The PowerDashboard application is a real-time application of which a majority of the cpu useage is being spent in receiving and processing messages from the Xanbus network. The number of messages from the Xanbus are sent from each device at a specific rate, and does not vary much over time unless devices are added/removed.

Laptops occasionally have been problematic with real-time processing of Xanbus messages.

The main issue almost always is a USB issue and *the* most important thing that you can do is to ensure that you have the latest drivers installed for the laptop.

Here are a list of XP optimizations that should help maximize cpu utilization.

Xantrex XW inverters have the capability to monitor not only incoming and outgoing AC power, but it also reports the total power that it is drawing from the batteries.

This means that if you do not use XW-SCC charge controller(s) that our software can still detect the available power and can report it to you. The software will show a single set of solar gauges, multiple gauges are not possible because it is not know the individual DC inputs, only the lump sum available.

This same mechanism is used for connected wind turbines that do not use a Xantrex XW-SCC charge controller either.

Outback inverters do *not* have the capability of reporting incoming DC current and rely on the individual Outback charge controller to report the individual inputs. However Outback does have available a FLEXNet DC device that has 3 individual shunts that can be used to measure incoming DC sources.

By connecting the outputs of your non-Outback charge controllers to a shunt in the FLEXNet DC device the sources can be monitored and logged.

Future versions of PowerDashboard will have integrated the LabJack line of A/D controllers. These will provide a cost effective solution over the FLEXNet DC for acquiring not only shunt information, but can be used for measuring voltages as well as devices like sensors, and mave MANY more inputs available than the FLEXNet DC - Stay Tuned!

Please note how the Xanbus devices are 'balanced' on the daisy chain network.

The more charge controllers present the more important it is to 'balance' them. The main reason is that each of the devices (SCC, SCP, AGS) all draw power from the Xanbus network. In larger installations at times one of the charge controllers can misteriously 'drop off' and later reappear on the network.

The farther away from the inverter the possiblity that the device is getting lower voltage. Also be sure to use the shortest CAT-5 cables to connect devices, shorter 'patch chords' usually work well for this purpose.

Since PowerDashboard dynamically detects the devices this can cause issues.

If you have a charge controller that occasionally disappears, then try moving it closer to the inverter. This has solved this issue a number of times.

A 'dongle' is typically some form of adapter, and usually has electronics and some form of intellegence that is embedded in it. They connect to either the serial or parallel port on a computer, and hence the word 'dongle'.

In our case the Xantrex XW inverter system uses a XanBus interface (industry know as CanBus), however they have their own protocol that they use.

The purpose of the dongle is to acquire the data that is transmitted on the XanBus, and convert it to ASCII and output it on a serial bus, either RS232 or USB.

One of the first questions you will probably have is which dongle should I use?

• Use the CanUSB if you don't have an available DB9 COM port on your computer.
• USB has length restrictions, if your computer is too far away use the Can232.
• You can always start out with the Can232 and later use a USB adapter cable

The preferred connection has the'dongle directly connected to your computer (DB9 or USB) and use a standard CAT-5 cable from the dongle to the RJ45 connector on the SCP/Inverter.

The next preferred method has the dongle connected to the RJ45 connector on the SCP/inverter using a short length of CAT-5 cable, and then a DB9 serial cable ran from the'dongle to your DB9 RS232 computer COM port.

Care must be taken to NOT connect the CAT-5 cable from the SCP/Inverter to your ethernet port on the computer! The higher voltages present from the XanBus/CanBus will not do good things to your computer.

This is one reason why we prefer to use RED ethernet CAT-5 cables.

Unfortunately no, the Xantrex XW-Config program that is used for the firmware update requires use of the Apox Controls, and their software is specifically designed to only look for the presence of it.

Both Apox Controls devices DO work with XW-Config!

When the EasySync CanXXX dongle is first connected to the Xantrex SCP/Inverter it should blink 3 times, and then they stop blinking.

Once the PowerDashboard software is running it will send an initialization string to the CanXXX dongle, at that time the dongle lights will flash steadily as data is transferred from the XanBus to the serial bus.

When the PowerDashboard software is stopped the lights on the CanXXX dongle will again stop.

Some of the older EasySync CanUSB devices have a slightly different command set, remove the Z0 from the initialization string for proper operation..

A bug has been discovered in Version 2.2.0.10 PowerDashboard where it inserts some extra column names in the header of .CSV file, however no data in the subsequent data lines were inserted.  The result is that it was throwing off the data columns when performing daily graphing operations on systems with multiple Xantrex XW-SCC charge controllers.

The offending column names are like:

PV0Phase, PV0Circuit, PV1Phase, PV1Circuit, etc....

This issue only pertains to Daily log files that are written in .CSV format.

This issue will be corrected in the next release of the PowerDashboard software, however as a temporary fix we have written a program that can be used to 'adjust' your daily .CSV log files.

Here is link to the program that fixes the offending log files:

DailyCSVFixup_2_2_0_10.zip

Simply unzip the file and save it into your PowerDashboard installation directory. Run the program and point it to a log file, it will backup the file, fix the header line removing the offending columns and copy the remaining data lines without modification.