Peter, No tone was intended. The theme of your post was good, but the subject was misleading. The fact that you were shocked twice by my questioning your subject means that you misunderstood the tone of my questioning of your subject title. I misunderstood your post and reacted to a very negative subject heading that gave the impression that the WEEB product was generally experiencing its demise.
I have heard of a few companies that have withdrawn information about the WEEB in their literature, but I was unaware that SunPower was one of them. Grounding of module frames has been a big issue for over a decade and module manufacturers have not done a lot to help the installer in this area. When UL cracked down on the haphazard way that grounding was being approached in the field, it became a major issue. Manufacturers had to retest many of their products and provide details on the methods allowed in their manuals. Since adding grounding options to a module required additional testing which was expensive, many manufacturers went the easiest route to get approved. This was not good for products like the WEEB since it now required testing with every module type. In addition, my understanding is that UL has not allowed the WEEB on UL-listed products since the product was not evaluated by UL and they do not have the test data that supports how it was evaluated. That may be the source of the issue with SunPower--you would have to ask them directly. We need a more generic approach to grounding and that is what is currently underway. Grounding and bonding is extremely important and jurisdictions are focused on it for obvious safety reasons. We need solutions that are clearly reliable and straightforward so that installers and jurisdictional authorities don't have to constantly be revisiting the issue. Bill. -----Original Message----- From: re-wrenches-boun...@lists.re-wrenches.org [mailto:re-wrenches-boun...@lists.re-wrenches.org] On Behalf Of Peter Parrish Sent: Monday, September 13, 2010 7:18 AM To: 'RE-wrenches' Cc: 'Christopher Flueckiger'; 'Tim Zgonena' Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] The Demise of Reason Bill (and Chris and Tim), "Be a little bit more careful in your choice of subjects..."? I am shocked, shocked that you would use that tone with me. If you would re-read my post, I talked about three things: (1) SunPower's no longer supporting the WEEB clip technology and regressing to the ILSCO GBL-4DBT. You are right about the insertion of the star washer between the lug and module frame. I wonder what SP's response to that might be... (2) As for SP's comment that they pulled the WEEB clip, "due to UL testing changes". Does anyone close enough to the situation know what this means? (3) I never mentioned the SP IFF clip. I mentioned the Tyco SolKlip. SP mentions the IFF in their literature but do not offer it to their dealers (as far as I know), and I haven't been able to find it yet in their product literature, except for a small low-resolution image. I assumed that the Tyco SolKlip was a different component -- however it may be similar or may be rebranded by SP as the IFF -- I don't know. Bonding PV arrays and their supporting structures is complicated subject and in my experience is one of the more frequently examined aspects of PV installations by inspectors (along with bonding and grounding the other components). So it would seem to be an apt subject for discussion by those of us actively installing PV systems subject to inspection by the AHJ. - Peter Peter T. Parrish, Ph.D., President California Solar Engineering, Inc. 820 Cynthia Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90065 CA Lic. 854779, NABCEP Cert. 031806-26 peter.parr...@calsolareng.com Ph 323-258-8883, Mobile 323-839-6108, Fax 323-258-8885 -----Original Message----- From: re-wrenches-boun...@lists.re-wrenches.org [mailto:re-wrenches-boun...@lists.re-wrenches.org] On Behalf Of Bill Brooks Sent: Sunday, September 12, 2010 8:50 PM To: 'RE-wrenches' Cc: 'Christopher Flueckiger'; Tim Zgonena Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] The Demise of Reason Peter, Be a little more careful in your choice of subjects. You are talking about the SunPower IFF clip. I have not heard this story, but I don't doubt it. There have been significant changes at UL and ETL, the two largest listers of PV modules, in the area of evaluating grounding equipment for PV modules. Unfortunately, the shift to overly conservative approaches to module grounding has caused huge problems with field installations. To make matters worse, installation manuals from PV modules have been required to get extremely specific about the only methods allowed to ground and bond the module frames. This conservative approach has shut the door on many methods that are far superior to the methods shown, because of the cost of evaluating these products or due to lack of cooperation between UL and ETL. Finally, many of the module manufacturer's installation manuals, the ones we are supposed to believe, actually violate the listings of the products they recommend. The ILSCO GBL-4DBT lay-in lug is the most famous example of these mistakes. Several prominent installation manuals state that a stainless starwasher must be installed under ILSCO lug. Although this will work, it is a violation of the listing of the lug. Yet it is in the installation manual and it is one of only a very few options--and it is wrong. What are we to think of this whole situation? It is out of control and messed up. The problem lies in the poorly worded UL1703 that has not been updated in this area since the changes in application of the standard started some 3 or 4 years ago. There have been several attempts to get this problem resolved, but the attempts have not made it to fruition. There is a new movement afoot to deal with this once and for all, but I'm still a little skeptical. Bill. -----Original Message----- From: re-wrenches-boun...@lists.re-wrenches.org [mailto:re-wrenches-boun...@lists.re-wrenches.org] On Behalf Of Peter Parrish Sent: Sunday, September 12, 2010 1:49 PM To: 'RE-wrenches' Subject: [RE-wrenches] The Demise of WEEB We were informed a while ago that SunPower no longer "supports" their version of the WEEB clip "due to UL testing changes." (unspecified) and appears to have regressed to the ILSCO GBL-4DBT lugs with SS star washers, lock washer, nut and specific torque requirements. Most people I have spoken with feel that the lug approach, though a competent means of bonding PV modules, is awkward and time consuming, compared to the WEEB clips. What happened wrt UL testing and how is CSA listing affected? I seem to remember a video showing a conventional lug-based bond fail under test as par of a WEEB promo. I hope I can find it and take a look at it again. There also is a Tyco SolKlip that SunPower is apparently looking at but no word yet from SP, and it is not clear that the SolKlip has been affected by "UL testing changes". Any info on the UL testing changes would be much appreciated. - Peter Peter T. Parrish, Ph.D., President California Solar Engineering, Inc. 820 Cynthia Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90065 CA Lic. 854779, NABCEP Cert. 031806-26 peter.parr...@calsolareng.com Ph 323-258-8883, Mobile 323-839-6108, Fax 323-258-8885 _______________________________________________ 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 _______________________________________________ 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 _______________________________________________ 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 _______________________________________________ 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
