I see Friday the 13th has arrived all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed one more time just like clockwork. But now it is wearing horns as well. That's some conundrum you present about keeping your competitive edge in a dicey business climate. What if you "sold" your wiring concept to Enphase on a royalty basis use arrangement? Would that have some appeal to you so that private knowledge doesn't totally go to waste vis a vis the Enphase product in general? One would think the manufacturer might recognize the wisdom in your discovery and would want to show some appreciation for sharing what you found lacking in their own product concept. I know I would. You could call your idea the Miller System. Can you license/copyright the idea maybe? If so, then you could always sell the concept elsewhere when further occasions of similar use came up. Think man, think! Then you could tell us more ... for a fair price. This reminds me of my solar thermal days back in the late 70s when we discovered various clever ways of improving such systems but we kept that knowledge strictly to ourselves for fear of benefitting our few competitors. That company eventually went belly up by 1985, partly in result of not finding a workable arrangement for the profitable sharing of valuable in-house knowledge we had developed earlier. And such is life in the slow lane sometimes.
Jim Hartley Homestead Specialties ----- Original Message ----- From: William Miller To: RE-wrenches Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 2:04 AM Subject: [RE-wrenches] Enphase installation details Colleagues: We are in the middle of our first Enphase installation. I have been working closely with the crew on this project and dedicated extra time because we knew we needed to develop some new procedures to accommodate the new technology. My most surprising realization is that with the Enphase inverters, the roof-top wiring now has two levels of unprotected wiring, DC and AC. I have been working on an analogy for the recent evolution of PV wiring standards and the best I can come up with is that the new norm is akin to wiring a rooftop air conditioning unit with SO and USE. Flexible cords are more suited to portable, consumer connectable appliances in non-harsh environments. We wrestled with two issues: How to secure the AC wiring with a minimum 10 year longevity -- and how to secure the DC wiring with the same life expectancy. In a previous career I worked in the telecommunications industry. In a telcom facility we had access to many layers of wire routing hardware and systems. The PV industry has, in my opinion, largely ignored wire management. Ironically, telecom wiring is low voltage in an industrial setting and we can secure it systematically, whereas PV wiring is high voltage, often in a residential setting, outdoors, in high temperature and wet conditions and yet we are relegated to the ubiquitous and fragile cable tie as our prime methodology. It is our corporate position that the plastic cable tie can not be counted on for longer that two years in an under-PV environment and, since we wire for a minimum 10 year life expectancy, the plastic cable tie is not suitable. Over the course of two days we developed robust and efficient techniques for securing the AC and DC wiring. I'd love to share our procedures with this group, but due to extreme competition in our area, I must of necessity keep any procedures that give us a competitive advantage confidential. This is unfortunate as my inclination is to teach, but it is a reality in this business climate. I hope the industry can eventually recognize some of these short comings. The solar water industry died an early death because of economic pressures and shoddy workmanship. It is possible that the solar electric industry of today can suffer some of the same if we can't preform to higher standards. William Miller Please note new e-mail address and domain: William Miller Miller Solar Voice :805-438-5600 Fax: 805-438-4607 email: will...@millersolar.com http://millersolar.com License No. C-10-773985 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ List sponsored by Home Power magazine List Address: RE-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org Options & settings: http://lists.re-wrenches.org/options.cgi/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org List-Archive: http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org List rules & etiquette: www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htm Check out participant bios: www.members.re-wrenches.org
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