Solar Panel Shadows and Bypass Diodes
The following data was collected from my 3x250W flat mounted solar panels on 1/16/15 in my storage area in the Phoenix area. The graph shows the significant transition as the sun just covers the 3rd r...
Forum Discussion
CA Traveler wrote:
I removed the cover from the junction box to see the diodes. It would be common for a 6xnn cell array to have 3 bypass diodes (assuming it has any). The reason is that for every 2 rows both wires are near the junction box so there is only a small amount of wire needed to provide connections for the 3 diodes. Hope this helps but there are other arrangements.
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Thanks. If I'd known I would have checked before mounting the panels. But don't think I'll pull one off now to check.
Will rather try covering sections of the panel and see what happens to output.
So with three diodes, and a 6x12 array, you would expect each diode to control a 2x12 group of cells? Not a 6x4 group?
How I try to partially shade the panel depends upon how the cells might be grouped.
And here's a photo of one of the panels. Think that's 72 cells?
