Saturday, November 8, 2014

Bus Pirate Helps

I finally used my Bus Pirate to solve a real problem. Well solve may not be right, but it helped.



I have these nearly new solar panels and charge controllers I bought in Lankawi last winter. The remote displays quit working but the batteries are still getting charged. So the problem is minor and only involves the display.

A solar panel dealer here in Puerto Princesa sells the same controllers. I took in the displays and ask him to check them on his system. They work fine. So it is the actual controller that doesn't transmit out the data. He also had a PC cable to talk to the controllers. I borrowed it and checked it out. I found the pins that it uses in the cable and hooked the bus pirate in logic analyzer mode. His cable is fine. PC is fine. I hooked the Bus Pirate to the controller and nothing!






So I used it but the controller is still broke a little. I have another battery monitor that I use really. It watches any charging device and monitors the load. So I don't need the read outs from the solar controllers anyway.