Trial and error only unfortunately. Chad Waits President-Net Zero Solar Cell: (520) 270-4873
On Thu, May 21, 2020 at 8:14 AM Jay <jay.pe...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Chad > > Was the enphase monitoring able to locate the bad inverter? Or trial and > error? > > Jay > > Peltz power. > > On May 21, 2020, at 7:19 AM, Chad Waits <chadwa...@netzerosolar.net> > wrote: > > > Yeah. We've had them trip in the evening as well. Just never come back > online when the sun comes up. We've replaced breakers and meggered all > wires. The only solution we've found is isolating that one bad inverter and > replacing it. > > really frustrating. > > Chad Waits > President-Net Zero Solar > Cell: (520) 270-4873 > > > > On Thu, May 21, 2020 at 7:15 AM Jason Szumlanski < > ja...@floridasolardesigngroup.com> wrote: > >> I'm guessing I don't have a bad inverter problem since this is occurring >> on two different strings. But I guess I can't rule it out. >> >> I should also have mentioned that the breakers apparently trip in the >> middle of the night more often than not. I know that because the envoy goes >> offline. So this does not seem to be a power production issue. The >> inverters should be sleeping at the time that the breakers trip. >> >> I also ruled out rain. The first couple of times I suspected something >> got wet, but subsequent tripping occurred during dry spells. >> >> On Thu, May 21, 2020, 10:12 AM Chad Waits <chadwa...@netzerosolar.net> >> wrote: >> >>> Hey Jason, >>> >>> We have experienced this on multiple systems over the past 2 years. We >>> have one system where 1 inverter pops an entire sub offline that has 72 >>> other inverters in it (screenshots attached). The only way we have been >>> able to isolate the problem inverter(s) is to start first with isolating >>> circuits, and then unplugging individual inverters until the culprit is >>> found. We've had multiple cases escalated to top engineers and we have yet >>> to get an explanation of what is going on. Obviously something in the bad >>> inverter(s) is creating a catastrophic short but what is causing that has >>> not been revealed to us. >>> >>> <Screen Shot 2020-05-21 at 7.10.24 AM.png> >>> >>> <Screen Shot 2020-05-21 at 7.09.59 AM.png> >>> >>> >>> I'd appreciate anything you may find out in your investigations. >>> >>> Thanks! >>> >>> Chad Waits >>> President-Net Zero Solar >>> Cell: (520) 270-4873 >>> >>> >>> >>> On Thu, May 21, 2020 at 6:57 AM Jason Szumlanski < >>> ja...@floridasolardesigngroup.com> wrote: >>> >>>> I'm trying to resolve an intermittent frustrating problem with and >>>> Enphase IQ system. There are three AC Branch circuits of 9 microinverters >>>> each coming into an Enphase AC combiner. >>>> >>>> What has been happening is one of the BR220 branch circuit breakers and >>>> the combine CH240 breaker in the main backfed load center have been >>>> tripping simultaneously. It has happened about four times in the last 6 >>>> months. It was always the same branch circuit breaker, so we kept >>>> investigating that string, checking the junction box, trunk cable, and cap, >>>> etc. Finally we swapped out the BR220 breaker. >>>> >>>> Fast forward 4 weeks, and we got another call. This time a different >>>> branch circuit breaker and the main breaker tripped simultaneously. We >>>> checked that branch circuit and could not find any fault. It seems unlikely >>>> that two branch circuit breakers would be faulty, so we have now switched >>>> out the CH240 main breaker in hopes that it is the culprit. >>>> >>>> I'm not totally confident in this resolution and I have my fingers >>>> crossed. If that doesn't work, does anyone have any suggestions on another >>>> diagnostic step? These intermittent problems are a major hassle. One >>>> thought I had was to switch to a supply side interconnection with a fusible >>>> disconnect. Maybe the intermittent fault would blow one of the two line >>>> fuses so at least I could narrow it down to which line the fault is on if >>>> there is in fact a fault. >>>> >>>> I have experienced two other tripping breaker issues with Enphase >>>> systems in the past. Neither of them were systems I installed. One turned >>>> out to be branch circuits that were not properly paired up and landed on >>>> different breakers. Another time we had an inverter with an internal fault >>>> which eventually"blew up" with a loud popping noise and smoke billowing out >>>> of it. That happened after resetting a trip breaker multiple times. This >>>> case seems to be unrelated to those issues. I'm perplexed. >>>> >>>> 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 >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >> 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 > > _______________________________________________ > 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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