[RE-wrenches] Canadian Solar / MC4 connectors in a marine environment

Glenn Burt glenn.burt at glbcc.com
Tue Jun 7 05:13:00 PDT 2016


How about squirting some silicone dielectric grease into the contacts before mating and wrapping the connection with the sticky black tape used on coaxial cable for outdoor antenna work. I don't have a name handy here on my phone, sorry.

Glenn

-----Original Message-----
From: "Kirk Herander" <vtsolar at icloud.com>
Sent: ‎6/‎6/‎2016 17:28
To: "RE-wrenches" <re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org>
Subject: [RE-wrenches] Canadian Solar / MC4 connectors in a marine	environment

Hello,

 

I am debugging a Florida ocean-side 35 kw array using 4 year old Canadian
Solar panels, which I've never had a high opinion of, installed by others.

I've discovered several not-so-good problems, such as low insulation
resistance through the panels, ONLY when raining, early to mid-morning
condensation, or by using the last resort of spraying the panels with a
garden house and watching the SMA inverters shut down due to failing their
self "Riso" (that's the IRT) test creating a ground fault error.

That aside, what's just as interesting is that about 8 or 9 of the module
interconnections were basically oozing the aqua-blue copper tarnish. I've
never seen this in any installation before. Either the MC4s weren't crimped
and tightened at the factory well, or the connectors were seated poorly,
although that doesn't seem to be the case. BTW, I replaced all these dubious
MC4 connectors and the ground faults still occur when the panels are wet.

The bigger issue is the panel warranty, but is there anything on the market
which could seal these connections, perhaps a type of "clamshell" to provide
an extra layer of protection, which is removable if need be? There's always
glue-filled heat shrink, but ideally I don't want anything permanent
surrounding the connectors.

Has anyone ever seen what I'm describing in a marine environment?

 

Kirk Herander

Owner|Principal, VT Solar, LLC 

Celebrating our 25th Anniversary 1991-2016

www.vermontsolarnow.com

dba Vermont Solar Engineering

NABCEPTM  2003 Inaugural Certificant

VT RE Incentive Program Partner

802.863.1202

 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org/attachments/20160607/779ae775/attachment-0002.html>


More information about the RE-wrenches mailing list