Aurora PVI Desktop date and statistics wrong.

[Digon]

I recently had a 4kW system installed with a PVI 3600-OUT inverter with Desktop remote monitor.
Whilst the live monitoring is ok I cannot save any meaningful data from the desktop or from the Inverter itself.
The PVI desktop has todays date with tomorrows Day on the statistics ie. today is Friday 29th March 2012 according to the desktop.
The data is also displayed incorrectly in the bar charts eg. last 7 days shows about 200- 300W per day instead of 14 - 18 kW/ day.

The unit came with V06.96 beta software. I have done factory resets, reloaded V06.84 software and then back to 06.96. I even did a full wipe of the inverter memory using Aurora installer but nothing has made any difference.

Is this a standard software fault with these inverters and monitors or has anyone come across this before and found a way of sorting it?

Powerone have not replied to any of my emails requesting help over the last couple of weeks.


Dave

 

[dansk]

i cant help with your issue, but i will say power one products are genreally very good and their uk customer support is excellent, try phoneing you should get some good help. failing that get your installer to sort it out for you, thats what you paid them for.

 

[Noshocks]

Aurora inverters - excelllent

Aurora tech support - excellent

Aurora desktop monitor reliability - pants

 

[Fazzathebrave]

I've had a PVI desktop for a month now and I agree that it's not great. It went back today for a swap. My first problem was that there are horizontal lines on the display due to a screen error. My second problem is that the XML files that it stores seem to be pretty inaccurate. The file that stores the total daily values seems to have days repeated and the individual day files seem to take readings at irregular times of the day.

What I did yesterday was to connect my PC to the Aurora directly using a USB cable and a USB serial port driver (from the Power One website). Despite what they suggest (that you need a USB to RSxxx converter) this is not true. I could access live data from my inverter and download the recorded daily data no problem using the Aurora Communicator program. Not ideal but at least the historical daily data is there.

 

[cbw]

A bit like Italian cars

 

[saint]

Totally agree with Noshocks.
Call Power One in Worthing West Sussex they are very helpful.

 

[JMT]

This is a know firmware fault with the Power One Aurora desktop display's.

I have two customers with this problem.

I spoke to Power One about 6 weeks ago now and they knew about the problem and I am still waiting on the firmware upgrade to resolve this matter.

Every time I call they say it should be out in another weeks time. Still waiting

So rest assured it is not just your monitor.

Give them a call and log a fault with them and they should contact you once they have the upgrade ready.

Hope that helps

 

[Digon]

Thanks, for the help everyone.
I have just rang Power One support and they confirmed it is a known problem and an update to sort the problem will be out "shortly".
The support guy described the problem as "date shift and looks as though it is losing data" which sums it up better than I did.
I was told the new firmware will be able to retrieve the data which has not really been lost, it just looks that way with the current software.

 

[SolarCity]

Aurora inverters - excelllent

Aurora tech support - excellent

Aurora desktop monitor reliability - pants

Strongly agree.

 

[dave.persondy]

Yes, I have got all that with my PVI monitor too, but worse, I can't get it to talk to my PC. Says no driver and those of the power-one website do not appear to work. Tried 2 different PCs but neither will work with the drivers provided. Where can I get a USB driver that works?

 

[BruceB]

Has anyone succeeded in getting a useful firmware update?

One of my customers has an aurora desktop which has many gaps in data, for no apparaent reason.
It came with 0.6.96 firmware and 0.1.5 bootloader.
I have followed the instructions to get a firmware web update using aurora communicator, but the newest versions available on the web are 0.6.84 from 2011, which would appear to be older than what is already in the unit.
Can anyone offer any help?

 

[dansk]

Has anyone succeeded in getting a useful firmware update?

One of my customers has an aurora desktop which has many gaps in data, for no apparaent reason.
It came with 0.6.96 firmware and 0.1.5 bootloader.
I have followed the instructions to get a firmware web update using aurora communicator, but the newest versions available on the web are 0.6.84 from 2011, which would appear to be older than what is already in the unit.
Can anyone offer any help?

Hi, I've had this issue, phone aurora and they shipped out a new SD card with the updated firmware on, job done, easy fix.

 

[BruceB]

Thanks. I'll give them a call tomorrow.

 

[docka]

Please let us know how you get on, they've been telling me they're working on a firmware update for about 8 months now, I'm going to ring them tomorrow too!

 

[Ian-LS]

Please let us know how you get on, they've been telling me they're working on a firmware update for about 8 months now, I'm going to ring them tomorrow too!

We have been told the same too. If the firmware has been updated then thats good.

 

[BruceB]

Had a polite, but ultimately unhelpful reply from Power-One:

"This is a known problem with the Desktop Monitor that does need a Firmware update to fix. Unfortunately we have not got a firmware version at this point that will fix the issue for your customer.

I will add you onto our list of customers who need the firmware and once we have it in place we will contact you. Only problem being I do not know when this will be as we currently do not know when a fix will be available."

"Wait - Out" as we used to say in a former life!

 

[docka]

That's exactly what they have been telling me since the spring!

 

[Gavin A]

That's exactly what they have been telling me since the spring!

interspersed with odd periods of optimism when the fix was apparently going to be released in a couple of weeks time...

 

[puddy]

Do you have a android tablet? If so download app called solar SolarAnalyazer (play store) Have a play with the free version first to see if it works. Use the same ip address your router currently gives out to device you use for monitoring your solar now.

 

[BruceB]

New firmware (v 0.7.35) for the Aurora Desktop received this afternoon.
Hopefully that will solve it.