Instructions

        Ver. 1.3 -  updated to July 12, 2016

DISCLAIMER

I’m maker, not a professional translator.

English is not my mother tongue.

- please be understanding -

MAIN PAGE

1. Communication port. For number choice and autostart go to SETUP paragraph. If com port communicates with inverter, the colour will change from green to red. The internal number indicates the serial number.

2. MAIN, SECONDARY Firmware and inverter serial number.

3. Recording light. Every 15 minutes is red blinking for a minute. It indicates that ram data are recording (for graph production and consumption). If clicked, allows recording data out of expected time.

4. Command sent to inverter.

5. If clicked, allows to hide the Tx-Rx strings from-to inverter.

6. Voltage and capacity of batteries. The small number on top-right indicates - theoretically - voltage of single battery. To obtain this number, needs to configure number of elements that compose 48 volts. SETUP menu will help to do it.

7. Surplus ampere and watt. If number is green, it means that there is a surplus of production. If number is red, it means that would need more X watt to reach the current needs.

8. Type of charge of battery (solar - none - line). The below balance is red if actual charging is bulk, green if float.

9. Max volt-watt daily peak of panels production, and own time. It's reset at the sunrise of day after.

10. Volt-watt of regulators, with adding of ampere and on time production.

Figure shown 3 regulators model. Model with only one regulator blinds num. 2 and 3.

11. Consumption and % used by the load.

12. Type of power for loads : yellow = solar green = battery red = line.

13. Max daily peak about inverter temperature, and relevant time. It's reset at midnight.

14. TOOL menu.

15. TIMER menu.

16. STATS menu.

17. Enables web pages for data display on remote pc or smartphone. From the top, numbers mean : Pc Ip, used port, views of homepage (left) and graph (right). Configuration may be modified in SETUP menu.

18. Clone view of original display on inverter.

19. ALARM menu.

20. LOG menu, directly to MAIL. Number on left of envelope shown sent mails. It resets at midnight.

21. Inverter answer string after sent command (please look at point 4).

22. HELP menu.

23. Information and credits about LŪCIBUS.

24. Label that shows on web page. Name and colour may be changed in SETUP menu.

25. SETUP menu.

26. LOG menu. Icon may blink, to warn you that there are too errors. Threshold number may be changed in SETUP menu.

27. It allows to iconize MAIN page.

PRODUCTION and CONSUMPTION - summary view

A. Total Watt of today.

B. Total Watt for 15 minutes of current recording.

1. Panels production.

2. Surplus production (power that should be used for other purposes, because is produced but never used from loads).

3. Gran Total about consumption (all included : line - battery - solar) since you started LŪCIBUS

4. Daily general total about consumption (totals of 5. 6. and 7.)

5. Daily general total about LINE consumption

6. Daily general total about BATTERY consumption

7. Daily general total about SOLAR consumption

Point 5. 6. and 7. shown, substantially, what kind of power is used by load. Figure shows 3723 W consumed: 2946 from battery and 783 from solar. No line power was used.

8. Complete view of PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION menu.

9. Simulation of RED LED inside LINE counters. Blinking is proportional to watts used from loads, in the same way of official counters.

PRODUCTION and CONSUMPTION - full view

PRODUCTION and CONSUMPTION - CALENDAR - Count of consumption according to personal date range

This icon enters in choice menu, that allows a personal count - as needed - of all totals

1. Date range start.

2. Date range end.

3. Previous day automatic display.

4. Previous 7 days automatic display from today.

5. Previous 30 days automatic display from today.

ERRORS log and recording

Explanations for this menu are not required. By clicking on options, logs of that section will be shown.

By clicking on first column (name column) ascending and descending data will be alternately displayed.

In case of slow visualisation, it’s recommended to delete all logs, using the relevant command (top right of form).

TOOL

This menu allows to send direct commands to inverter.

As a reference, you can use the pdf doc located at www.homoandroidus/LŪCIBUS

1. Data copy of field 3

2. Deleting of field 3

3. Blackboard display for Tx-Rx data

4. Ready-to-use commands

5. Window for custom commands sending

TIMER

This is one of more interesting menus. Practically, LŪCIBUS was engineered for this purpose, then exponentially grown up but basically its backbone is here : in the timer.

The timer menu is made of two different utilities.

A. POP UTILITY

Useful when you need that inverter toggles from utility to solar or other options at fixed hours during the day.

What is it? Here is my needs (please look at image): From 7 PM to 10.59 PM usually in my home there is high consumption of power due to dinner and after-dinner: oven, dishwasher etc.

During these 4 hours, if i had to supply so powerful loads using battery, I'd lost all stored energy during the day and battery would be stressed, even because going toward night and it wouldn’t be charged until next day.

Using this utility, I force inverter to use line power. I protect the battery, so that can supply normal load when all family is sleeping. In this way, I'm detached and self from line power until next morning, when sun light will be able to charge the battery and supply load through panels.

To pay for 4 hours of line power is better than to buy again battery in a short time.

1. Inverter current situation

2. By clicking on it, will be rotary viewed a different colour that is related to the type of configuration. After you have chosen the colour, click on hour required.

3. Daily timer for configuration change.

4. Flag to enable configuration. Utility will be active only if flag is enabled.

B. PCP UTILITY

Useful when you need that battery is charged in fixed hours during the day and/or choosing parameters

What is it ? This is typically a winter menu and is useful for user who want to charge battery only in solar mode (almost everyone!).

Often, during the winter, cloudy days are many and continuous. For this reason battery is not fully charged like in summer time and may happen that in some days, battery are not fully charged enough.

So, using this menu you can force inverter to charge battery during fixed hours of the day (in Italy line power is less expensive during the night) and/or choosing parameters (under threshold volt).

Please look at the image: flag is on “THRESHOLD Enabled”, that means you are forcing inverter to charge battery between midnight and 3 AM, but only if battery voltage is below 49. When voltage will reach 50, charge will finish and inverter come back to “solar charge”.

If you want to charge anyhow, you must enable “ALWAYS enabled” flag and put required colour in the hour box.

If you don’t want charge at all, hours must be in yellow colour.

5. Inverter current situation

6. PCP utility works anyway during red hours, without considering min-max threshold.

7. PCP utility works during red hours but considers min-max threshold. In figure example, battery is charged only if voltage is below 49. Charge will be completed when voltage will be 50.1.

8. By clicking on it, will be rotary viewed a different colour that is related to type of configuration. After you have chosen the colour, click on the hour required.

9. Daily timer for configuration change.

10. Min threshold

11. Max threshold

STATS

This menu allows to display a series of graphs about production, consumption, battery voltage, inverter internal temperature and yield.

MONTHLY QMOD graph is very important because allows to display day-by-day load situation. Each day is divided into 96 zones of 15 minutes each.

The same graph also allows to display daily situation by clicking on day number (see blue arrow). A further graph will be displayed, divided into 1440 minutes, with relevant consumption peaks and colours related to type of load power.

Please see sample below:

Please remember that most of ABOVE GRAPHS are viewable on the web.

SETUP

This menu allows to do several LŪCIBUS configurations, through submenus too.

1. Allows the automatic start of program, without clicking START command from main. To obtain this action is necessary to enable AUTORUN flag. If web start is needed, please enable WEB flag too.

Al last, very important, please choose serial COM port used for communication with inverter. During choice, only available ports among the present ones, will be displayed.

2. If flag is enabled, in case of missing line power pc speakers will play a mp3 every 20 seconds. Mp3 file is located within WEBPAGE folder.

3. If flag is enabled, allows to save main page position on monitor. If you move page, after 20 seconds it is saved in new position, so that when you restart LŪCIBUS, main page will be positioned in the same place.

4. This is a very important function: it allows to increase or decrease a number needed for approximate count of consumption.

Inverter works at 2400 baud, so it is very slow. It is possible to catch a valid data number every 3 or 4 seconds, without errors. It means that is impossible to calculate an accurate count. So we need to use an average count, that is subjected to many variables: cpu speed, communication quality, random errors etc. These problems may be solved using a variable chosen by user. It allows to adjust delays or excessive speed during count.

We experienced, after many tests performed on several inverters in Italy, that the correct value range is between 10 and 12.

User will perform some tests to find his correct number, comparing the total of line counter with LŪCIBUS counter. A daily reading may help to increase or decrease. In a week you should be able to obtain an acceptable result.

5. Allows to change bars colour of internal graph (not active, at moment, for web graphs)

6. If case of exit before data saving (that occurs every 15 minutes), this option allows to save all variables still in ram, so that no data will be lost.

7. PARAMETERS submenu

8. E-MAIL submenu

9. By setting the number of batteries composing 48 volts, the THEORETICAL voltage of each element will be displayed on main, located on the upper right corner of the battery voltage view.

10. Sets the number of red icon with exclamation point in main page (see point 26) beyond which the icon will begin to blink. It needs to display a warning about a too high number of errors. It’s necessary to display a warning when the number of errors becomes too high.

11. Defines name and colour of label on MAIN (see point 24) and on web. It sets also the port number for web views of inverter information.

To test the web page on local pc, open browser and digit:

 http://localhost:8090

(or choosen port)

To test the web page on internet (browser or smartphone), it’s required to set PORT REDIRECTION from NAT (Network Address Translation) menu of your router.

12. Available languages 

PARAMETERS

This menu is still under construction and allows – at the moment – to display the inverter essential configuration. I hope to create as soon as possible a version that will allow to write data, so you that you no longer need of WATCHPOWER to set inverter.

Watchpower is a very good utility, but is not comfortable to use two different programs for the same inverter.

E-MAIL

This menu allows to set the configuration of mail server that will send alarm and warning messages.

Insert necessary data and enable flags you need to be advised by e-mail.

Number of daily mail (that resets on midnight) is displayed in main menu, on the left of envelope (SITUATION FORM).

To check how many and which mail were sent, click on envelope (see point 20 of main).

WARNING: GMAIL users must enable mail sending from no-google server. This option is located within your google account.

FAULTS and ALARMS

If a fault or alarm is occurs, bell triangular icon blinks (main - point 19) .

By clicking on this icon, this menu will be displayed, with coloured icon of detected fault. In the example, inverter produced a “blocked fan” error.

By clicking on fault icon, error log will be displayed.

If e-mail warning is enabled, a message will be sent to configured mail box to report this fault.

To test all icons, click on ICON TEST. All icons will be turned on, as in sample below .

HELP

A little help is also available. You can choose internal or external help. Usually external help (on web) is more updated and complete than internal.

THANK YOU FOR HAVING HAD THE PATIENCE TO READ IT ALL !!!

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