Bad workmanship strikes again [RE-wrenches]

[carl reuter]

 Wrenches: I was just called out today to pull an SW inverter off of a Trace Power Panel and send it in on warranty after it smoked. The customer fired the original contractor, unfortunately too late though, as he had installed their grid-tie solar system, a huge generator system and even a burglar alarm system and did a bad job of all of it. Doug Pratt wrote about this installation some months ago and it is every bit as retched as he described. One thing that puzzles me is that I saw 54 Solarex MSX120s making up the array. Even though these are 72 cell modules that could be wired as 24 volts, they are feeding a pair of SW 4048 inverters. In my mind that seems like it would require 52 modules. Any speculation on that one? One thing that was happening was that the j box covers were warped from overheating on the last  modules on each array. I only had limited time there so it was strictly a visual examination but I cant wait to see whats happening in those boxes.There was no combiner box and everything was done with SEOW cable. From the ground it ran 250+ ft in two pairs of #2 wires in 2" conduit to the batteries. Yikes, by my calcs it should have been 4/0 pairs. I'd love a second opinion on that .
Another bonehead manuever was them installing  #2 hand made battery cables between the batteries with hammer crimped lugs and no heat shrink covered ends. This is all sad evidence of what happens when some hacks that only know enough to be dangerous jump into the blossoming world of grid-tie solar. Carl Reuter


Carl Reuter- Owner
Land and Sea Solar
"Bringing Solar Down To Earth"
www.landandseasolar.com
Ph: 831-477-7169
Fax: 831-465-8349



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