SunBeam questions

Actually, it’s not 89.5 but rather 85. I subtract 50 from 900. I better change it to not subtract any amount to give you the full range. This will be the only change so it should be safe. It will be v1.46 and be in the server in 5 min. I’ll let you know if you want to force update.

v1.46 is now ready to download

upgraded to v1.46, everything seems to be operating correctly. thanks!

Hi Lael, good to know. Thanks!!

I didn’t see the second part your earlier post until now. Yeah, there’s no way to sync the Sun GTIL2’s time since it works similar to the LCD back light command. It’s only used by the LCD so the command is within the LCD and it’s not exposed. On the other hand, the date is sent to the control board for whatever reason. SunBeam could send its date instead but it won’t change what’s displayed on the LCD screen. Since I don’t know what the date is used for, it’s probably best not to mess with it.

That's what I suspected, thanks for the clarification. I'm really enjoying the SunBeam, it has significantly enhanced the usefulness of my old SUN1000GTL2 inverter. Also thanks for your great support!

That’s great news!! Finally! Everything should still work including the remote work timers from SunBeam. You just don’t have the one provided by the Sun1000. I can’t think of any limitations using especially the cut off voltage as an ion command. The one you set in remote control mode is saved. You basically will not see the new value of the cutoff voltage when ion is 0. It’s set to the max DC in voltage for the inverter type. Give it a good shake down and let know if you have any questions or notice anything weird.

That's great! Yes, the work timers do indeed function. And I've been bangging on the ion command, performing flawlessly so far. Not related to the SunBeam, but I'm curious if you have noticed the same inverter behavior. I noticed with the pseudo ion or bvolt command that sometimes the power output will immediately go to zero then output about 11 watts for about 30-40 seconds and return to zero watts. Nothing I'm worried about, I just found it odd.

Yeah, the initial drop to 0 happens when any command gets sent. Then for my Sun2000, it stays at about 35-40 W and remains there until I send or the LCD board sends a true ion command . I’m guessing every minute either the LCD Screen or Control Board checks to see if it is really off and if it isn’t it’ll turn it off. So wherever the original command is issued within that minute, will determine the response time. For whatever reason, I’m guessing this 2nd turn off method is dependent on if you have the work time feature.

On another note, if you do try to add the work timer feature w/o updating the control board, can you let me know if it works? If it doesn’t work, then both the real and pseudo ion commands might not work if the new work timer firmware sends the real ion commands and the control board doesn’t execute it. The reason is because I’m using the detection of real ion commands to automatically switch to real ion mode. I may have to change it so that it’s a manual selection rather than automatic in case someone tries to update w/o changing the control board and it doesn’t work.

That’s interesting. The work timer is a feature for my 2000. I believe it’s a feature of the 1000 because my manual has it and it’s for both 2000 and 1000. I did read that older ones didn’t have the work timers and they can be upgraded to have the work timer via a FW upgrade of the LCD PCB. What version is your LCD screen ? It’s on the first top line of the output screen. I think it needs to be 5.1 or higher. How old is your unit? Based on the screen captures, your unit is not sending any start or stop commands. It should be sending them once every minute. This would explain why it can’t turn off.

You want to try something. I might have figured out a way to make it work without updating the lcd scree firmware. Give me 5 minutes and I have and update for you to try. It will be 1.37. Just hit the check for update button on the debug page when I let you know and then it will upload immediately so 5 min after hitting the button you can try 1.37.

Sure! And I think the inverter was purchased in 2018, I have several of them I've acquired over the years. None appear to have a work timer feature.

Ok, thanks for trying. I was hoping that was it. I need to continue looking. I’ll keep you updated.

Hi Lael,

Can you do me a favor to help with the troubleshooting when you the chance? You should by now have FW 1.36. This version has a hidden debug page. I need you to access it by typing 10.0.1.164/dbg in your browser. I need 2 screenshots. 1 in it’s current state and another in an opposite state. Here’s what I mean by opposite state. Go to the sun1000 LCD screen and navigate to the work timers. If no work timers are enabled or an enabled one is active (known as “on”), then the opposite state would be to enable one of the timers to be outside the current time so it will try to turn off (known as “off”) and vice versa. It doesn’t matter if you’re in Built in Display or Remote Control mode or if it actually starts or stops generating as the data is the same. Just make sure the conditions to start generating is ready ie. Voltage in is above the cut off voltage, etc. Once you make the change, wait at least a minute for the change to take into affect before taking the second screen capture. In other words, one of the counters on the debug page should have incremented by at least 2 since you made the change before making the 2nd screen capture. This should tell me the exact on/off command your unit is sending. Thanks!!

Hi Lael, Yes -1 indicates it’s in LCD Screen Mode so ion status is not applicable.

I think I might have found the issue you reported with ion/start/stop generating. I found something incorrect for the start and stop commands. I was sending an extra byte. For some reason, it didn’t affect my Sun2000 but it might cause the issues you are seeing with your Sun1000. I put FW version 1.34 on the update server so you should be automatically updated within 5 hours if you’re connected to your home network and it has internet access. Try it out and please let me know how it goes. Also, this version has MQTT commands to enable and disable the remote control work timers.

Thanks, Lael. Yes, error 14 is fine. The screen capture helps. I’m still looking. I set my Sun2000 to your settings except for the cutoff voltage since I’m running using 48v batteries and it’s working fine. I do have a few questions though. If I’m understanding the symptoms correctly, everything appears to be fine except occasionally while it’s generating, the ion goes to 0. At this point, is the screen capture you sent at that instance? How often does this happen and if you select Start Generating, Save Changes, then Stop Generating and Save Changes, does it stop generating and everything is good? Also, does sending the ion command 0 never seems to work or only when there’s this discrepancy? I’m thinking the ion status somehow got out of sync with the actual state but can figure out the circumstances in which it goes out of sync. Thanks for your help in tracking this down.