[RE-wrenches] transformerless inverters and conductor colors

[Chris Mason]

Just brought it up with AEESolar and they can supply red and black PV Wire.
In reference to marking the conductor polarity with tape, wouldn't that
fall foul of the NEC rule that only allows wire colouring on conductors
larger than #6?


On Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 2:17 AM, Ray Walters <ray at solarray.com> wrote:

>  All Cable and probably other companies can add striping and marking to
> any wire you need.
>
> R.Ray Walters
> CTO, Solarray, Inc
> Nabcep Certified PV Installer,
> Licensed Master Electrician
> Solar Design Engineer303 505-8760
>
> On 9/23/2013 10:57 PM, don at energysolarnow.com wrote:
>
> Marco- You should not transition to THHN wire at all for the DC run. The
> PV wire is double insulated for a good reason- the transformerless
> inverters are such suckers for a ground fault that they need the extra
> protection. That's why the NEC specifies PV wire.
> I recently did an installation like you wrote, with a transition at the
> j-box. This developed an intermittent ground fault when wet, and when the
> P1 inverter failed it was deemed out of warranty.  Learn from my mistake--
> use PV wire all the way to the inverter.
>
>  That said, does anyone know where to get 1000 volt PV wire in colors
> other than red, black, and white?
> It would be nice to color code the positive runs like is possible with
> colors of THHN.
> I'm thinking of buying spools of white and spraying plastic paint on them
> for a striped color coding.
>
>  Don Barch
> Energy Solar
>
>
>   Message: 3
> Date: Mon, 23 Sep 2013 09:27:30 -1000
> From: "Marco Mangelsdorf" <marco at pvthawaii.com>
> To: "'RE-wrenches'" <re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org>
> Subject: [RE-wrenches] transformerless inverters and conductor colors
> Message-ID: <000001ceb892$f3e41470$dbac3d50$@com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> Hi all,
>
> We're doing more and more installs with TL inverters (SMA and P1).
>
> I'm using double-insulated wire from the array string to the first
> enclosure, as in j-box, and then transitioning to standard THHN/THWN wire.
>
> --------------------------------------------
>
>
>
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-- 
Chris Mason
President, Comet Systems Ltd
www.cometenergysystems.com
Cell: 264.235.5670
Skype: netconcepts
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