Cleaning PV panels too early wastes labor. Cleaning them too late costs energy yield. This system gives solar plant operators a practical way to track soiling by comparing radiation from two temperature-compensated reference cells: one kept clean and one cleaned with the PV panels.
In basic mode, the Clean Cell and Dirty Cell readings support manual decisions on when cleaning is needed. In advanced mode with the MTD-4000 datalogger and control box, the system calculates attenuation (%) automatically, showing the percentage of solar radiation loss due to soiling and helping confirm that cleaning or maintenance tasks have been carried out.
MDFS2 measures solar radiation from 0 to 1400 W/m2 with ±2.1% measurement error and provides a 65 mV analog signal per output at 1000 W/m2. IP-65 protection and an operating range from -20 ºC to +60 ºC support use in outdoor solar plant installations.
The system uses calibrated temperature-compensated Clean and Dirty reference cells to collect radiation data for soiling evaluation.
Operators manually compare Clean Cell and Dirty Cell readings to decide whether PV panel cleaning is needed.
With the MTD-4000 datalogger, the system calculates attenuation (%) and processes field task information from the control box.
The system provides sun elevation, Clean Cell radiation, Dirty Cell radiation, MDFS Status Code and attenuation as operating data.
The MDFS Status Code uses 9 flag bits for system diagnosis, cleaning detection, operation alarms and pairing information.
An optional pairing routine defines the initial relationship between Clean and Dirty Cell signals for more accurate advanced-mode data.
