Using the Universal grid charger

[bluesight]

Mike,

I did notice that in the SETUP screen, the HTML Report File Path is fixed at a location on your computer. That seems odd and it would not be a location found on my computer. Probably not the basic problem yet...though it is one thing that could throw a File Not Found error.

I tried to change it on the setup screen but didn't seem to have much luck. After exit it came back to your path.

B

[Mike Dabrowski 2000]

Thanks for the feedback. I tried it on another xp machine last night with the same file error, so I have 2 machines I can use to get past this file issue, as well as you people that are testing.
let me give it some time today and lets see if it is something silly like a configuration when I do the build.
I also want to do that video showing what it is supposed to do, so you testers can know what that looks like.
Never a dull moment.

[Mike Dabrowski 2000]

Hurray! Think I found the file problem, will try to get a new version up over the weekend along with the video.

Just bought a perfect little heater for winter charging from Lowe's

Shop Optimus Portable Fan Heater with Thermostat at Lowes.com

Works pretty well. I got the one with oscillating base.

[bluesight]

I could not find some long unused space heaters that I thought I had stored away, so I also went looking for a heater for my coming winter conditioning cycle. I found something similar to and a little cheaper than the one at Lowe's.These are at Menards (mainly located in the cold midwest):

Fan Heater With Thermostat

Fortunately, I eventually found my "lost" heaters, so I didn't have to spend the $10...

B

Originally Posted by Mike Dabrowski 2000

...

Just bought a perfect little heater for winter charging from Lowe's

Shop Optimus Portable Fan Heater with Thermostat at Lowes.com

Works pretty well. I got the one with oscillating base.

[bluesight]

I set up my '02 Insight in prep for a "fall" conditioning cycle (initial soak with 3 discharge/charge cycles). Temps will be fairly good through Tuesday (mostly above 40 overnight), so with the space heater I'm hoping things will work OK. I probably won't start until late today (maybe 6PM) so the soak can go overnight and I can watch a little bit of the transition to discharge in the morning at about 9AM. I have a raw RS232 data logger on my notebook to collect data (from Serial Data Logger - save serial data as a text with free RS232 COM Port Logger ). If the GC logger is available, I can use that. Otherwise, I hope there might be a way to get the raw data from the RS232 logger into LabView some time in the future.

B

[Mike Dabrowski 2000]

Will be interested to see how well the serial datalogger works.
Still have some serial issued with the Labview datalogger, but at least the file part is working.

[bluesight]

Here is the file (removed) the RS232 data logger collected while doing a test setup. Not much (if any) actual data.
B

Originally Posted by Mike Dabrowski 2000

Will be interested to see how well the serial datalogger works.
Still have some serial issued with the Labview datalogger, but at least the file part is working.

[Mike Dabrowski 2000]

After getting your feedback on the error 7 file issues, and knowing it was not the machine but the program causing the crash, I got everything working on my little notebook running XP.

I am datalogging a charge right now, and all seems to be ok.

http://99mpg.com/Data/resources/down...datalogger.zip

http://99mpg.com/Data/resources/down...uff/config.zip


Download the two zip files, and after unziping them, run the setup program on first the datalogger. Once that is installed, install the config, but when it ask for the directory to install in, chose the same directory as the datalogger instead of the one suggested.

The config program will up running, and will find and display all the com ports. Once that happens, plug in the USB serial adapter, and after the computer recognizes the device, the system identifier for the device will pop up on the list of ports. Use the select port for Charger arrows to make the new port show in the GC COM PORT window.
Press the SET button >1 and it will lock that port selection.
Next press the >2 to select a directory to place the datalog files.
Press >4+5 to write the datalog file, and then press >4+5 again to see that the correct config info is stored. Close the config program, and as long as you plug the USB adapter into the same physical location, and are happy with the datalog directory, you will not need to run config again.
The Serial device needs to be plugged into the PC when you first run the Datalogger, and you don't want to pull it out while the datalogger is running, or you will hang the computer. The config program opens running, but the datalogger needs you to click the little black run arrow to get it to run.
I am going to start the video instructions next, but I expect that most will be able to start playing with it before I get that finished.
The DATA tab is a good one to start with. If you have the charger turned on and the serial plugged in, you can press the get all data blue button on the top upper right of the data tab, and it should ask the charger to sent the 6 pages of cycle data, the Tech variables, the user variables, and fill in all the blanks,
You can refresh the daya with the two controls that say send eeprom R/W, and send command buttons after using the drop down menus to select what you want to see. The top send EEprom lets you read and write new data to any of the variables, change the options. The graph tab is where the datalog serial is shown in real time as it is being generated. If you set the charger to serial always, and 5 sec serial, it will send the current data to the charger every 5 seconds so you can confirm it is working.
The scales on the graph can be changed by clicking on the bottom or top values and entering new values, so you can rescale things on the fly.
The charger can be setup, started, stopped paused, the chart cleared from this tab as well.
Now that I have the procedure for generating the run time down, I will work on cleaning up the user interface, and getting the windows to behave better.
Hope to hear that you guys have it working, so please give it a try.

[bluesight]

Mike,

I am installing the new software to try a cycle at around 6PM (central). I ran a 15 minute portion of the soak precharge just to test my RS232 logger and I got a file that looks a little strange. It seems to have stopped charging at high current some ways in. Then the battery voltage started dropping. But since I don't really know how to interpret this (added note: it looks like it drops to maintenance charge for the start of the soak period...seemed pretty quick), I thought I would put it up in case you are interested. If you do look at it, let me know if things look OK. Otherwise I will just start things going and hope for the best...

Thanks
B

[bluesight]

The new versions of config and datalogger installed OK and appeared to run basically OK. You need to know about the internal labview name for the com ports (com1 is ASLR1 for me).

Started running the datalogger kind of blind, but found how to set to continuous run (hopefully correct) and to read my settings (in SETUP). In GRAPH mode, it appears to be showing the charging graph. So hopefully it will do what it should for the next 3 days (or whatever). I'll look in from time to time this eve, and then hopefully at 9AM tomorrow I can watch it switch from soak to discharge. Want to see that shop light glow...

B