Notification Apparatus Usable With Cooling System or Other System

摘要

A notification apparatus is usable with a cooling system of a solar inverter and employs various environmental and operational parameters to calculate a cooling efficiency of the cooling system. The value of the cooling efficiency is employed to determine the potential for cooling system problems. The notification apparatus may employ a software-based model of the cooling system that outputs a predicted cooling efficiency. If the difference between the actual cooling efficiency and the predicted cooling efficiency is within a predetermined tolerance, the notification apparatus can instruct the performance of a relatively less extensive diagnostic operation to be performed on the cooling system at night. If the difference in cooling efficiencies is outside the tolerance, a relatively more extensive diagnostic operation can be performed. A rule-based diagnostic system employs the coolant pressures at the inlet and outlet of a radiator to generate one or more diagnoses of the cooling system.

主权项

1. A notification apparatus usable with an operable system, the system in operation having a number of operational parameters whose values vary and are based at least in part upon a number of environmental parameters whose values vary, the notification apparatus comprising:
a processor apparatus comprising a processor and a storage; an input apparatus structured to provide input signals to the processor apparatus; an output apparatus structured to receive output signals from the processor apparatus; the storage having stored therein a number of routines that comprise a model which is representative of at least a portion of the system, the number of routines being executed on the processor causing the notification apparatus to perform operations comprising: receiving an input comprising a value of at least a first environmental parameter of the number of environmental parameters; subjecting the input to at least a portion of the number of routines to generate a number of predicted values for at least some of the number of operational parameters; calculating a predicted operational efficiency value of the system that is based at least in part on at least some of the number of predicted values; receiving another input comprising a number of actual values for at least some of the number of operational parameters; calculating an actual operational efficiency value of the system that is based at least in part on at least a portion of the another input; and making a comparison between a pre-established tolerance value and a difference between the predicted operational efficiency value and the actual operational efficiency value.