How to achieve high level protection for external inverter

Have you ever wondered why there are so few problems with street lights, traffic lights and other equipment that can be seen everywhere in our daily life, which are installed outdoors all the year round and subject to various harsh environmental conditions, such as sunshine, wind, rain, sand, temperature changes and so on? In fact, the answer is very simple. The equipment installed in the outdoor area must be above the IP54 protection level.

IP

IP (Ingress Protection) is a code used internationally to identify protection levels. IP is composed of two numbers, the first number indicates the level of electrical dust, to prevent foreign invasion; the second number indicates the degree of electrical moisture, waterproof invasion of the airtight, the larger the number indicates the higher the level of protection.

IP54, dust-proof level 5: unable to completely prevent dust intrusion, but the amount of dust intrusion will not affect the normal operation of the product; waterproof level 4: prevent the intrusion of splashing water, prevent the intrusion of splashing water from all directions.

Like street lights, signal lights and other equipment, photovoltaic power generation equipment will withstand a variety of harsh outdoor environmental conditions. Outdoor inverter as the core equipment of photovoltaic power generation system, its electronic components, power devices, electrical devices, PCB circuit board, etc. need careful care to ensure long life, which requires that outdoor inverter must achieve high-level protection.

High level protection -- preliminary exploration

Taking outdoor series inverter as an example, the simplest way to achieve high-level protection is to put all the components needed to make the inverter in a waterproof, dust-proof, fully sealed box. But the inverter is a kind of energy conversion equipment, in the process of energy conversion, energy loss is inevitable. The loss of energy into heat, heat will increase the temperature inside the box, and high temperature will damage the life of components. Just sealing the components in a box can not take into account the need for high level protection and heat dissipation.

If the air is opened on the inverter box, although it can achieve heat dissipation, it can not achieve high-level protection. Based on this, people think of another solution.

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First of all, the inverter box does not need to be sealed, so that the heat energy in the box is very good. Second, build a "house" for the inverter, or install the inverter in a very high-level electrical cabinet. Finally, install a fan in the "house" or in the electrical cabinet to help the inverter dissipate heat.

This way, although achieved good protection and heat dissipation effect, but at the expense of cost, space and efficiency. Therefore, is there a better way to achieve the high-level protection requirements of outdoor series inverter, but also good heat dissipation?