Can WattPlot show me elapsed charging times, etc.?
Contrary to the previous answer, the OutBack Power Systems charge controllers do provide accurate charger state information, allowing a monitoring product to determine the amount of time spent in each of the four supported modes — Bulk, Absorb, Float and EQ. The inverter / chargers provide less information, but the actual charging mode can be determined by carefully examing the system’s state, including battery voltage and current.
By using analytical techniques, the greenMonitor Renewable Energy System monitoring software is able to provide more accurate information about the charging state for inverters and translate that into the corresponding charging mode, which is then summed to provide reasonably accurate information about inverter / charger time in each of the four supported modes — Bulk, Absorb, Float and EQ.
We did look into tracking charge times, etc. Unfortunately the MATE interface does not say what mode the charge controller is in – it just says what the inverter is doing. Typical charge cycles include lots of time when the FX Mode is not “Charging”, so it is impossible to get such running times from the data now supplied by the Mate.
