My experience on the Northeast coast(salty sometimes) is that the galvanizing helps protect all the metals in the system. The zinc in the most anodic metal on the chart and will help protect anything. On the contrary, the stainless and the aluminum do react and in the case of fasteners, often freeze.
Don't use zinc plated of course, just hot dipped. Conrad Cotuit Solar From: re-wrenches-boun...@lists.re-wrenches.org [mailto:re-wrenches-boun...@lists.re-wrenches.org] On Behalf Of Kristopher Schmid Sent: Wednesday, October 05, 2011 12:45 PM To: RE-wrenches Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] mixing aluminum and galvanized steel This is an amazingly timely post for me! I was just thinking of asking the same question since i have a couple of ground mount installs coming up with concrete pillars/galvanized anchor bolts/aluminum channel base. I notice that DPW for example specs galvanized pipes to be attached with u-bolts to their aluminum racking in their LGM racks. Anxiously awaiting the collective wisdom... On Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 11:23 AM, Jeff Yago <jry...@dtisolar.com> wrote: For years we have used standard mounting racks like UniRac rails bolted together with stainless-steel hardware. On larger arrays this usually means bolting their extruded aluminum module rails to galvanized 3" pipe supports for ground mounted arrays. We have recently received several "flags" during the engineering review process of our design documents on state funded projects stating all bolted connections between aluminum and galvanized steel will require neoprene washers to prevent corrosion. Any of you run into this requirement or have had any problems? The only issues we ever see with corrosion is mixing copper and aluminum such as where somebody used wrong type module frame ground connectors. Jeff Yago _______________________________________________ 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 -- Shine On! Kris Schmid Legacy Solar, LLC 864 Clam Falls Trail Frederic, WI 54837 www.legacysolar.com <http://www.legacysolar.com/> 715-653-4295 NABCEP Certified PV Installer BSEE
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