Breaking Glass and Fire - Formerly BP Closes Thin-Film [RE-wrenches]

[Matt Lafferty]

All:

EH said:

>I think there are some wrenches out there who have had glass breakage
problems and pyrotechnic problems with Millennia >modules. I'll let them
speak if they choose to.

I installed something like 7000+ Millennia Integra Frame MST-43's.  Well, I
had helpers . . .

Breakage was not a major factor.  Very minor, in fact.  There was one from a
beer bottle (it was still lying beside the module...I have a picture
somewhere)  and one house in a bad neighborhood got hit with vandalism.
Other than that, a couple were broken by my guys and a few in shipping.

There was a batch in the summer of '99 (hotter'n hell here that summer) that
all of a sudden started cracking after install.  They all had similiar
cracking characteristics.  We went back through all the jobs that had glass
installed from that production run.  (Lesson here ..... Keeping good records
is a good thing for tracking down defects!)  There was an alarming number of
broken modules as far as we were concerned....we had a virtually spotless
track record up to that point.  We immediately contacted the factory (Still
Solarex at the time) and they dispatched the guy in the pictures in the
installation manual to come see what was up.

We went back to the sites so he could evaluate them on the roof.  We had
replaced the 5 modules found on the first job and he did glass stress
optical testing on them in the shop.  We tore the frames off a couple to
inspect the edges of the glass.  There apparently wasn't any stress in the
glass from lamination.  I looked through the thing too.  They all looked the
same to me so I really don't know what I was looking at.  I have 20/425
vision (thick lenses...or thick head....don't know) anyway, so I wouldn't be
a good judge of things like that.  lol

We replaced the others we found and sent about 6 or 8 back to Maryland for
analysis.  Basically they said "We don't really know"

We followed up with a 6-Month inspection.  No further cracking.

This all sounds like it may be a lot of modules, but it wasn't.  There was a
whopping 13 modules that cracked from that 100 kW. All told, we had about 60
modules that we qualified as defects.  Common things were:  Reversed or
duplicate connectors, Nicks on the wires from the factory (packing problem)
and the breakage of course.

Pyro Stuff:  At least 95% of all these systems were high-voltage DC.  We
have had ZERO of the alleged "Fire" incidents.  I discussed this with the
factory this past spring when I heard about it.

They told me that on some of their commercial installations, there was an
issue with the structure.  They apparently had nearly continuous vibration
inherent to the type of mounting / structure these systems were mounted on.
For whatever reason, this caused de-lam within the modules and, under load,
they burned up internally.  They modified the mounting with a vibration
damping component and supposedly resolved the problem.

I can tell you that the wires on these modules are FRAGILE!  Extreme care in
handling them is essential to success.  Otherwise you will be chasing ground
faults.

I had one guy working for me (he's a County Inspector now....figures) that
couldn't pull a wire without nicking it to save his life.  On one job,
pre-startup testing showed a ground fault with heavy current.  I got up on
the roof to T-shoot.  I found two wires he pulled through the integral
raceway that were arcing to the frame.  I pulled them out and replaced them.

I hung them on the wall in the office and used them as a training / reminder
for my guys.

That's what I know....

Be careful out there and.....

Pray for Sun!

-Matt Lafferty
pvpro at attbi.com

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