There's a note in the manual not to connect to the 9-pin D connector on the STXR boxes, does anyone know if it's a serial port (maybe without level shifters?) or just a handy 9-pin connector for analog voltages?

I'm looking for as many as four grid-tie inverters, but the serial interface on the SunnyBoy really makes me lean towards those units, unless there's an easy way to log data from the STXR...

Thanks!

See this thread http://www.solar-guppy.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgibb?ubb=get_topic&f=9&t=000011 and read some of the FishBowl threads below. [img]images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Doh. Poked around some more and noticed the "Fishbowl" threads. Sounds much better! Do the inverters continually output a stream of data, or do they have to be queried?

Thanks!

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by William P N Smith:
Do the inverters continually output a stream of data, or do they have to be queried?
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Constant stream.

You get pretty much the same data on the Suntie with FishBowl and you would polling the Sunnyboys.

If your looking into a 4 inverter system I would guess your talking lots of panels and as you can see from other posters , the new suntie is an ideal canidate in the large system installs.

The only thing you MUST do is use an opto-isolator for each Suntie. I can't stress the importance of this enough !!

You can log 4 inverters off of one PC with FishBowl version 1.2 , and when I get 1.3 released , you can do 8 ... with more options

You won't regret selecting the new suntie , its a true work horse. In large systems , it WILL out perform the sunnyboy due to better thermals and TRUE 2500 watt performance

Yeah, now that I know the data stream exists, it's a lot more useful, and I'm leaning towards the STXR again!

A couple of related questions:

Anyone know of a cheap, small, rugged PC that'll allow at least 4 serial ports, draw very little power, and run FishBowl for months at a time unattended? Ethernet would be good, as I _may_ be able to harvest the data remotely, and low power consumption is pretty important!

How much data is output from the STXR in the course of a typical day? Is it Ascii, binary, or what? I'm guessing that 40K data records per day might add up pretty quickly...

Anyone have a sample CSV file of a long period of FishBowl output that I could fiddle with? I wrote a 'decimation' program in Perl to read weather data that's sampled every 10 seconds and stored every 5 minutes. It outputs individual hourly, daily, daytime, nighttime, weekly, monthly, yearly, and global data files. It would be fairly straightforward to convert it to sort thru the STXR data stream, but I need a sample of that...

Thanks!

/*
The only thing you MUST do is use an opto-isolator for each Suntie. I can't stress the importance of this enough !!
*/

I certainly understad that! One thought, if the connecting hardware hooked up to the remote meter port (which I gather supplies power, which could be used to power the opto-isolator!), then there would be much less temptation for people to use the DB9. The converter might even cover (or plug a dummy connector into) the DB9 to prevent it's use...

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by William P N Smith:
Anyone know of a cheap, small, rugged PC that'll allow at least 4 serial ports, draw very little power, and run FishBowl for months at a time unattended? Ethernet would be good, as I _may_ be able to harvest the data remotely, and low power consumption is pretty important!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, what do you consider cheap? The opto-isolators most of us are using are USB based, but cost about $90 or so each. With monitoring 4 ports, that can get pricey.

I am using a laptop running Windows XP so that I can use remote desktop to monitor from anywhere. I have set all of the power settings real low so it doesn't draw much power and it has a small footprint.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by William P N Smith:

How much data is output from the STXR in the course of a typical day? Is it Ascii, binary, or what? I'm guessing that 40K data records per day might add up pretty quickly...
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

My current logs (for one inverter) are a little over 4MB (yes that's mega)per day. But that is because Fishbowl currently logs data once per second. I beleive Henry is working on a a version that has selectable sampling intervals that should cut the size down quite a bit.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by William P N Smith:
One thought, if the connecting hardware hooked up to the remote meter port (which I gather supplies power, which could be used to power the opto-isolator!), then there would be much less temptation for people to use the DB9. The converter might even cover (or plug a dummy connector into) the DB9 to prevent it's use...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The port on the Xantrex does not supply any power. The opto-isolator needs to get it's power from the computer or external supply. The USB isolator that I am using gets power from the USB port.

However, I agree that it would have been nice if the inverter would have had isolation hardware in place already.

/*
Well, what do you consider cheap? The opto-isolators most of us are using are USB based, but cost about $90 or so each. With monitoring 4 ports, that can get pricey.
*/

Well, less than the cost of four of the Remote Meter would be a good start, and those go for $180 or so each.

/*
I am using a laptop running Windows XP so that I can use remote desktop to monitor from anywhere. I have set all of the power settings real low so it doesn't draw much power and it has a small footprint.
*/

I'm looking for something I can bolt to the wall next to the inverters and walk away from for several months at a time. Keeping a PC running 24x7 isn't always that easy, nor is it particularly low-power...