Teardown of a real MPPT inverter

mike95490

from a trade magazine - excerpt:
This teardown article will delve into the architectural design and components of a solar inverter card starting from the Solar panel DC inputs and working our way through the DC to AC conversion process to the AC output that is sent out to the power grid. We will show what features need to be implemented into such a design to meet various safety and other performance standards as well as stringent power company demands upon the signal that is put onto their grid.

link to entire article
http://www.edn.com/article/520564-Teardown_The_power_inverter_from_sunlight_to_power_grid.php?cid=NL_UBM+Electronics

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Note the "clean & orderly" parts on the PCB:
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jagec

Re: Teardown of a real MPPT inverter

Interesting. I'd read about SMA's "H5" topology in their transformerless inverters, of course, but their marketing materials never actually mentioned what it was.

I had also thought that the big electrolytics were used for AC smoothing, not DC. I suppose that means that as they inevitably start to lose capacitance with age, the MPPT algorithm will become less efficient?

I wonder how clean the AC waveform looks, given that it is generated entirely by switching components. After all, no filters are perfect. Be interesting to see it on an oscilloscope.