PVI-Desktop Monitor

[Rob Littiken]

Has anyone here with an Aurora Inverter tried the PVI-Desktop Monitor for remote monitoring their inverter? Looks kind of neat. I wish it had a way to post info on the internet without a PC. Anyones insight would be appreciated.

Here's a link
http://www.power-one.com/renewable-energy/products/monitoring/aurora-vision/desktop/series

Thanks,
Rob L

[Rob Beckers]

Hi Rob,

Yup, I've been using one for the past 4 or 5 months. It's sitting right next to the computer (0.467 kW right now, the sun is just rising). They're neat, and useful to keep an eye on performance.

As it happens Power-One has currently stopped selling/supplying them due to the numerous firmware bugs. Some have been resolved (it wouldn't reliably talk to more than one inverter, that works now), some remain (statistics of multiple inverters is screwed up). Since I was the very first North American distributor to buy a number of them my customers have been guinea pigs in testing new firmware revisions. Last I heard is that Power-One expects to re-release the PVI-Desktop in a few weeks.

Given that this is not rocket science (it's a simple device and the firmware can't be all that complicated) this is certainly not Power-One's finest hour. The device has great potential though, once they iron out the bugs. If Power-One would get some real programmers to work on this, the device could be made even more useful (I've been sending suggestions for improvements), but they do not seem interested.

-RoB-

[Jim White]

Hi Rob,
As Rob Beckers points out they are a neat device and once the firmware issues are rectified (which should be soon), make nice local monitoring displays. They can be connected to the inverter through a hard-wired RS485 connection or by adding a radio module to the inverter, can be connected wirelessly with a range of up to 900 feet.
However, they are for local monitoring only. If you need remote monitoring connected to the internet without a PC then you need the EVO Easy Control, which gives basic inverter information or a little more expensive but a really nice is the Aurora Universal with Fat Spaniel software
Hope this helps
Jim

[Rob Littiken]

Does the radio module for the inverter have an antenna that can be relocated/extended? The job that I want to use it on the inverter is in a metal out building and it may need the antenna to be located on the outside of the building to be in range of the monitor.

Thanks,
Rob L

[Jim White]

Rob L,
The radio module card is connected to the antenna with a coaxial cable approximately 12" long allowing the antenna to be secured to the inverter chassis by removing one of the plugs on the base of the inverter (with the antenna on the outside of the chassis). The 900' range specified is reduced by brick walls, sheet rock,..etc - so having it within a metal outbuilding may be a problem.
I guess that you could try and extend the coaxial cable betwen the card and the antenna - have never had this request before - but it may work. Let me know!
BR
Jim

[Rob Beckers]

One of my customers built a little Yagi antenna and hooked that up (http://www.ehow.com/how_7531213_build-900-mhz-yagi-antenna.html). His ground-mounted array was too far away to make it work reliably with the regular antenna. The fact that his house is earth-bermed and half in the ground didn't help. The Yagi is mounted on top of the array, pointing to his house (actually two of them, since there are two inverters). Pictures is attached.

-RoB-

[Jim White]

Hi Rob,
That's a good solution.
Have you ever (or heard of anyone) that has managed to get the bluetooth connection to work properly on the PVI-DESKTOP-BT

[Rob Beckers]

Hi Rob,
That's a good solution.
Have you ever (or heard of anyone) that has managed to get the bluetooth connection to work properly on the PVI-DESKTOP-BT

I've not sold any of the bluetooth enabled ones, and didn't try it myself either (there's not much you can do with the PC connection anyway, so what's the point of spending the extra money for BT).

-RoB-