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Developer Documentation

Introduction

EPDataLog is a program designed to facilitate data logging from a Microgreen EnergyPak Battery. At the time of developement, the program supports the following BMS and operating system combinations:

  • Supported BMS: Mewyeah, Heyo Daly (Also referred to as Daly), Orion
  • Supported Operating Systems: Windows, MacOS

Features

  • Auto-port detection: If the user chose not to customize the settings, the program will automatically detect the port number of the RS232-USB cable. This is done by looping from 1-20 and sending a query to each port, checking if the response is correct.
  • Customized Prarmeters: After the program is run, the user can choose to customize the parameters of the data logging. This includes the port number and data logging interval (in ms).

Notes: - EPDataLog does not support Linux - Mewyeah is now a deprecated version of BMS. We have a Mewyeah version to facilaite data logging for older EnergyPaks. All EnergyPaks in the future will be using Heyo Daly BMS.

File Structure

This is the general file structure of the project: 

EPDataLog
├── common
│   ├── macos
│   └── windows
├── Daly
│   ├── common
│   ├── macos
│   └── windows
├── Orion
│   ├── common
│   ├── macos
│   └── windows
└── Mewyeah
    ├── common
    ├── macos
    └── windows

In the project root (EPDataLog), we have three directories, Daly, Mewyeah, and common. Daly, Orion, and Mewyeah contain code specific to the respective BMS. Common contains code that is shared between the two BMS versions.

In EPDataLog/common/, we have two directories, macos and windows. These directories contain code that is shared between the three BMS versions. Specifically, each OS directory contains code for:

  • connecting to the BMS (MacOS uses serial port communication, Windows uses COM Port communication)
  • outputting data to a CSV file (MacOS requires extra configuration to get the correct file path)

In EPDataLog/common/, there is also a file named readProgramParams.c. This file contains code for reading command line arguments. This file is shared between all 4 program versions.

In EPDataLog/common/Daly, EPDataLog/common/Orion, and EPDataLog/common/Mewyeah, we have three directories, common, macos, windows.

Common

/common contains code that is shared between the two OS versions. Specifically, the common directory contains the code for getting and parsing data from the BMS. The code is the same for both BMS versions, with the exception of reading and writing data to the BMS, in which we use preprocessor conditional directives to include the correct code for each OS version.

MacOS and Windows

/macos and /windows contains code specific to MacOS and Windows respectively. Specifically, each directory contains the main.c file where the program starts.

Useful Resources

For instructions on compiling and releasing the code, refer to Project_Build_And_Release_Instructions.md

If changes need to be made to the BMS communication code, refer to the company's internal documentation regarding each BMS.

Refer to SampleLog.csv for an example of the output CSV file.

Refer to Alarm Codes for a list of alarm codes and their meanings.

Mewyeah Alarm Codes

Daly Alarm Codes

Notes

  • Whenever a zip file is created for a release, Make sure the README.md file is bundled in there. Otherwise, the user won't know how to use the program if they can't access the README on github.

  • For some reason, when the Mac execuatables are zipped on windows, they cannot be opened properly on Mac. Thus, make sure to zip the Mac executables on Mac.

Running the MkDocs Site Locally

MkDocs was for the documentation site. Github (with github actions and pages) has been set up to automatically build and deploy the site whenever a commit is pushed to the main branch.

The python venv folder in added .gitignore since it's very large. As a result, running the Mkdocs site locally requires some extra steps. Note that it is not necessary to setup the venv if you don't want to run it locally.

If you would like to run the MkDocs site locally on your machine, follow these steps:

  1. Ensure you have Python installed on your machine. If not, download and install Python from the official website.

  2. Clone the repository to your local machine: 

    git clone https://github.com/MicrogreenSolarCorp/EPDataLog.git
cd EPDataLog

  3. Create a virtual environment in the project directory: 

    python3 -m venv .venv

  4. Activate the virtual environment:

    • On Windows: 
      .\.venv\Scripts\activate
    • On MacOS or Unix: 
      source .venv/bin/activate

  5. Install MkDocs and any other required dependencies within the virtual environment: 

    pip install mkdocs-material

  6. Run the MkDocs server locally: 

    mkdocs serve

Now, you should be able to access the MkDocs site locally at http://127.0.0.1:8000. Any changes you make to the documentation files should be automatically reflected on the local site.