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Solar Panel Project

Former Member

I am a senior design student and my project is to monitor the V,I, and T on twelve individual solar panel all connected in series. The problem that I am having is grounding the individual monitoring systems that I designed, which are connected in parallel to each of the twelve panels. If I tie the ground for the solar panels to the ground for the monitoring system I will be shorting out the solar panels which is not good. The monitoring system will have its own separate power supply for the op-amps and other various devices, can I ground each monitoring system through that power supply without effecting the output of the panels? and also if there is a smarter way to handle the grounding issue I am open to ideas! 

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    Besides shorting solar cells, lorg wires will act as antennas, receiving strong RF signals that can interfere with the measurement signals. 

    Wires that are connecting devices that are in principle at the same potential can also carry unintended large currents.

    If you connect a sinal wire in parallel with a high current power wire, the wires will share the current. If the high current wire becomes open, the signal wire has to handle the high current and may start a fire!

    The best way is to make a measuring system with A/D-converter for each panel and transmit the data over a not DC coupled path.

    Consider transformer coupled twisted pairs (like in PC network cards) or wireless.

    This way the measurement-systems can be made modular.

    The measurement systems can be powered from small transformers. For instance a pot core transformer operating at 20 kHz or higher. If you dont need to read a zero Volt condition, it is also possible to power the modules from the solar panel. Making a measurement every 30 seconds or less, the system could use very little power. Battery powered measurement systems are possible.