[RE-wrenches] micro-inverters

[Jerry Shafer]

The 190's had component issues which case them to balloon up
Jerry

On Sep 14, 2016 10:11 AM, "William Miller" <william at millersolar.com> wrote:

> Colleagues:
>
> We have M190s fail in beach installations. Some have had the cases swell
> up like there is a tumor inside. I haven't cut them open to see what's
> inside because they need to go back to manufacturer.
>
> William
>
> On Sep 14, 2016, at 9:32 AM, Jerry Shafer <jerrysgarage01 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Mike
> I also work near the ocean, its all around me here in Hawaii, we have had
> the 190's fail but not to environmental conditions and very few issues with
> 215's. Do you have any pics of the damage as l have seen very little salt
> issues.
> Jerry
>
> On Sep 13, 2016 9:11 PM, "Mike Nelson" <mdelectricsolar at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I've had so many Enphase failures it's kind of ridiculous. We install
>> most of our systems near the ocean so corrosion has played a big factor.
>> The newer micro inverters are holding a much better, 215 and 250's. I have
>> learned over the years that SMA makes the best product, and I mostly stick
>> with them. Sometimes micro inverters are requested or really fit the
>> installation particulars, so I still use them occasionally. I haven't yet
>> tried solar edge.
>>
>> Michael D Nelson
>> MD Electric & Solar, Inc.
>> 707-684-0064 mobile
>> 707-884-1862 office
>> www.mdelectricsolar.com
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> On Sep 13, 2016, at 6:23 PM, Rebecca Lundberg <rebecca.lundberg at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Esteemed wrenches,
>>
>> I'm hoping the experience of this list can help give us a broader
>> perspective on the current market performance and as a secondary concern,
>> tech support (or lack thereof), from solar micro-inverter manufacturers.
>>
>> Are others having much trouble with micro-inverters? We have had repeated
>> issues with several different brands on our systems in Minnesota:
>> - 8 Enphase systems with mostly M210 and M215, have had to repeatedly go
>> back to sites to replace units. The new replacement ones seem to be lasting
>> better (we sure hope they will). Enphase is harder to contact in recent
>> years, but we're happy they at least provide a predictable stipend. Are you
>> also having to replace a lot of this brand of product? Are the newer models
>> holding up better?
>>
>> - We gave a new inverter busbar design concept a try (tenKsolar) and
>> though the micro-inverters were supposed to take turns and be 'redundant,'
>> the ones with APS micro-inverters needed 100% replacement and the ones with
>> Lead Solar micro-inverters have a problem where if one of them fails it
>> appears to send a signal to all the rest so the entire busbar stops working
>> -- in action it's far from redundant. When we purchased the tenKsolar Rais
>> Inverter Bus (RIB) the spec sheet didn't tell us what brand of
>> micro-inverter they would use as the OEM so we couldn't research the
>> viability of the product or company or warranty stipend (or lack there-of)
>> of the micro-inverter OEM. We assumed it was a tenKsolar product and they
>> would provide warranty replacements, service, and tech support, but our
>> experience has been far from that. When something goes wrong tenK says
>> 'it's not our product that's failing' because they don't actually
>> manufacture the micro-inverter (it's an OEM), the micro-inverter company
>> says 'it's not our product' because tenKsolar has it wired and used in a
>> very unique manner specific to the tenKsolar product, so both manufacturers
>> are backing away from any responsibility. A 25-year warranty on the
>> inverter busbar is a great concept but if/when something goes wrong there
>> is no support and no apparent warranty at all except maybe they will send
>> us a new component that needs several hours of work to re-install, so
>> either the installer does the warranty work for free or the customer has a
>> very unexpected expense to get their system back up and running a year or
>> two after it was installed; we think both scenarios are unacceptable (from
>> our installer perspective :-), do any of you have experiences you can share
>> here?
>>
>> I'm wondering if the climate in MN makes us an anomaly. Based on these
>> micro-inverter experiences we feel like the Rapid Shutdown rule has forced
>> us to use dc optimizers on residential applications whether we want to or
>> not -- is that pretty much what all of you are doing too?
>>
>> Rebecca Lundberg
>>
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