Hi all,
I have a SmartSolar MPPT 75/15 that I use along with a PV panel on the roof of my vehicle to maintain a deep cycle battery for when I go away camping and the link.
I monitor it via the Android app, connecting via the VE.Direct Bluetooth Smart dongle, this has worked flawlessly, until now.
With the updated app recently being released and apparently updated firmware for both the BT dongle and the 75/15, I went out to my vehicle to perform the upgrade.
Sadly the app could not find the BT dongle. I went through the usual procedure of disabling and re-enabling BT on my phone, still nothing, this was within a couple of metres of the dongle, yet it discovered my BlueSmart charger located 20 or so metres away on the other side of the house!
Looking at the dongle, there were no LED's lit. Disconnecting and reconnecting the dongle proved to do nothing.
I removed power from the SmartSolar charger (PV and battery), let it sit disconnected for several minutes (Hello, IT. Have you tried turning it off and on again? :) ) And reconnected battery and PV in the correct sequence. Alas, still no LEDs and no dongle to be discovered by the app.
Having a background in electronics I decided to go to the next step, check that it was getting power, opening the case of the dongle and armed with my trusty multimeter I probed the Vin and Gnd connections on the circuit board, it is getting 5 volts.
Unfortunately this is as far as I can go. Without a microscope (SMD is so tiny!) and an insight to the circuit I am at a loss.
From what I can see the BT module in the dongle (BL600-SA-05) is a 3.6volt device, so I am guessing there is a voltage regulator on the board, but once again, without a microscope I am unable to determine if this is the case, and if so which SMD it is.
Has anyone else had this experience? Can anyone provide me any guidance as to how I may be able to resolve the issue without having to purchase another dongle? That is something I want to avoid at this time as I have limited income due to upper and lower spinal injuries.
Kind regards,
Damien
