Jacks PV grid tie system

[tyab]

I received my TP Link AV2000 kit yesterday and got it working inside of the home. Super simple, plug them in and they were communicating. For security I had them pair to each other and now they are not using the default keys. So easy - hit pair on one, hit pair on the other and your done.. I was able to take my laptop and one of the units and every plug I tried in the house worked fine. I even took the unit to my pump house about 80' away and plugged it into a GFCI plug up there and it worked great. The other unit is in my office plugged into a dedicated 15 amp circuit that has nothing else on it and it and it has a direct run to the main service panel. No GFCI or any surge protection. I know this is true since I watched the electrician install 4 dedicated 15 amp circuits into my office we we build the house and this is one I was not currently using.

Now the real test. I took it the other way 400' down to my solar system - endless mud from all of the recent rain - and did a temporary hack hookup just to see if it worked - I just pigtailed into one of the 10 amp AC solar breakers.



It did not communicate hooked to L2, so I repatched to L1 and there it still never gave a green light but I got a slowly blinking red light. Windows was seeing the internet and I was able to browse. I tried to get lanbench up and running but I started it and it was showing transfer and then nothing - like it was getting and losing communication. I went back up to the house with the unit and just made sure it was still working correctly in a few plugs I tried in the garage - works perfectly. Went back down the solar but communication was poor to nothing. By then I was starting to lose light and laptop was about to shut down due to low battery so I'll pick this up tomorrow. But so far it is not looking so good.

[foo1bar]

Now the real test. I took it the other way 400' down to my solar system

400+ feet for powerline communication is going to be problematic.

And I think the 400' you're talking about is just the physical distance to the array - not the wire length.

So you have 400' (+/- some) for the wire from the array to the house.
Then you have the wire within the house - and probably you have a ways that it travels there.
Since you obviously are comfortable opening a panel and installing an outlet, I'd do that at the house end too and see whether that makes it more reliable.

Otherwise, a regular ethernet cable with power-over-ethernet and a switch/hub mid-way (powered by the PoE) is I think your best option.
You can get cat5e or cat6 direct burial cable.


Your other option is wireless. There are wireless solutions that will work at 500' (and longer)
Not sure if they'll be cheaper than burying cable though.

[tyab]

Yes the total run is closing on 450' end point of AV2 unit to AV2 unit taking into account the wire run from the main panel to my office - the parallel 4/0 run is 390' plus lengths to get into junction boxes to transition to non-parallel copper and safety switches and blah blah blah.

I'm off today and spent all morning down there trying a bunch of things.

1. I ran 250' of #10 extension cord plugged into my pool GFCI plug (this pool is about 1/2 of the way down there). This is how I powered my tools during construction. Plugged the TP-Link AV2000 into that and I had communication - got about 5mbps on lanbench. Was able to fire up netflix and start a movie. This at least told me that homeplug could run the approximate 450' in this setup - with low bandwidth but enough for what I was looking for. Good info to have.

2. Hooked up another hack circuit breaker in the solar panel to connect the tplink av2000 unit to and this allowed me to turn off all of the solar generation by flipping all 10 of those breakers. And we have communication! Lanbench on L2 gives about 10mbs and on L1 it bounces between 10 and 14mbs - so clearly on weak signals being on the correct phase helps. This also told me that the parallel 4/0 cable that runs that 400'+ to that subpanel is itself not an issue (I was thinking that a minor length difference +/- 1" in the parallel cable might be affecting the higher frequencies used by homeplug but given that my bandwidth is double what the extension cord gave, I think I can rule that out as a significant factor.

3. Just turning on a single row of microinverters kills the homeplug communication. For me this is 8 microinverters on a 10 amp breaker. Flick it off and homeplug starts communicating again. Flick it on - and it kills the homeplug communication. And I have 10 of these circuits (80 microinverters).

Either the noise generated by those microinverters or simply that fact that they are generating a power waveform that is tracking the grid waveform is enough to overpower that already weak high frequency signal used by homeplug. 400' up at the house - the homeplug signal is strong enough so that generation noise (which is now weaker up there) is a non-issue and it works fine up there.

Thus for my situation - trying to use homeplug to give network down at the solar subpanel - is not a viable option. I am trying to run that signal near its allowed length and we have too much noise at the destination. I'm very bummed. I will keep the AV2000 units and find some other use for them - looks like they could easily connect a camera by the pump house that would cover the driveway entrance.

Thus I am now looking at other solutions - either wireless or wired. I really really really do not want to dig a trench down there (again) for a wired solution - that will be a lot of work and for the next couple of months my time is very limited. So I will initially be looking for some wireless solution. I spent some time walking around the entire system down there carefully looking up the hill to see if at any point we had LOS to the house and I did find one spot that may work without having to use a repeater at the pool - its right on the edge of visibility due to large rocks. It looks like through a couple of oak trees and right at ground level as it crosses over the hill crest I can just see the top corner of the game room on top of the garage. Down at the solar moving up even a foot will make a difference in the LOS so it may be possible for a wireless to work without a repeater at the pool.

Time to see what is out there that is affordable.

[bcroe]

Sorry it didn't work; my intuition says those are quite difficult conditions for a power line based system. My 250' Cat5E direct burial went
in just by leveraging a momentary slot with a shovel. Maybe it won't last decades, but its been a few years now. If it ever quits I'll throw
a cable on the ground until lawn mowing season comes around.

I'm surprised you didn't put a GFI protected outlet on each array. That was the first thing connected here; 3 outlets have been in constant
use for several years. I'm running 400VDC, so it uses direct burial 12 gauge. Regulation at this distance isn't great for a heavy load, but
a drill doesn't care. Bruce Roe

[DanS26]

This tool is fast and easy..........

http://www6.homedepot.com/tool-truck...100/index.html

and it works much better going down hill but only when the ground is moist to dry. Your ground looks like it can turn to mud when wet.

[tyab]

Nice tool.

Here are my thoughts on doing a wired solution.

First - it clearly would be the best solution. Flawless connection, and it would be the preferred way to go. But the sheer amount of work that will take - well here is my list.

• 500' of wet rated cable - either coax or twisted pair - which ever topology I decide to go with (I'm looking for around 400' and odds are 500' spool is less expensive)
• Whatever tools I need for connectors on the media. I don't have any currently for either coax or twisted pair.
• 360' of schedule 40 electrical 1-1/4" conduit (sized to make it easier to pull and that is what I already have under the driveway).
• NEMA pullbox to use at 1/2 point. I would use the same one I used in the intra mount pull boxes, not that expensive and 6P rated.
• Misc PVC fittings at pull box for connections.
• 500' pull string/tape. I'm all out.
• Some kind of junction box to transition into the garage and fittings. Maybe I use EMT right after ground - would have to look at what room I have. Inside the garage some kind of junction box to protect whatever bridge electronics I get.
• Some cat 6 protected run from that garage junction box to the cat 6 plug that already exists in the garage.
• 1-1/4" EMT, rain tight fittings and stainless straps to run from ground exit at solar to junction box for all of this down there.
• Electronics at both ends for bridge.
• Box to hold all of this down at the solar (I have this already but it should be on the list).

To be honest, the above does not bother me much - gut feeling we are looking at $600 or so. Now I get into the hard stuff. First I have not reviewed NEC article 800 at all but my gut feeling is that we need conduit at least a foot underground - maybe more. Whatever it is, I know that I would want to use 18" schedule 80 entry/exit sweeps for ease of pulling and life long protection. And some sand under the pipe, and some sand on top, and then fill that crud back in. Thus looking at a 22" deep trench. I don't want to do that by hand, so a trencher. But a trencher on 20 percent down grade - scary. Maybe hook a safety line to it to my quad and have a friend keeping the trencher under control with a line. But a line near a trencher - worries me. And when we hit rocks, dig around and try and dig it up or just divert. I don't want to incur the cost of having my friend come back with the big equipment - he can't dig a thin trench with what he has - he is setup for big stuff. And we just put down a ton of erosion control the entire way down - large amount of seed and hay to get some wild grass going for erosion control. We will be digging right through that so it will have to be redone.

For running pipe down there, no way we will have straight runs. On the big pipe I used a Greenlee blanket to do the custom bends but that is not listed for conduit under 2" - too hot. I tried it on some 1" water PVC and man - it was too hot - ruined my test pipe. So when I did the water pipe down there in that same trench I used a ton of 45 and 22-1/2 degree fittings instead of custom bends - pain in the rear. So either a load of fittings or find a smaller blanket on ebay or something. These are not cheap.

Time - next three months I am swamped - have only a few free weekends the entire period. Work trips, family trips, scouting commitments, blah blah blah. Wife has a list of stuff I put off for the last seven months and she wants that stuff done.

So - wired solution just seems to me to be taking on more work than I want to do. But it may be the way to go, Homeplug is a bust. Maybe wireless will work but it needs to be affordable. And of course that solution will have its own list of stuff necessary if it is viable.

[inetdog]

Nice tool.

Here are my thoughts on doing a wired solution.

First I have not reviewed NEC article 800 at all but my gut feeling is that we need conduit at least a foot underground - maybe more.

There is not complete agreement, but most sparkies interpret all of Article 800 as applying only to wiring connected to and maybe owned by a public utility for data and communications. Like Telco, Cable, Satellite, Fiber Internet, etc., not for exactly the same kind of wiring used in your own system, even it it interfaces with a common carrier.
So you probably need to look in one of the corners of Article 700 to find your low voltage data wiring requirements.
In some cases an argument can be made that it can go into the same conduit as your PV DC or AC wiring (assuming that they are not just direct burial), but that requires a little more analysis and checking out your own building officials.

[foo1bar]

Nice tool.

Here are my thoughts on doing a wired solution.

First - it clearly would be the best solution. Flawless connection, and it would be the preferred way to go. But the sheer amount of work that will take - well here is my list.

Here's what I would do:

• 500' of direct burial rated cat5e ($110)
• crimper tool and ends (modular crimper $20; rj45 plugs $20 for 50
• square straight shovel (to make a slit in the soil) ($25)
• fake rock to use at 1/2 point. ($35) or 5 gal bucket ($0)
• PoE switch to use as repeater inside fake rock ($120)

I wouldn't bother to bury the ethernet 18"+
Except maybe where I'm going under somewhere that's going to have lots of soil disturbance - like a garden.

[tyab]

Enphase update. I received the replacement microinverter yesterday and installed it this morning right after sunrise - it is working perfectly. I was completely impressed with Enphase customer support and how quickly it came.

[sdold]

I successfully got my Enphase inverters to work along with some other ethernet-over-powerline bridges by isolating the two with toroidal cores. It just took a couple of turns around each core, one in each hot leg. That's a cheap thing to try if you think it might be an interference problem..

[bcroe]

Here's what I would do:

• 500' of direct burial rated cat5e ($110)
• crimper tool and ends (modular crimper $20; rj45 plugs $20 for 50
• square straight shovel (to make a slit in the soil) ($25)
• fake rock to use at 1/2 point. ($35) or 5 gal bucket ($0)
• PoE switch to use as repeater inside fake rock ($120)

I wouldn't bother to bury the ethernet 18"+
Except maybe where I'm going under somewhere that's going to have lots of soil disturbance - like a garden.

This is my recommendation as well; pretty much what's running here. The repeater doesn't need to
be exactly centered, as long as its less than 300' from either end. I'd try to put it nearer the end that
is supplying the "power over ethernet" to run it. Bruce Roe

[tyab]

Nice to look at but its becoming a morning pattern (and job) this last week.

[bcroe]

If we get a big snow then my plan is to put on the snow boots and walk down with a big broom and brush them off, pushing it mostly to the west where we have a drop off for all mounts - basically pushing it over the retaining wall. And that brings up a good point - need to go find some sort of long strong broom. Any recommendations?

Guess the snow plan is now in effect. With those clouds you won't make a lot of power even with the snow
removed. My equipment looked a lot like that for a couple winters. This year have had a lot more self
cleaning and much less manual labor, with big gaps between panels. Bruce Roe

[tyab]

I remember that picture you posted with lots of room for snow - now I fully understand why you did that!. After I cleaned them, the front was filled up to the panels (2' or so) and then it dumped another 4" in an hour right after I finished. I won't bother cleaning them until Wed given the expected storms thu then.

[bcroe]

I did it because I'm lazy. With gaps a lot of snow collects underneath instead in front of the bottom row of
panels, so they won't be shadowed so quickly. Bruce Roe