The MetaEdge Expansion Board was designed to remotely monitor and control the operation of high-power inverter and high-voltage battery systems. The design utilises a Raspberry Pi CM4 or a Banana Pi CM4 module, offering flexibility based on system requirements.
Interfaces
The board includes both user interfaces and isolated 5 kV-rated interfaces for connection to the inverter and battery systems.
The isolated 5 kV interfaces include:
The user interface includes:
Power and Backup
The board is powered by an external 24V supply, while all protection and filtering features are built into the board itself. These include over-voltage protection, common-mode and differential-mode filtering, and a supercapacitor-based backup system. The backup system can supply power for up to 8 minutes, allowing the CM4 module to safely save any RAM-captured data and shut down properly in the event of an inverter trip or power failure.
Compatibility
The MetaEdge Expansion Board supports both Raspberry Pi CM4 and Banana Pi CM4 modules. The choice can be tailored based on operating system requirements such as Wi-Fi support, processing power, RAM, and eMMC storage capacity.
Design and Development
Electron Artz was tasked with the complete design from the ground up. The initial version worked as expected; however, a single revision was made to incorporate minor improvements that were not critical to the overall operation of the device.
Ario MetaPower approached Electron Artz for design assistance with the electronic hardware of their 200kW inverter. Electron Artz was tasked with reviewing, redesigning, and adding new functionality to two of the three boards in the inverter control stack. Additionally, we were commissioned to design two entirely new boards for the inverter from the ground up.
The MetaEdge Expansion Board was one of these new boards, developed completely from scratch.
