Carflex revisited [RE-wrenches]

[William Miller]

At 12:02 PM 5/29/01 -0700, you wrote:
>Bill, etal,
>I disagree strongly. Flexible Nonmetallic Conduit (FNC) not only 
>looks better and more professional than USE or Tray cable, but it 
>seals out moisture FAR better than those wiring methods. We assume 
>it's installed properly, which is actually easier to do than Tray or 
>USE. USE comes only in black, whereas THW or THHN comes in black, 
>red, white, and lots of other colors if you want to get crazy.
>Half inch FNC can easily take three #10 THHN conductors. These make 
>it FAR easier AND CHEAPER to series or series-parallel a subarray. It 
>is also safer as there is less likelihood of a screw up then when 
>using all black conductors with (hopefully) correctly marked phasing 
>tape. Individual wire gland nuts ain't cheap. Sometimes you need up 
>to FIVE or SIX of the buggers on a single J-box. Astropower, ASE, etc 
>need to get with the program. EVERY other device in a PV system is 
>either conduit ready or they don't get UL listed. I guess those manus 
>are "special"?


I really agree with the above points.  I was struggling to find a few
minutes to put this in writing.  Thanks Bob for doing it for me.

I was working behind two top-of-pole-mount arrays today.  Ambient
temperature was well over 90 degrees with no breeze..  The back of the
panels were hot to the touch.  The conduits were cool to the touch.

This issue may come down to proving or dis-proving how hot it gets on the
back of a PV panel.  I've never had an inspector question the use of
non-metallic seal tight flex.  If one does, I'll do my best to convince him
or her that this use is absolutely acceptable.

I'll check this on my next roof mount.

William Miller



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William Miller
SLO Communications: Communications and Power Systems Consulting
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email: wrmiller at slonet.org
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