><LI>Expanded to 8 comm ports
<LI>Fixed having to restart fishbowl on port changes to work on new port
<LI>selectable disk writing intervals
</UL>

I know folks want a end of day total , but I need input on what you would like and if it should be at the end of the log file or in a secondard file

So heres your chance to get some added features ... maybe [img]images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] [img]images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

Also I'll need a few folks to Beta Test it before I release it to Xantrex , so speak up and email me if your interested.

Thanks

Henry [img]images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] [img]images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

[ April 10, 2003: Message edited by: Solar Guppy ]

The list of new features sound good so far.

I'm assuming that logging with longer intervals won't result in a loss of precision. Fishbowl will integrate appropriately. For power output this is straightforward. However what is the correct thing to report for the other fields, for example frequency or voltage? A simple average would certainly be fine but the instaneous value can also make sense.

For the display an interpretation status codes (like low PV voltage).

A high/low display for the various other parameters (like frequency and AC volts). Low is a little tricky because the it goes all the way to zero when the sun sets.

I would observe that temperature is displayed graphically. Would it make more sense to do this this with power output?

I haven't had any midday events that I'm aware of so this feature could exist already but it would be nice if the display maintained a mini log of interesting events, like grid being out of spec.

Sign me up for the beta.

arnold

The machine that I plan to use for Fishbowl is an old 133 Mhz laptop with a 800x600 color display and an almost full 2 Gig hard disk. It consumes about 15 watts (measured -the wallwart says 60 watts). As it will be dedicated to Fishbowl, it may as well run full screen. As a full screen app, it would be nice to be able to select an item to display in large numbers that fill the top half of the display (usually the current watts).

The machine will be next to the inverter, out in the garage. If you maintain the current status in a file (or maybe flip/flop between 2 files), a remote copy of Fishbowl could display the current status. I've currently got three machines, a printer, and web access router networked. The three machines are used intermittently, while the Fishbowl machine will be simply left on all the time. I'd like to be able to call up a remote copy of Fishbowl, and yet display the currently accumulated data from the always-on copy.

For version 3 (optimistic, aren't I?), how about a graph of the current day's production. Maybe overlay the current day over yesterday's, or maybe the theoretical production curve, given the day of the year, panel orientation, panel tilt, etc. The data maintained should be sampled/averaged over maybe 10 minute intervals - one second is way too much data for such trend data.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Solar Guppy:

I know folks want a end of day total , but I need input on what you would like and if it should be at the end of the log file or in a secondard file.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I would like to see it in a separate file that gets appended to each day. Basically, just a few fields like the date and daily total. That would make it very easy to create a graph.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Arnold de Leon:
I would observe that temperature is displayed graphically. Would it make more sense to do this this with power output?

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

IMO, I think it should stay the way it is unless the numeric readout is retained.

Here's a sample graph of what I had in mind. www.caiso.com/outlook.html

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Rob Larson:
For version 3 (optimistic, aren't I?), how about a graph of the current day's production. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


Yes, I was thinking of the same thing. What I had in mind is maybe having this drawn in real time. It would also have user configurable set points. For example start time, end time and max power. This way the graph can start drawing over a predefined timeline and with the proper scale for a persons array. So for example, I might configure it (in the .ini) for 8:00am start, 6:00pm end and 800w max since those are the parameters for what I produce.

A http server would be a nice feature, it would make it easy to access the data remotely or allow others to view it.

Maybe a SNMP server as well so users could easily pull data for logging and graphing with an external program like MRTG.

Today it seems everything is network enabled. I guess in an ideal world you'd have these features available via a dedicated hardware device that plugs into the RS232 that you can hookup to your TCP/IP network. As I understand, additonal hardware is already needed for isolation. I don't know what would be involved but you see this kind of network integration all the time with print servers, managed switches, etc. Might not be cost effective on a small scale.

Steve

In the simple category:

It would be helpful if the data log format separates the date from the time in a way that makes it is easy for Excel to load them in separate columns. The current format results in the date and time being in the same column, the date is not very interesting when plotting the output for that day. The time makes a nice x-axis label.

The labels and headings can also be more Excel friendly (no blanks).

In the big wish category:

The ideas for graphers and snmp access certainly would be nice. Something like
http://www.mauisolarsoftware.com/

Trace Tools would be cool.

arnold

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Rob Larson:
The machine that I plan to use for Fishbowl is an old 133 Mhz laptop with a 800x600 color display and an almost full 2 Gig hard disk. It consumes about 15 watts (measured -the wallwart says 60 watts). As it will be dedicated to Fishbowl, it may as well run full screen. As a full screen app, it would be nice to be able to select an item to display in large numbers that fill the top half of the display (usually the current watts).

The machine will be next to the inverter, out in the garage. If you maintain the current status in a file (or maybe flip/flop between 2 files), a remote copy of Fishbowl could display the current status. I've currently got three machines, a printer, and web access router networked. The three machines are used intermittently, while the Fishbowl machine will be simply left on all the time. I'd like to be able to call up a remote copy of Fishbowl, and yet display the currently accumulated data from the always-on copy.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Ahh, this sounds familiar. I have an old laptop sitting in the garage running Fishbowl. I have a wireless network card in it so I can use remote desktop to look at the display from my machines in the house. I share the directory that holds the log file so I can use one of my other machines to manipulate the data.

arnold