question

sanglea avatar image
sanglea asked

ARGO Diode Battery Combiner

I have a site on the California coast that struggles to keep batteries charged (Victron 150/60) during winter months due to canopy cover and foggy days. We recently installed an AC-DC power supply that is connected to grid power. We disconnected the 150/60 from the load. The grid power can be interrupted during storm events.

Can we use an ARGO Diode Battery Combiner connected to the PV and grid power to provide consistent power to the load instead of manually switching from grid to solar power when grid power is interrupted?

Memorial Park Power Configuration.pdf

Argo FET Diode
memorial-park-power-configuration.pdf (55.9 KiB)
2 |3000
Toggle Comment visibility. Current Visibility: Viewable by all users

Up to 8 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 190.8 MiB each and 286.6 MiB total.

1 Answer
xxn5ac avatar image
xxn5ac answered ·

Sure.

Diode combiners can be made with either an "ideal diode" which would be a circuit that works like a diode but uses pass transistors, etc. or a real diode. If it uses a real diode, the most common for this type of application is a Schottky diode which has a voltage drop of 0.3V. The Argo device says it has a 0.3V drop so I assume it is a Schottky implementation. As long as you are OK with 1) the loss of 0.3V, and 2) the power lost in the diode (multiply current times 0.3 to get W), then it's fine.

2 |3000
Toggle Comment visibility. Current Visibility: Viewable by all users

Up to 8 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 190.8 MiB each and 286.6 MiB total.