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brucechen avatar image
brucechen asked

Why is 150V/70A MPPT not a Galvanic Isolation Converter?

hello ,

As you know , the max solar panel OCV is about 150V, from the view of safety certification, the input of MPPT should keep galvanic isolation with the battery side, why didn't victron product design a isolation topology ?

MPPT SmartSolar
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Alexandra avatar image Alexandra ♦ commented ·

@bruce.chen

Maybe you need to also explain why you think it should be galvanically isolated as well?

Some of the victron products are isolated. I would imagine that needing this feature is install related, so not necessary in every application.

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brucechen avatar image
brucechen answered ·

is there anybody to answer this question ?

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kevgermany avatar image
kevgermany answered ·

We're just volunteers in the community, with occasional manufacturer input.


This is a design question for Victron.

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tobi17 avatar image
tobi17 answered ·

It would be really interesting, if victron can reply here. What exactly happening if the mosfets within the mppt are shorted? Will the mppt send the 150V directly to the battery? Will the mosfets fail closed, and no voltage is available for the battery?

I do think this is REALLY an very interesting and important saftey issue. If anyone have further information, this would be just great! Thank you!

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kevgermany avatar image kevgermany ♦♦ commented ·
@Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager)


Hi Guy, guess you haven't seen this. Any chance of a tecchy answering? Thanks

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Paul B avatar image
Paul B answered ·

Keep in mind that IF the mosfets did short then it would cause the panels Voltage to be CLAMPED down to the current battery voltage - thus there Wattage output would be greatly reduced down to the battery voltage x MAX current that the series string can supply - so for a 51 volt battery and most strings are maxed out at 10 to 15 amps then thats 500 to 800 watts max output

so really it would only affect you when the batteries are very full - yes I agree its not a good outcome however its NOT as bad as it seems on the surface - Saying that it IS BAD when the batteries get to there max working voltage for sure.

This is only a comment and is no reflection on the above comments

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kevgermany avatar image kevgermany ♦♦ commented ·
So what happens at point of failure? At the very least you get a big voltage spike. Lead might abdorb, but not sure about all the other kit on the low voltage side.

I'd expect a company like Victron to have a fail safe design.


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tobi17 avatar image tobi17 kevgermany ♦♦ commented ·

I do not think, a fail safe design exists. We just need to know, that this could happens. For example, some people have relays between mppt and battery. The relays could be cooked, if they cannot handle such a voltage spike. It is not the point, to blame victron for a bad design. but to know that a mostfet failure within the mppt is not harmless. But maybe a victron expert can tell us more!

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