Electrolysis Damage Story [RE-wrenches]

[Matt Tritt]

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Allan,

Presumably there will be signs of current having passed from your steel 
junction box and the mounting pole as well because of the galvanized 
pole exterior and the painted mild steel of the box and what happens 
when the surfaces are wet. What sounds kind of weird is the amount of 
damage to the pole. Was this all new material when installed?

Aside from the questionable installation job, I doubt that Ron and Mike 
would suggest using a 5" pole in lieu of 6", especially if the area is 
subject to the occasional 60 MPH gust, but maybe you could fill the pole 
with concrete to stiffen it up. I have successfully used this method on 
a gas tracker after discovering that the owner/installer of the pole had 
somehow misconstrued ID and OD dimensions. (Where he found 5.5" pipe is 
a mystery). I had an adapter fabricated to fit the tracker socket and 
used 4 set screws to keep things solid. It's been through 90 MPH plus 
storms with no problem (so far!) You can't "repair" a rusted-through 
pole since there is nothing solid enough to weld if it's gone at ground 
level.

Using diagonal braces and collars sounds pretty ugly.

It's too bad that your installer wasn't aware of plastic strain reliefs 
when he did the job; they've been around since well before '97, as have 
the aluminum variety. It's also too bad that he ran his ground wire 
along with the PV wires. :-( I admit to having used Romex clamps for 
years (starting in '80) in outdoor installations, up until the right 
stuff became available, and never had anything remotely like this happen 
(fortunately) But then my ground wires only grounded the array and pole 
because I mostly used Carlon boxes! :-)

Good luck,

Matt T

Allan Sindelar wrote:

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>Wrenches,
>A simple mistake can have major consequences.
>
>In 1997, in my first year of business, I designed and sold a SW4024-based
>grid-tied system for a new home. As I wasn't licensed at the time, another
>local electrical contractor with a history of doing solar installations was
>separately contracted to pull the permit and do the installation. Upon
>completion, I corrected a few things I didn't like (battery cables connected
>at one end of the bank, rather than diagonally, for example) and have
>supported the system and the customer in the years since. This is a good
>customer.
>
>The system has worked well, with only the Wattsun tracker and the E-Meter
>requiring repair or replacement. The client called recently about tracker
>malfunction, and today Mark (partner) went to the site to service it. What
>he found was battery voltage at the tracker ground, which he determined was
>from a ground fault at the array. The galvanic action caused by the fault
>had rusted the 8-year-old 6" Sch 40 steel pole to the point that he could
>poke a screwdriver through the pole at the base, and was concerned about the
>whole thing toppling over any minute.
>
>The cause of the ground fault was the use of two 1/2" Romex clamps for
>strain relief where the USE-2 array input conductors entered a steel 3R
>combiner box on the pole. Each of the two clamps held four #10 USE-2
>conductors and one bare #8 or #10 grounding electrode conductor. One of the
>clamps had shorted one of the PV+ conductors to ground. I am guessing that
>it had been like this for a long time, maybe since installation, and I had
>never detected the fault during routine service calls. An array GFDI wasn't
>installed or required (and I'm not sure anyone even made one at that time).
>
>The customer is looking at repair options for the pole, including outriggers
>with driven steel posts and welded braces, and a poured concrete cap over
>the base of the pole. We will head out soon to disassemble the array, to
>reduce wind sail and the chance that it will come down, and to buy some time
> for a good repair to be devised. We are also looking at setting a 5" steel
>pole inside the 6", with cement slurry between the two.
>
>We haven't worked out a course of action yet. A couple of questions:
>
>We use SO connectors for USE wire, and use Romex clamps for jacketed wire in
>indoor locations. Is the use of Romex clamps on USE wire in this application
>legal per NEC? What Code section addresses this?
>If issues of liability and responsibility come up (and they probably will
>not) who's liable? The contractor who installed the system and pulled the
>permit? The inspector who signed off on the job? Us? How would you serve the
>customer in this case? I supplied a one-year warranty on system design and
>component failures, and the installer gave the same against failures due to
>incorrect installation.
>
>Has anyone ever repaired a rusted pole? Howdja doit, and did it work?
>
>Thanks for any good advice. I'll share your responses with the client.
>
>Allan at Positive Energy
>
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>  
>

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