Megarevo RxLNA Discussion

[jsmetalcraft]

Ok, I just updated also.
Learn by my mistakes:
1- Use a laptop or find a different power source for your PC. My laptop would not connect. Ran a long USB from Desktop to inverter. The instant you hit upgrade the inverter shuts off. Well so did my Desktop. Sigh of relieve when I was able to recover. LCD screen was blank
2- I had to move the files to the root directory. Would not upgrade from a folder. Example C:Hybrid_app.

I will report what I find different later but not expecting much.
Edit: check your settings. Some are reset from what you had previous. Still so cluncky. Had to reboot to get out of EPS mode. Now does not see the battery..........pulling my hair out.

 

[NCSolarGarage]

I updated mine from a laptop. I also had file not found error with the files in the program directory. Moving them to root fixed the issue, as you mentioned. I have not had any battery issues yet, and I'm happy to report that the data stream has not frozen yet

 

[Wet1]

Did they remove the 5:30am self test shutdown, or at least alow the user to turn it off?

 

[NCSolarGarage]

I haven't seen a setting to do so, and my cameras reboot at 5:30ish so I assume it's that

 

[jsmetalcraft]

Did they remove the 5:30am self test shutdown, or at least alow the user to turn it off?

Mine shut down right at dawn as before for the 5 minutes. I also have not had the data stream shut down, yet. knock on wood. That and maybe a bit better synce with the grid are the only things I have noticed improved.

The battery issue seemed to resolve after about 20 minutes.

 

[jsmetalcraft]

Here is something interesting that I have not seen before the upgrade. Been raining most all day so I have been sipping off the battery.
Think I was down to 27% SOC. Stopped raining and sun is in and out. Pulling in over 4kw and charging with 115 amps. Not sure what is going on but started to do this after I changed the charge current from 70 amps to 115.

 

[MNRosado]

Looks like something is limiting your PV production, could be the battery hitting its charge limit and causing the BMS to slowing charge or shutting down, which would hinder solar production. This is only a guess. It can also be solar edging from the clouds.

 

[jsmetalcraft]

Looks like something is limiting your PV production, could be the battery hitting its charge limit and causing the BMS to slowing charge or shutting down, which would hinder solar production. This is only a guess. It can also be solar edging from the clouds.

I do seem to have an issue with one of the arrays, but this and many other issues have surfaced with the new software. The inverter has been chugging along for a month without much issue. But I have had nothing but trouble for the last few days since the update. At this time I would say I do not recommend updating, matter of fact I would go back to the older firmware if possible. Before it was barley acceptable, but now a piece of junk. I am going to flash again to see if there is a corruption issue. Only positive I have noticed is the data has been stable sending to Solarman. This evening that has frozen up and the unit is in and out of inverting. Had an issue of "bus over volume" Not sure if that has been resolved by changing the maximum voltage because without rebooting I see no data or warnings. Rebooting is a nightmare to get it to recognize the battery, pv, and or grid.

 

[NCSolarGarage]

The "bus over voltage" error is also one I experienced. I think it has something to do with the mix of PV power & battery when the load is right at the edge of PV production, or an issue with the PV string. At least that's when I experienced it.

It was early in the morning, so load was running off battery. As sun came up, PV production was right about at load consumption when the error occurred. It could be coincidence, not sure. It hasn't happened since that one time. My panel string is much below the 500V MPPT maximum so I know it isn't from that.

 

[jsmetalcraft]

The "bus over voltage" error is also one I experienced. I think it has something to do with the mix of PV power & battery when the load is right at the edge of PV production, or an issue with the PV string. At least that's when I experienced it.

It was early in the morning, so load was running off battery. As sun came up, PV production was right about at load consumption when the error occurred. It could be coincidence, not sure. It hasn't happened since that one time. My panel string is much below the 500V MPPT maximum so I know it isn't from that.

I think I narrowed it down to a problem with array or it could even be a tracker. I shut off the suspected array yesterday morning and it ran all day without issue. Can conclude "bus over Vol" is on the DC side. I am running at 300 volts.

The array in question the other morning was at 85v while the other identical array was 275v. But later in the morning the voltage came up and it actually producing 100+ watts more then other array. Running 4s2p, and when I disconnected one set of series the voltage seemed to jump to 275v. Been putting up hay so not much time to investigate further.

So with that said I may have to revise my opinion on the new software. Maybe there is something new that makes the system more sensitive to bus voltages?

 

[jsmetalcraft]

With the suspect array turned off I am still getting these quick shut downs of the PV.





The 1 minute spike of the EPS is the basement lights. I went down and disabled the "Leak Detection". It might eliminate the reboot each morning for 5 minutes as shared in another thread.

 

[jsmetalcraft]

View attachment 98841

 

[flygeek]

Well, I have to file this firmware upgrade as a frustrating failure. I got the versions to ARM v1.03.11 and DSP to v1.04.09 but then on restart, the unit wouldn't reconnect to the Grid - says that it's "grid low freq." So, I went from a functioning unit of PV, Battery, and Grid that was doing all the right things (except sending data properly to the Solarman site) to one that's not so useful.

I saw that @jsmetalcraft mentioned he'd had to reboot to get out of EPS mode, however, I was able to get my unit into a bricked state where the DSP firmware displayed as v0.00.00. Had to re-upload the firmware to fix it.

Anybody else done an upgrade (besides jsmetalcraft) and had it be stable?

 

[NCSolarGarage]

I am upgraded and running stable. However, I am not currently using grid input, just PV and a DIY LiFePO4 battery.

 

[flygeek]

I decided to poke around the firmware code and see what I could find (yes, all the typos are in there). Feeling a little weirded out that it's built on somebody's desktop using old compiler versions. The developer's nickname is xuejd and if you search on LinkedIn, you'll find him there - but as a general manager: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jiliang-wu-1707b7b0/

What I am finding is that the hardware is actually really quite good (minerva's experience notwithstanding), if you take apart the Megarevo everything is well designed and using solid technology, including the controller (seems to be a Texas Instruments platform - but at least 5-10 years old).

There are two technology subsystems at play here (the DSP platform and the ARM platform - which you see in the firmware versions). The DSP platform is Texas Instruments TMS320C2000 (or STMicroelectronics clone) (https://www.ti.com/sc/docs/products/dsp/c2000/24feat.htm) and seems to be what is used to monitor power and frequency and all the lower-level functions of the inverter. It also provides the firmware flash updating capability.

The other subsystem is the interface and display controller and seems to be based on the TI Concerto (Cortex-M3 platform) platform and this is using FreeRTOS (https://www.freertos.org/index.html) which has been around a very long time and is very stable.

The actual ARM subsystem code written by Megarevo for controlling the inverter only seems to be two C program files (once you filter out all the FreeRTOS includes). Having been in software for far too long, it feels like the embedded systems folks that built the inverter kinda whipped up the customer interface on a Windows desktop and update it on an as needed basis.

At the end of the day, the shit still needs to work and Megarevo really does need to step up their customer support.

 

[flygeek]

I've tried rebooting a bunch of times, but I still can't get it to fire up properly on the grid. Still get an 08: grid low freq error after the upgrade. I've turned off PV and Battery.
When I navigate through the status menus, I see:

GRID: 60.00Hz
L1: 125.9V. 0.1A
L2: 125.8V 0.1A

The freq does vary from 59.99 to 60.03Hz over the course of a few minutes. I tried bumping up the FAC-MAX from 60.0 to 60.1 but no dice. FAC-MIN is 42.0 Hz (default).

Yet, the unit registers taking some power from the grid.

POWER
GRID L1: -7W
GRID L2: -7W

Note: somebody earlier asked if there is an easy way to reboot the system. In the 'stream' package for updating the firmware, if you click the 'reboot' button, it'll reboot right away.

 

[jsmetalcraft]

Well disabling the "Leak Detection" did not stop the 5 minute test the Inverter goes through every morning.

 

[flygeek]

Alright, some progress. I decided to navigate through the menu tree and see what I could flip to try and clear the "08: Grid Low Freq" error. There is a setting: Setup > Grid Setup and you can change the locale for the the grid. I flipped it from US_CA to CUSTOM and I heard a click and the EPS and Alert lights went out. I then flipped it back to US_CA and the lights stayed off.

Going to watch the data over the next day or so and see if all behaves.

 

[fromport]

Alright, some progress. I decided to navigate through the menu tree and see what I could flip to try and clear the "08: Grid Low Freq" error. There is a setting: Setup > Grid Setup and you can change the locale for the the grid. I flipped it from US_CA to CUSTOM and I heard a click and the EPS and Alert lights went out. I then flipped it back to US_CA and the lights stayed off.

Going to watch the data over the next day or so and see if all behaves.

Progress, and even with (clicking) sounds! I like that! ;-)

 

[jsmetalcraft]

Alright, some progress. I decided to navigate through the menu tree and see what I could flip to try and clear the "08: Grid Low Freq" error. There is a setting: Setup > Grid Setup and you can change the locale for the the grid. I flipped it from US_CA to CUSTOM and I heard a click and the EPS and Alert lights went out. I then flipped it back to US_CA and the lights stayed off.

Going to watch the data over the next day or so and see if all behaves.

So beings your a bit more educated in these and electronics, what is your opinion on the processing part of this inverter? More then Up to the task, will do the task, or it has to work hard to keep up? Just seems at times it struggles with tasks. Maybe the way the software is written.

Sounds like you need a job at Megarevo or do like China does and reverse engineer and write your own. LOL