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bill said:
Can someone recommend an inexpensive ratcheting crimper for the spade terminals? I'd like something under $50 bucks. It will go mostly unused but I still don't want to buy a piece of garbage.
You'll be very hard pressed to find a ratcheting crimper that will do non-insulated spade terminals for less than $50.

I bought a TRIcrimp to use for Anderson Powerpole connectors for $40 and use it on a fairly regular basis. If I was wanting to upgrade to a ratcheting crimper for other types of connectors, I would spend the $55 for the die accessory kit for the TRIcrimp as it covers non-insulated and insulated connectors from about 6 awg to 22 awg.

TRIcrimp: http://www.powerwerx.com/crimping-tools/tricrimp-crimping-powerpole-contacts.html
Die Kit for TRIcrimp: http://www.powerwerx.com/crimping-tools/interchangeable-accessory-die-sets-tricrimp-powerpole-crimping-tool.html
 
Not as good as Black Friday but get 10% off

"Leviton just wanted to say thank you for your order during the month of December from our e-Store (http://store.leviton.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;). Please use the code "thankyou" and save 10% on all of your future orders.

Please email me directly if you have any questions about the Leviton product line.



Thanks again for your order and Leviton wishes you and your family a Healthy and Happy New Year!!"
 
GlennD said:
Not as good as Black Friday but get 10% off

Thanks Glenn, but I just tried the code for the 30A J1772 and it's a no-go (maybe one-time code?).

However they do offer free shipping over $100, bringing a SoCal purchase with tax to $144.70.
 
Sorry, since I did not need anything I put the email out. Maybe you had to have made a purchase in December for the code to work.

They have always said free shipping over $100 but it did not work for me on my first cable. The second was with the extended black Friday price that was discounted and included free shipping.
 
DarkStar said:
bill said:
Can someone recommend an inexpensive ratcheting crimper for the spade terminals? I'd like something under $50 bucks. It will go mostly unused but I still don't want to buy a piece of garbage.
You'll be very hard pressed to find a ratcheting crimper that will do non-insulated spade terminals for less than $50.
$30 from Parts Express - $20 for the crimper (includes insulated die) and $9 for the non-insulated die.

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?partnumber=360-642" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?partnumber=360-686" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Both parts have good reviews. The same tools are also available through Amazon.
 
drees said:
DarkStar said:
bill said:
Can someone recommend an inexpensive ratcheting crimper for the spade terminals? I'd like something under $50 bucks. It will go mostly unused but I still don't want to buy a piece of garbage.
You'll be very hard pressed to find a ratcheting crimper that will do non-insulated spade terminals for less than $50.
$30 from Parts Express - $20 for the crimper (includes insulated die) and $9 for the non-insulated die.

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?partnumber=360-642" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?partnumber=360-686" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Both parts have good reviews. The same tools are also available through Amazon.

Thanks. I also found this one which is a little pricier
http://www.anchorexpress.com/ancor-double-crimp-ratchet-tool-701030/
Hopefully this will do a better job than my crimper. I've never gotten very pretty crimps.
 
On the discount code path, Newark just sent me this:

"Thank you for your most recent order! We appreciate your business and as
a thank you we would like to extend to you a 15% off voucher for your
next order. There are lots of ways to take advantage of this limited
offer from our award winning website http://www.Newark.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; to our knowledgeable
and friendly team waiting to take your call at 1 800 463 9275. You may
also send your quote to [email protected] or email a purchase order to
[email protected].


The Voucher code is NEW2P and it can be used as many times as you would
like through January 31st, feel free to share with whomever you would
like.


*Discount applies to the first price-break quantities only. Discount
cannot be combined with other offers, promotions, quantity discounts, or
contract pricing. Contractual considerations with a small number of
manufactures may reduce or prevent a voucher discount on selected items
including test equipment; call us with questions relating to voucher
exclusions. Non-catalog items are not subject to a voucher discount."

I did a comparo on their prices and found several items that were a little less than DigiKey. Only a few were enough less to justify the added shipping charges, but perhaps with this discount it could pan out.

The items I ordered:

Panel mount fuse holders (FH)
Ferrite cores (L4,L5) Fair-Rite brand
6-position header connectors (ISP1)
2-position connectors (Rly1,S1/2,SP)
TVS Diodes (TVS)
Crystals (X1)
Optocouplers (IC5,IC6)

I also noted that the 15A relay (Rly1) was priced identically.
 
I had tested my OpenEVSE Plus controller on 120v, and it seemed
to work and boot reliably.

Glenn helped me re-program to 1.0.6 firmware (powered only by
the programmer) for RGB, button, and RTC.
Later, at the workshop, I dscovered that it would not boot reliably
(from programmer or 120v), so it might need a capacitor added
to the Power-On Reset line.

Or, quite possibly this firmware version is missing some delay
that the earlier firmware had before initializing various internal
and external functions?

Anyone else having this problem?
 
With the RTC code, you can no longer use the Arduino boot loader because of the size of the program so we must turn off the boot vector using the programmer and following command:

avrdude -c usbtiny -p m328p -U hfuse:w:0xdb

There are some weird conditions that make the chip boot either from a brown-out condition or from something else.
 
Guys please be careful when messing with fuse bits. It is very possibly to brick your board. If you are not testing RTC you should load version 1.0.9 or earlier.
 
GlennD says:
------
I have found the cause to the problem but I do not yet have a fix.
Chris's example that he loaned me came with 1.05 on it and it is
completely stable.
I loaded 1.6 on it and I now have the same problem that you do.

The problem seems to be related to the use of liquid crystaltwi2.
This build has the unfortunate side effect of hanging
if it does not get an 12c handshake from the display.

My theory is that the processor comes up faster than the 12c display
and does not see the expected handshake in time so it hangs.

Later on today I will try a 10 Mfd cap on the reset line like
what one of my Mega proto boards uses.

I think the problem is related as to how fast the switching supply 5V comes
up since it does not show up when the programmer supplies power.
-----

I get the problem even when using my (different) programmer.

Before trying hardware fixes, it appears that the proper solution
is to change the firmware. Apparently it tries 3 times to get a
response from the display, then hangs?

If well designed, it would try more times, or with a longer delay
between tries, or both, and not hang, but just work without
the display. Maybe there is not enough code room to do this?

I do not think this is a fuse problem, since the firmware does
boot up properly occasionally.

So, let's see if a simple firmware fix (more tries, and longer delay)
will hide the real problem (hanging when found no display).
 
This bug was fixed in v1.0.9 with liquidtwi2 1.2+ released a few days ago.


garygid said:
GlennD says:
------
I have found the cause to the problem but I do not yet have a fix.
Chris's example that he loaned me came with 1.05 on it and it is
completely stable.
I loaded 1.6 on it and I now have the same problem that you do.

The problem seems to be related to the use of liquid crystaltwi2.
This build has the unfortunate side effect of hanging
if it does not get an 12c handshake from the display.

My theory is that the processor comes up faster than the 12c display
and does not see the expected handshake in time so it hangs.

Later on today I will try a 10 Mfd cap on the reset line like
what one of my Mega proto boards uses.

I think the problem is related as to how fast the switching supply 5V comes
up since it does not show up when the programmer supplies power.
-----

I get the problem even when using my (different) programmer.

Before trying hardware fixes, it appears that the proper solution
is to change the firmware. Apparently it tries 3 times to get a
response from the display, then hangs?

If well designed, it would try more times, or with a longer delay
between tries, or both, and not hang, but just work without
the display. Maybe there is not enough code room to do this?

I do not think this is a fuse problem, since the firmware does
boot up properly occasionally.

So, let's see if a simple firmware fix (more tries, and longer delay)
will hide the real problem (hanging when found no display).
 
I do not know what is so different about 1.6. It runs fine on my test unit but fails on 3 OpenEVSE+ units I have loaded and tried. I do not want to try any hardware fixes since I do not own any of them.

I reloaded all 6 units I have on hand with 1.09 and they function fine.
 
I've been using the Open EVSE that many of us made at the workshop a while back, but it needed to be re-flashed before I could use the button to change settings. I finally got it going today and am posting the steps I went through this morning. (I missed the workshop yesterday.)

- Purchased USBasp programmer and downloaded Windows driver. Programmer came with 10-pin connector, so I made a new cable to connect to the Open EVSE board's 6-pin programmer port.
- Installed Arduino IDE.
- Downloaded Time and LiquidTWI2 libraries and extracted each into their own folder in arduino\libraries
- Downloaded Open EVSE firmware and opened in Arduino IDE.
- In Arduino IDE, set programmer as USBisp under Tools->Programmer, then used the option to "Upload using programmer".
 
Very helpful links to get the 1.0.9 firmware source, Thanks.

The 1.0.9 OpenEVSE fw says it needs the LiquidTWI2 1.2.0+
but the LiquidTWI2 library just mentions 1.2.0 (no plus).
Is the ChangeLog with 1.0.9 just have a meaningless "+"?

Are there similar links for the previous versions of the
OpenEVSE fw, and their required libraries?

Or, are links to the previous versions much more difficult to do?

Thanks, Gary
 
This 1.0.9 compiles to only about 19KB, instead of the
31KB that version 1.6.0 was using. I have not looked
to see what was "turned off" in this 1.0.9 version.

However, this LiquidTWI2 library is not the same as
the LiquidTWI2 library that was being used by 1.6.0,
so I had to replace that "different" library with the
one linked to above.

At this point, I am just asuming that the Time library
is the same as before.

After flashing the OpenEVSE Plus to this 1.0.9 version,
it starts up every time, without any problems, and the
Select Push-Button works well for selecting options.

Thanks for your help, it is much appreciated.

Having a link to the "master" means that one would get
different software as the master is changed, right?

Is there a way to link to THIS VERSION of the OpenEVSE firmware?
 
garygid said:
The 1.0.9 OpenEVSE fw says it needs the LiquidTWI2 1.2.0+
but the LiquidTWI2 library just mentions 1.2.0 (no plus).
Is the ChangeLog with 1.0.9 just have a meaningless "+"?

Gary, in software-speak a + usually signifies "at this release or greater". I believe that is lincomatic's intent here.

Although there is some confusion with his newest release. The newest vesrion of LiquidTWI2 shows it as 1.2.1 in the changelog section of the README (but not in the "Version" section), and there is no version info in the .h file as I would expect:
---
Version 1.2.0

Changelog:
* 1.2.1 / 20130102 SCL
disable PANELOLU2 by default

* 1.2.0 / 20130101 SCL
added DETECT_DEVICE

* 1.1.1 / 20121219 SCL
added Tony Lock's Panelolu2 enhancements
...etc...
 
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