Hi Jason, I have had an experience servicing other's arrays where they used PVC on the roof. The LB cover does not hold up over time and then water and snow were getting into the conduit, which came straight down into the top of that same kind of Eaton panel. Corrosion caused at least one breaker in there to fail. Another thing I've seen burn marks on a breaker like that just due to loose connection (is what it appeared to be, anyway) arcing over time. Good luck, Dave
*Dave Tedeyan, PE* Senior Engineer | Taitem Engineering, PC 110 South Albany Street | Ithaca, NY 14850 o. *607.277.1118 x121* f. 607.277.2119 www.taitem.com Solar • Sustainability • Energy • Design Certified B-Corporation since 2013 On Tue, Jan 21, 2020 at 12:40 PM August Goers <aug...@luminalt.com> wrote: > Hi Jason - > > It certainly appears that there was some sort of surge or short. We've had > a few cases where microinverter branch circuit end termination caps were > left off or fell off and shorted out during rain storms. You might want to > double check that those are all in place. We've also had cases were > microinvers themselves developed internal shorts. This third comment is > only anecdotal - I've been in touch with a couple of other installers that > have had back-fed breaker issues specifically with Eaton brand breakers > burning up the bus stabs. Our company has had one unexplained issue where > the inverter output breaker bus stabs were burned up with Eaton breakers. I > have no idea whether the breakers were faulty or what, but thought I'd just > mention it in case there is a pattern. > > Best, August > Luminalt > > > On Tue, Jan 21, 2020 at 9:10 AM Jason Szumlanski < > ja...@floridasolardesigngroup.com> wrote: > >> (System installed by another contractor...) >> >> I have been tasked with assisting in the investigation of damage in a >> subpanel used to combine inverter output circuits (5 strings of >> microinverters). There appears to be no damage to conductors or other >> system components. It looks like the damage started at the stabs of the bus >> bar where the breakers connect. Picture attached. Here are a few clues: >> >> - Monitoring indicates that damage occurred overnight a few weeks >> ago. That night we had rain as a winter front came through Florida, >> possibly lightning. The prior day everything was fine. >> - The next morning, only 2 of 5 strings started producing power, but >> 4 of 5 strings were reporting data to the Envoy. The two strings that were >> reporting but not producing power reported 0Vac and Voc on the DC side of >> the microinverters. >> - A couple of weeks later, 1 of the 2 strings that was producing >> power quit doing so, but continued reporting data. >> - Customer discovered damage yesterday. >> - About a week before the initial damage apparently manifested >> itself, another contractor installed a whole house generator transfer >> switch on the line side of the PV interconnection. The generator has never >> been run (there is not even a LP fuel source on site yet). I pointed out >> that the solar interconnection, which was previously on the supply side, >> would need to be moved to the supply side of the generator transfer >> switch's main breaker before operation. During the transfer switch >> installation, the contractor also switched line 1 and line 2, but that >> shouldn't really matter, except for Enphase consumption monitoring, which >> was messed up by the swapping of the lines. >> >> So I'm looking for ideas. I'm wondering if the OCPD would be a likely >> place for lightning damage to manifest itself. I can't visually detect any >> other damage anywhere else. I can't imagine that the transfer switch >> installation would have anything to do with it, but the timing is >> interesting. Other than replacing the subpanel and OCPD and firing it back >> up (no pun intended), I'm not sure how to approach further investigation. >> >> Jason Szumlanski >> Florida Solar Design Group >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> List sponsored by Redwood Alliance >> >> List Address: RE-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org >> >> Change listserver email address & settings: >> http://lists.re-wrenches.org/options.cgi/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org >> >> List-Archive: >> http://www.mail-archive.com/re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org/maillist.html >> >> List rules & etiquette: >> www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htm >> >> Check out or update participant bios: >> www.members.re-wrenches.org >> >> _______________________________________________ > List sponsored by Redwood Alliance > > List Address: RE-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org > > Change listserver email address & settings: > http://lists.re-wrenches.org/options.cgi/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org > > List-Archive: > http://www.mail-archive.com/re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org/maillist.html > > List rules & etiquette: > www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htm > > Check out or update participant bios: > www.members.re-wrenches.org > >
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