How an Inverter Works

So how can an inverter give us a high voltage alternating current from a low voltage direct
current.
Let's first consider how an alternator produces an alternating current. In its simplest form, an
alternator would have a coil of wire with a rotating magnet close to it. As one pole of the
magnet approaches the coil, a current will be produced in the coil. This current will grow to a
maximum as the magnet passes close to the coil, dying down as the magnetic pole moves
further away. However when the opposite pole of the magnet approaches the coil, the current
induced in the
coil will flow in opposite direction.
As this process is repeated by the continual rotation of the magnet, an alternating current is
produced.

Now lets consider what a transformer does. A transformer also causes an electric current to
be induced in a coil, but this time, the changing magnetic field is produced by another coil
having an alternating current flowing through it. Any coil with an electric current flowing
through it will act like a magnet and produce a magnetic field. If the direction of the current
changes then the Polarity of field changes.
Now, the handy thing about a transformer is that, the voltage produced in the secondary coil
is not necessarily the same as that applied to the primary coil. If the secondary coil is twice
the size (has twice the number of turns) of the primary coil, the secondary voltage will be
twice that of the voltage applied to the primary coil. We can effectively produce whatever
voltage we want by
varying the size of coil.

If we connected a direct current from a battery to the primary coil it would not induce a
current in the secondary as the magnetic field would not be changing. However, if we can
make that direct current effectively change direction repeatedly, then we have a very basic
inverter. This inverter would produce a square wave output as the current would be changing
direction suddenly.

This type of inverter might have been used in early car radios that needed to take 12 volts
available in the car and produce the higher voltages required to run radio valves (known as
in America ) in the days before transistors were widely used in the tubes.

A more sophisticated inverter would use transistors to switch the current. The switching
transistors are likely to be switching a small current which is then amplified by further
transistor circuitry. This will still be a square wave inverter.



The Sine Wave Inverter
To get a sinusoidal alternating current from the output of our transformer, we have to apply a
sinusoidal current to the input. For this we need an oscillator
An amplifying transistor can be made to oscillate by feeding some of the amplified output
back to its input as positive feedback. We will all have heard this effect at sometime when
someone is setting up a PA or microphone system. If the microphone is too close to the
speaker, some of the output from the speaker is fed back to the microphone and inputted to
the amplifier again.
The positive feedback in an electronic circuit can be tuned using extra components to produce
the frequency we require (generally either 50 or 60 cycles per second to mimic mains
electricity). If a crystal is used to control this frequency, as in a battery watch or clock, the
frequency can be very accurately controlled
As with simpler switching transistor circuit, the oscillator will be producing a low current
output. This will then need to be amplified by what will be roughly equivalent to a powerful
audio amplifier to produce the high current for the primary coil of the transformer (the
frequency of mains AC current is roughly equivalent to the lowest notes on a bass guitar).

The transformer, while being very useful, does not do something for nothing. While
increasing the voltage, the current will be reduced, and the power (voltage x current) will stay
the same (less any inefficiency of the transformer). In other words, to get 1Kw of high
voltage AC current out, you have put 1Kw of low voltage AC current in.




Grid Tied Inverters
If the above example were a grid tied inverter, ie able to feed power back into the national
grid, it would need to use a sample of the mains voltage to then be amplified within the
inverter, or to synchronize the oscillator with that sample.
Grid tied inverters will also sense if there is a "power cut" and disconnect themselves from
the grid. If they did not have this facility, in the event of a power cut, your inverter would be
attempting to power all your neighbours houses and would present an electrocution risk to
anyone working on power lines that had supposedly been turned off.
The Main Inverter Types
1. Square wave or modified sine wave.
2. Sine wave (sometimes described as "Pure Sine wave")
3. Grid-Tied
Square Wave or Modified Sine wave
The square wave form will be as shown above right and the modified sine wave form will
have had some attempt to round the corners off though will still have some sharp corners or
spikes.

Compare this to the Sine wave form below right.



Many AC appliances will work perfectly well a modified sine wave form wave.
Some appliances such as computers, televisions, radios or music centres have in built power
supplies that reduce the voltage, rectify it to produce a DC current, and smooth it to give a
steady
DCvoltage.
This process will often smooth out any spikyness that was in the original AC supply.
However, any inductive load (one where the power passes through a coil, as in a power
supply transformer or a motor) causes the voltage and current to be out of phase (their
appropriate graphs do not line up). Modified signwave inverters do not cope with this so well,
causing the appliance to use more power than it would otherwise. This extra power
consumption will cause the motor or transformer to run hotter than it would otherwise and
may reduce it's life.
It will also mean that the inverter will need a slightly higher power rating to power the same
appliance.

There is also the possibility that your television picture may not be as good as it should and
anything with a timer (eg bread maker) may not run at the correct speed.

There may also be a noise problem. Any equipment that may give a quiet hum when
connected to the mains supply, is likely to give a more annoying buzz. My own experience
has shown this to be true with a ceiling fan, particularly when running on the lower speeds.
These potential problems will need to be balanced against the price difference (modified sine
wave converters will be significantly cheaper than pure sine wave) taking into account the
appliances you expect to be using.
Grid-Tied
A Grid-Tied inverter is capable of synchronising with an existing mains electricity supply
(synchronising its sine wave output so that it is at the peak voltage point at the same time as
the mains supply). This type of inverter can be used (where your electricity utility company
allows it and with a modified meter if required) to enable you to push your spare electricity
into the grid system. In some cases your normal electricity meter will simply run backwards
when you are supplying power.

A grid tied inverter designed to be used without a battery (and therefore no charge controller),
may have MPPT technolology built into it's input circuitry.
String Inverters
Inverter designed to accept high input voltages (upto 600 volts in commercial systems) may
be called String Inverters, refering to the series connected panels, used to produce the higher
voltages, being connect as a string.
DC Input Voltage
You may already have the rest of your system setup and you are already committed to using a
particular voltage. You may however still be able to choose.
The lower the input voltage you are using, the higher the current you will need to use. If you
compare a 12 volt and a 24 volt inverter of the same power rating, the 12 volt item will need
to draw twice the current. To carry that current, the cables from your battery to the inverter
will need to be 4 times the size.
A higher voltage system is likely to be more efficient although you will find that most
inverters on the market are either 12 or 24 volts. A 48 volt inverter will be more difficult to
find and may therefore be more expensive.
AC Output Power
Any inverter will have a quoted output power which will be the maximum power level they
can provide continuously, measured in watts or killowatts. Inverters will normally however
cope with higher levels of power for a short period, enabling them to deal with a short power
surge that many appliances will draw at turn on. Practically all electrical appliances will draw
extra current for a split second at switch on, including low energy light bulbs. The power
output characteristics will vary between different inverters but they may be able to produce
10% over the rated figure for 5 minutes, 50% over for 5 seconds, more for 1
second. Continuous output power capabilities of any inverter may be affected by the battery
supplying the DC input voltage. The battery will need to be large enough to be able to supply
the high current needed for a large inverter without the battery voltage dropping too low
.Continuous output power capabilities may also be affected by the ambient temperature. An
inverter that is producing high power will produce heat that is normally dissipated with the
help of a fan. If you are experiencing high air temperatures, your inverter may not be able to
cope with continuous high outputs without over heating and shutting down.
Inverter Efficiency
By efficiency, we are really saying, what percentage of the power that goes into the inverter
comes out as usable AC current (nothing is ever 100% efficient, there will always be some
losses in the system). This efficiency figure will vary according to how much power is being
used at the time, with the efficiency generally being greater when more power is used.
Efficiency may vary from something just over 50% when a trickle of power is being used, to
something over 90% when the output is approaching the inverters rated output. An inverter
will use some power from your batteries even when you are not drawing any AC power from
A 3Kw inverter may typically draw around 20 watts from your batteries when no AC current
is being used. It would then follow that if you are using 20 watts of AC power, the inverter
will be drawing 40 watts from the batteries and the efficiency will only be 50%.
A small 200W inverter may on the other hand only draw 25 watts from the battery to give an
AC output of 20 watts, resulting in an efficiency of 80%.
Larger inverters will generally have a facility that could be named a "Sleep Mode" to increase
overall efficiency. This involves a sensor within the inverter sensing if AC power is required.
If not, it will effectively switch the inverter off, continuing to sense if power is required. This
can usually be adjusted to ensure that simply switching a small light on is sufficient to "turn
the inverter on".
This does of course mean that appliances cannot be left in "stand-by" mode, and it may be
found that some appliances with timers (eg washing machine) reach a point in their cycle
where they do not draw enough power to keep the inverter "switched on", unless something
else, eg a light, is on at the same time.
Another important factor involves the wave form and inductive loads (ie an appliance where
an electrical coil is involved, which will include anything with a motor). Any waveform that
is not a true sine wave (ie is a square, or modified square wave) will be less efficient when
powering inductive loads - the appliance may use 20% more power than it would if using a
pure sine wave.
PWM Inverters.
Now a days most of the inverters available in the market utilizes the PWM (Pulse Width
Modulation) technology. The inverters based on PWM technology are superior in many
factors compared to other inverters designed using conventional technologies. The PWM
based inverters generally use MOSFETs in the output switching stage. In such cases the
inverters are generally termed as PWM MOSFET inverters. The inverters based on PWM
technology has a lot of protection and control circuits compared to the traditional inverters.

What is PWM technology
PWM or Pulse width Modulation is used to keep the output voltage of the inverter at the rated
voltage (110V AC / 220V AC) (depending on the country) irrespective of the output load. In
a conventional inverter the output voltage changes according to the changes in the load. To
nullify effect caused by the changing loads, the PWM inverter correct the output voltage
according to the value of the load connected at the output. This is accomplished by changing
the width of the switching frequency generated by the oscillator section. The AC voltage at
the output depend on the width of the switching pulse. The process is achieved by feed
backing a part of the inverter output to the PWM controller section (PWM controller
IC).Based on this feedback voltage the PWM controller will make necessary corrections in
the pulse width of the switching pulse generated at oscillator section. This change in the pulse
width of the switching pulse will cancel the changes in the output voltage and the inverter
output will stay constant irrespective of the load variations.
Oscillator circuit
Oscillator circuit generates the switching frequency. Generally the oscillator circuit will be
incorporated in the PWM IC itself.

Driver circuit
Driver circuit drives the output section of the inverter according to the switching frequency.
Transistors or Specially designed driver ICs are employed in the driver circuit.The driver
circuit is some what similar to a preamplifier.
Output section
Output section drives the load. It consists of a step up transformer for stepping up the battery
voltage to the line voltage and an array of switching MOSFET devices for driving the
primary of the step up transformer. The output voltage will be available at the secondary of
the step up transformer
Schematic:
First of all draw the schematic in DIP TRACE software













PCB LAYOUT












Inverter PCB Layout Positive:








Inverter PCB Layout Negative












Result
60 watt inverter
2. Amps rating. 0.26 Amps
3. Voltage Rating - Usually 230 Volts 230 Volts
4. Amps x Volts = Watts 60 Watts
5. Watts/1000 = kilowatts or kW .06 kW
6. Hours used in month (use an average) 660Hours
7. Kilowatts x Hours = Kilowatt Hours or kWh 39 KWh
8. Cost of electricity (in price per kWh) 450 Paise
9. kWh x PAISE = Cost (in paise) to run the Item for 1 month 17550 Paise
10. Divide by 100 to get to Cost in Rs to run Item for 1 month 175.5 Rs

Total Amount save per month 175 Rs


Conclusions
To complete this project in an effective manner a thorough understanding of solar technology
and important aspects of it is essential. A variety of different applications were researched
and determined whether or not they are even feasible at the current state of solar technology.
The most feasible application for solar power is for remote locations requiring small
quantities of power to run lighting, pumps, and other low power applications. Thats why we
design a solar inverter of 60w to fulfill the above requirement. The sun has the ability to give
off lots of energy however solar panels can only convert a small amount of solar energy to
electrical energy due to inefficiency in solar panel technology.