SMA Tripower Core1 Arc Faults

solarken

NABCEP PVIP
Location
Hudson, OH, USA
Occupation
Solar Design and Installation Professional
I have several commercial customers where I installed SMA Tripower Core1 62.5 inverters, most with multiple inverters at the site. Besides an issue in 2021 where i had to replace the ARTX boards under warranty due to a manufacturing defect, they have been generally reliable. Lately, however, I am seeing Arc fault errors in multiple inverters. I inspected an array a few weeks ago that experienced the error, and found no wiring issues with any accessible wiring, although I did not disassemble the array to get at all the string cabling. I moved a few strings from one string group to another (to help identify which string if it recurs), reset the error, and it has been operating fine since. Last night, one inverter at a different site is reporting the errors, Event ID 4301-Serial El Arc detected in string ABC, followed by Event ID 8206-Electric arc detected. This site is 3.5 hrs away. Is anyone else experiencing these errors with customer systems? I am trying to understand if there is another widespread circuit board issue or false positive, or if it is indeed a real arc fault. Thank you for any help.
 
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