[RE-wrenches] Mate 3 lock-up

Mon Dec 19 10:56:59 PST 2016

Chris,
   They are in a heated basement so the cold isn't an issue.  I'm heading
back over there this afternoon to replace the mate 3 and see if the
batteries have crashed again.
This is the 2nd time they have been drained dead so I'm sure that they
aren't in the best of health. I will remember to get a current reading from
the batteries today.

John

On Mon, Dec 19, 2016 at 10:57 AM, Chris Schaefer <chris at solarandwindfx.com>
wrote:

> John,
> What kind of environment are the batteries in? Given that we have been
> experiencing some extreme cold as you know will kill a battery quickly.
>
> Christopher
>
> On Mon, Dec 19, 2016 at 9:49 AM, John Blittersdorf <
> john.blittersdorf at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Jay,
>>   Glad to know you have had good luck with the mate 3.  I am depending on
>> it and OpticsRE to monitor some remote sites.  The mountaintop transmitter
>> site has worked flawlessly but the main problem is keeping the internet
>> connection up there that is transmitted from another mountaintop site.  At
>> a second home remote site I saw a generator fail an exercise run on Sat and
>> called the caretaker Sunday when the system was going down.  It went off
>> line at 9 pm yesterday but it is sunny this morning and everything came
>> back on at 8 am but the caretaker will have to chain up and drive the 2
>> mile mountain road to manually reset the Eco-Gen.  It might have been the
>> last -9 degree night with 45 mile and hour winds.
>>
>>    I was able to contact Outback this morning and the magic button is the
>> UP button.  Push and hold. That will release the lock button to work, then
>> go to settings, system, then do clear internal datalog.  There have been
>> some issues with it not overwriting when memory runs out and it locks up.
>> Also he said to go back to firmware version 3.011 or older.. I will once
>> again ask the customer to consider adding solar as it would recover the
>> inverter which would charge the generator battery and at least prevent
>> battery abuse.  It is great to watch the sun heal most of the ills.
>>
>> John Blittersdorf
>> Rob Stubbins Solar
>>
>> On Sun, Dec 18, 2016 at 9:26 PM, Jay <jay.peltz at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi john
>>>
>>> I'd like to know that trick, but just unplug the cat 5 cable and
>>> reconnect.
>>> That'll work.
>>> I've not had any issues with the ags not working as planned with mate 3.
>>>
>>> But dead generator battery makes me think genny didn't start, system
>>> shut down at LBCO.
>>>
>>> But a week to take it that low, I'd suspect a weak battery in the 48v.
>>>
>>> Jay
>>> Peltz power.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Dec 18, 2016, at 5:41 PM, John Blittersdorf <
>>> john.blittersdorf at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> I have had several instances of the Mate 3 locking up where I cannot
>>> program anything and the main screen is abbreviated with only one bar.  The
>>> first time this happened I had been given a command with 2 buttons to push
>>>  to unlock it from an Outback technician and it worked.
>>>
>>> Now it has happened again and it is a weekend and I don't remember the
>>> keystrokes.
>>> Anybody out there know what they are?
>>>
>>>  This system is a gen set and inverter only. No solar.  Either the
>>> generator is not starting or the mate 3 is not starting it or something is
>>> going on with the VFXR inverter and the mate.  It worked fine for about 8
>>> months and worked OK on Dec 8 where it started the generator with the 2
>>> hour start...the only info I could recover... no events survived the total
>>> power loss of dead generator battery and main 48 v bank down to 7 volts.
>>> One other very puzzling thing is that the batteries went so low.. No DC
>>> loads other than the inverter and Mate 3.  Could the Mate 3 and the control
>>> board on the inverter draw down 8 golf cart batteries from low battery cut
>>> off to 8 volts in one week?  This is the 2nd time I have had to jump start
>>> this system back to life and it doesn't look good to the customer who ran
>>> an identical system with an old Trace 2524 for years with no problems til
>>> the Trace died of old age.
>>>
>>> John Blittersdorf
>>> Rob Stubbins Solar
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>> List sponsored by Redwood Alliance
>>>
>>> List Address: RE-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org
>>>
>>> Change listserver email address & settings:
>>> http://lists.re-wrenches.org/options.cgi/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org
>>>
>>> List-Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/re
>>> -wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org/maillist.html
>>>
>>> List rules & etiquette:
>>> www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htm
>>>
>>> Check out or update participant bios:
>>> www.members.re-wrenches.org
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> List sponsored by Redwood Alliance
>>>
>>> List Address: RE-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org
>>>
>>> Change listserver email address & settings:
>>> http://lists.re-wrenches.org/options.cgi/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org
>>>
>>> List-Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/re
>>> -wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org/maillist.html
>>>
>>> List rules & etiquette:
>>> www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htm
>>>
>>> Check out or update participant bios:
>>> www.members.re-wrenches.org
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> List sponsored by Redwood Alliance
>>
>> List Address: RE-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org
>>
>> Change listserver email address & settings:
>> http://lists.re-wrenches.org/options.cgi/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org
>>
>> List-Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/re
>> -wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org/maillist.html
>>
>> List rules & etiquette:
>> www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htm
>>
>> Check out or update participant bios:
>> www.members.re-wrenches.org
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
>
> Chris Schaefer’s
> <http:www.solarandwindfx.com>
>
> *Tel/Fax 585-229-2083 <(585)%20229-2083> or Cell 585-748-1870
> <(585)%20748-1870> *
> *5115 South Hill Road ~ Canandaigua New York 14424**www.solarandwindfx.com
> <http://www.solarandwindfx.com> ~ E-mail: chris at solarandwindfx.com
> <chris at solarandwindfx.com>*
>
>
> Thomas Jefferson, the author of our great Constitution, once said,
> "democracy" will cease to exist when you take away from those who are
> willing to work and give to those who would not."
>
> _______________________________________________
> List sponsored by Redwood Alliance
>
> List Address: RE-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org
>
> Change listserver email address & settings:
> http://lists.re-wrenches.org/options.cgi/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org
>
> List-Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.
> org/maillist.html
>
> List rules & etiquette:
> www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htm
>
> Check out or update participant bios:
> www.members.re-wrenches.org
>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org/attachments/20161219/67574b30/attachment-0003.html>