Questions about pcm-60x

Hi folks

collecting batteries and eyeing the pcm-60x hard as my choice for charge controller. I have read that there is a firmware upgrade out there for charging lithium/18650's. I have been searching around a bit and cannot find it or anything about it. Is it an opensource project?

Can anyone chime in on their experiences or reply with some links where I can learn more about this device and communityfirmware for it. I get the impression that the company who makes it sucks at support.

Do I have to have Microsoft to communicate with it?

Is there something better out there in the same price range I may not be aware of? Maybe a combo inverter/charge controller?

I am all ears and thank you and best regards

edit found this project that looks great, but I thought their was a firmware upgrade for the pcm-60x as well.
https://github.com/tylerjaywilson/Solar-Panel-System

You can run it out of the box with lithium as long as you set bulk and float to same voltage.
Yes the program is mainly windows
https://www.mppsolar.com/v3/catalogs/60x_MPPTracker_user_manual.pdf

Nothing better for same pricerange if you ask me and yes their support is not the best.

I have software on my Raspberry pi that can communicate with it. Currently read only but the software can write to its just not added in the protocoll list yet. Its written in NodeJs and will soon be fully available. There is a pre-version available right now but thats only some read.

daromer said:

You can run it out of the box with lithium as long as you set bulk and float to same voltage.
Yes the program is mainly windows
https://www.mppsolar.com/v3/catalogs/60x_MPPTracker_user_manual.pdf

Nothing better for same pricerange if you ask me and yes their support is not the best.

I have software on my Raspberry pi that can communicate with it. Currently read only but the software can write to its just not added in the protocoll list yet. Its written in NodeJs and will soon be fully available. There is a pre-version available right now but thats only some read.

Click to expand...

Thanks Daromer, I ran across your project while checking out the forum a week or so ago. Definitely will be using it when the time comes. I look forward to getting to the point where I can mess around with it. I can javascript a little. I appreciate the info and the manual link.

Low power solutions like arm and arduino make more sense than x86 hardware for a host of reasons.

ESP32 would be good candidate but the Pi does so much more than an ESP or arduino ever can do like rather advanced calculations and displaying that. It hosts time series database including several tools to hook the system up to other things.

And for most people those 5w isnt much The PCM/PIP and other MPP stuff uses way much more power in idle

daromer said:

ESP32 would be good candidate but the Pi does so much more than an ESP or arduino ever can do like rather advanced calculations and displaying that. It hosts time series database including several tools to hook the system up to other things.

And for most people those 5w isnt much The PCM/PIP and other MPP stuff uses way much more power in idle

Click to expand...

I have played with Node red and some of those other tools. I have around 15 nodemcu/wemos boards kicking around so familiar with them. I think the Pi is a great choice(arm). I really can't wait till I have these banks built so I can start playing with this data. I have a lot of questions but they can wait for now.

If you have a post here or on your site that goes into your panel/battery setup in more detail please link so I can read through it. Can't see your sigright now but I think it was your profile where you have a 16s setup. I want to read more about 14s vs 16s cause I am not wrapping my head around the differences yet.

Very cool

You can find links below to my web-page and the forum page that have some details about my current setup.