gadfly56
Senior Member
- Location
- New Jersey
- Occupation
- Professional Engineer, Fire & Life Safety
Burned out fuses
- Thread starter Zee
- Start date
- Status
solar.stevepvip
Member
- Location
- US
The pin you crimp on the wire is going to attach the same to 10awg stranded thhn as it does to 10 awg pv because it's still 10 awg stranded wire. However depending on the manufacturer, the rubber grommet may not actually fully tighten against the thhn. I know from experience the MC4's made by sunloam will work on anything from PV to thhn. They are simply amazing and cheap.
Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
solar.stevepvip
Member
- Location
- US
Were there any fault codes on the inverter that initially brought you to the system? If so what were they?
Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
solar.stevepvip
Member
- Location
- US
If your summers are like the summers in the midwest, then I'm sure close to 200 degrees. Shingles out here regularly reach 180 on a hot sunny summer day in 100 degree heat.
Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
jaggedben
Senior Member
- Location
- Northern California
- Occupation
- Solar and Energy Storage Installer
Perhaps another reason (besides expense and installation hassle) not to use Soladeck. That integration of a metal enclosure into the shingles probably raises the temp in comparison to a rack mounted PVC box.
solar.stevepvip
Member
- Location
- US
Do you have any recommendations on rack mounting a pvc box on ironridge rails?
Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
- I am sure JBen has a good answer.
PVC does not do well with heat....... and especially UV radiation.
Use a metal box!
Just my two cents.
But I am curious, why would you use PVC? Maybe I am missing something.
- I pre-drill the side of a Bell box twice and TEK (stainless steel) screw it to the flat side of Ironridge rail.
- Wow! 180-200 degrees. I'd say that exceeds the design Temps.
- Yes, I have read that attaching to the roof deck itself increases Temp significantly.
I'll stick to j boxes rail-mounted AND under solar panels.
PVC does not do well with heat....... and especially UV radiation.
Use a metal box!
Just my two cents.
But I am curious, why would you use PVC? Maybe I am missing something.
- I pre-drill the side of a Bell box twice and TEK (stainless steel) screw it to the flat side of Ironridge rail.
- Wow! 180-200 degrees. I'd say that exceeds the design Temps.
- Yes, I have read that attaching to the roof deck itself increases Temp significantly.
I'll stick to j boxes rail-mounted AND under solar panels.
gadfly56
Senior Member
- Location
- New Jersey
- Occupation
- Professional Engineer, Fire & Life Safety
jaggedben
Senior Member
- Location
- Northern California
- Occupation
- Solar and Energy Storage Installer
Bolt it to a couple ironridge L-feet. I'll admit his doesn't allow for the j-box to be under the panels on flush mount systems, if that's important to you.
just ordered:thumbsup:
Ozymandias
Member
- Location
- Missouri
NEC 690.7(A) note, look up ASHRAE Temperature tables for US cities. There are columns that match temperatures with distances in conduit. In my area a conduit 0" to 0.5", the temp is 156F, then from 0.5" to 3.5" is 134F and so forth. A soladeck being directly on the roof may exceed rated designs for devices involved, fuses, wire, etc. It blows my mind when you design an array how many precautions need to be taken when the array is there for 25+ years.
gadfly56
Senior Member
- Location
- New Jersey
- Occupation
- Professional Engineer, Fire & Life Safety
Or, he can do as I suggested at #9 and and #30 and find out for sure, no guess-work involved.
Ozymandias
Member
- Location
- Missouri
Absolutely, I just suggested a guideline but individual conditions determine it. That temp gage looks very handy.Built a sheet metal simple shade cover to cool it a bit. Painted it white.
Did sophisticated touch test of white metal vs black solar panel. Less hot.
Gutted fuses and used black polaris connectors.
Oh.....Customer paid $1000 to utility last year due to loss of half his system...wants me to pay him!:blink:
Snap!
Now I wonder how many of these fused systems I have...and how many have problems...how many will.
Well better to catch it now. Chalk it up to a learning experience.
To sum it up:
Seems issues really arise when
fuses are on roof,
CB is in full sun,
especially if soladeck,
darker color
Does anyone think #12 would heat up more than #10 wire? 9 amps pv. To a degree that contributed to failure of fuse.
Did sophisticated touch test of white metal vs black solar panel. Less hot.
Gutted fuses and used black polaris connectors.
Oh.....Customer paid $1000 to utility last year due to loss of half his system...wants me to pay him!:blink:
Snap!
Now I wonder how many of these fused systems I have...and how many have problems...how many will.
Well better to catch it now. Chalk it up to a learning experience.
To sum it up:
Seems issues really arise when
fuses are on roof,
CB is in full sun,
especially if soladeck,
darker color
Does anyone think #12 would heat up more than #10 wire? 9 amps pv. To a degree that contributed to failure of fuse.
Last edited:
I don't generally have anything to do with residential work so I don't know this but is it normal in a residential PV installation to not have anyone notice there is a problem until the annual true-up shows up and the customer owes a bunch of money? Is the monitoring just ignored all those months?
gadfly56
Senior Member
- Location
- New Jersey
- Occupation
- Professional Engineer, Fire & Life Safety
Since the HO still had half a system the POCO was paying him something. I'm guessing the HO is looking to be made whole for the lost revenue. For me, it would depend on when the HO should have known something was wrong. If he's suddenly getting only 1/2 the output he should have spoken up right then, unless the fuses blew within the first month.
jaggedben
Senior Member
- Location
- Northern California
- Occupation
- Solar and Energy Storage Installer
Yes it's normal, unfortunately. It depends on the homeowner and they run the gamut. Many watch it like hawks, while others have no clue. Half the time the monitoring data link is down anyway when a production issue arises , because the connection has been unplugged from the router, or the wi-fi password got changed or whatever. We work pretty diligently to get monitoring set up and running at installation time, but we just don't have the resources to monitor the monitoring. The companies that did leasing systems were obligated to do that; I think that's part of the reason many went under or have downsized and moved away from that model.
- Status