<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div>Inside the micros, stainless steel through bolt and aluminum case don't work well together and allow corrosion into the interior of the circuitry, right past the conformal coating. I've also seen them short circuit and blacken the back of the PV module directly above them, sounds like a firecracker exploding.<br><br><div>Michael D Nelson</div><div>MD Electric & Solar, Inc.</div><div>707-684-0064 mobile</div><div>707-884-1862 office</div><div><a href="http://www.mdelectricsolar.com">www.mdelectricsolar.com</a></div>Sent from my iPhone</div><div><br>On Sep 14, 2016, at 7:54 AM, Jay <<a href="mailto:jay.peltz@gmail.com">jay.peltz@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div></div><div>Hi mike,</div><div><br></div><div>question. </div><div>Are you saying the corrosion has been the source of the failures?</div><div>Is this wire connection or actually inside the micro?</div><div><br></div><div>Jay</div><div>Peltz power</div><div><br>On Sep 13, 2016, at 6:44 PM, Mike Nelson <<a href="mailto:mdelectricsolar@gmail.com">mdelectricsolar@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div>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.<br><br><div>Michael D Nelson</div><div>MD Electric & Solar, Inc.</div><div>707-684-0064 mobile</div><div>707-884-1862 office</div><div><a href="http://www.mdelectricsolar.com">www.mdelectricsolar.com</a></div>Sent from my iPhone</div><div><br>On Sep 13, 2016, at 6:23 PM, Rebecca Lundberg <<a href="mailto:rebecca.lundberg@gmail.com">rebecca.lundberg@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">Esteemed wrenches,<br><br>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.<br><br>Are others having much trouble with
micro-inverters? We have had
repeated issues with several different brands on our systems in Minnesota:<br>- 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?<br><br>- 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?<br><br>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? <br><br clear="all"></div><div><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><span>Rebecca Lundberg</span></span></font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
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