Low-Temp Hi VOC (Was Sanyo 167/180's with OB MX) [RE-wrenches]

[Matt Lafferty]

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Doug Pratt brought up:

<  it gets mighty cold up in your neck of the woods, which makes open
circuit
<  voltage creep up.

All:

I say "This is something we must always remember and plan for"... Thanks to
Doug P for reminding us!  (Marco M and Keith C can pretty much ignore this
one!  Lucky guys...)

It was funny yesterday in one of my classes (Not unexpected... Not really
funny, either, come to think of it) ... Looking at the blank "Huh?  I never
knew / heard about that" looks on all the students' faces when I went
through this.  Two of them were Electrical Inspectors / Plan Checkers.
Please take it for what it's worth... 

The HIGHEST Open Circuit Voltages that I've ever personally measured,
relative "nominal/design" were taken at 6:45 AM, on a Saturday morning,
December 17, (before the sun even peeked above the horizon) in Sacramento.
The ambient temperature was about 27F. The entire array was white with
frost.  This was a thin-film array, at a 3 degree tilt (Flat for all
practical purposes), with black anodized frames.  Under "normal conditions"
it would have been, well, black.  Nothing but a big white field of frost lay
before my eyes in the dawn light when I took these measurements!  (I know,
you're all scratching your heads wondering why in the world I would even
think to do this under these conditions... Hey, I'm just a dumb farmboy...
Back then, I didn't have a clue about any of this stuff... Probably didn't
even know it wouldn't work at night yet!  LOL)

The array consisted of 12 Sub-Arrays and by the time I got done recording
all the VOC measurements, some had lost their frosty coats and the
associated VOC had dropped.  Due to the difference in VOC's of the "white to
black" sub-arrays, I waited until the entire array had resumed its normal
appearance (with an added "wet look") and re-recorded the data.  The VOC
difference between "frost-covered-no-light" and
"just-defrosted-tiny-bit-of-indirect-light" was right at 3%.  Elapsed time
start to finish was about 15 minutes.  Sure opened my eyes!

The high VOC at these temps isn't just "in the array"... It's at the
Inverter Input, too!  This is what the Inverter "sees".  Make sure you don't
let it see too much!  Buying a "box full of smoke" can be an embarrassing
and costly thing to do, from what I've heard.  It happens very quickly when
it happens... Quite possible that you wouldn't even be out of bed when it
does... Not to mention that you will have to reconfigure something or be
prepared to buy another box of smoke!  I'm sure at least some of us would
rather buy it in bags instead of boxes if we're gonna buy it in the first
place!  LOL

See?  The Two Palms are good for more than just hanging a hammock from!

Matt Lafferty
Universal Energies Institute
mlafferty at universalenergies.com
(916) 422-9772
(916) 628-7694 Cell
(916) 914-2247 Fax
www.universalenergies.com

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