APSystems installation

[bob-n]

I just completed my first installation with QS1 quad microinverters from APSystems. I learned a lot about the quirks of this device and this system, and am still learning. Is it appropriate to publish the good and the bad here, as one person's personal experience? I don't mind if people disagree with me but don't want to start a war or violate protocol. I also don't want to be sued.
Thank you.

[solar pete]

Go for it bob-n, feel free to talk about your experiences, cheers

[NewBostonConst]

I just bought some and haven't installed yet.... Would love to hear..

[bob-n]

NewBostonConst: I've installed the QS1s but don't have them on-line yet. Here's what I've learned so far. Let me know if you want to discuss any of this off-list in more detail. I can send you sketches, etc.

I'll start with the basics. I considered Enphase IQ7+ (roughly $3400) and APsystems QS1 (roughly $1900). Cost swayed me to APsystems. APSystems claims that their system is quicker to install. I can’t tell you whether that’s true because I’ve never installed Enphase inverters. There were fewer cables and fewer inverters but I took a little extra time to install each inverter because it was so large (see below).

Unboxing Experience

The first thing that was obvious on receiving the QS1 was that it is large and heavy. While an IQ7+ weighs 2½ pounds, a QS1 weighs 10 pounds. This led to my first issue:

I am using Ironridge XR-100 rails. These accept ¼” inverter mounting bolts. APSystems recommends M8 mounting bolts (5/16” equivalent), so immediately, I was concerned. Ten pounds is a lot of weight to support cantilevered from two undersized bolts off a thin aluminum rail. I contacted Ironridge and they had no advice for me. They had no record of testing their rails with any APsystems inverters, let alone the QS1.

I experimented with mounting a QS1 to an XR-100 rail on the ground. The QS1 was quite “bouncy”, with the end flexing ¼” vertically from very little force. I didn’t consider this adequate. It seemed that, over time, this flexing from wind and vibration could fatigue the top of the aluminum rail and rupture the upper tee slot.

To reduce this risk, I fabricated aluminum supports for the QS1 from 2”x2”x¼” aluminum angle 8” long. Thinner aluminum would have also worked, but I had this material on hand. For each support, I cut two slots to accept 3/8” bolts and attach to the larger tee slot on XR-100 rails. I bolted these supports to the lower tee slots on the XR-100 rails with 3/8” SS hex bolts and SS hex nuts, to act as shelves under the QS1, relieving the top tee-slot of most of the strain. I manually adjusted the height of each support so that it relieved the top slot of most of the strain.

The QS1 enclosure feels strong and well made. It is marked “Made In China”. The AC trunk is connected to the QS1 by a dangling cord 0.5 meters long. This cord has a 3-wire connector: 2 hots plus ground. The QS1 bonds and grounds to the rails by a star washer on the mounting flange.

Cabling

The QS1 trunk cable is a long three-wire 12 AWG cord with connectors every 2 meters. It comes in a continuous length, with 1 meter stubs on each end. APSystems allows you to cut it as desired into individual runs. Each individual run can service up to 3 microinverters (12AWG limit). Connect one end of that run to the combiner or junction box and place a sealing cap on the other end.

If panels are going to be installed portrait, this cable will work. If panels are going to be installed landscape, then the distance between microinverters is larger, so you are better off buying cable with connecters every 4 meters. They also sell a sealing cap for the connector, so if you have an unused connector, you can cap it.

A nice advantage of the APSystems trunk over the Enphase Q cable is that APSystems trunk contains ground as well as two hot conductors while Enphase Q cable only contains two hot conductors. This does not eliminate the need for a separate ground bonding of the rails, however, because you don’t bolt an inverter to every rail or even every other rail. Only some rails have inverters.

APSystems trunk cable is 14mm OD, so works well with standard cable glands that are rated 3/8” to ½”.

Second Issue:

The cable-mounted connectors have locking tabs just like M4 (MC4) connectors. On the 5-connector cable that I received, most of the locking tabs were missing, apparently broken off in handling. I consider this is a fundamental flaw. Either the cable needs to be packaged with protection around the connectors or the connectors need to be better engineered and built.

Before installation, I drew a large, scale diagram of the array and used string to represent trunk cable. I marked the string with connector locations and laid it on top of the drawing. This convinced me that there were adequate lengths of trunk cable to build my array. I should have been more careful in this planning (more on this later).

Panels:

APSystems has a video showing how to build the array:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k99C0I6QRsQ

This was very helpful in planning my array. This video does a very good job of explaining how to plan and wire the array.

I am using the QS1 with 72-cell panels. Each panel has a small plastic junction box centered near the end of the panel and two 1.2 meter cables with M4 connectors. Other brand panels have the junction box in the middle. These would be really hard to use with QS1s.

I designed my array with four 2x2 panel blocks and one 1x4 panel block. The video shows that no extensions are required for the 2x2 block but DC extensions are required for the 1x4 block, so I ordered 4 DC extensions.

Installation:

My sequence was:

1) Slide mounting hardware onto the rails and secure with masking tape.This includes Ironridge square bolts for Flashfoot2 mounting and 3/8” hex bolts for QS1 rail support.
2) Install rails.
3) Level rails.
4) Side ¼” hex bolts onto the rail top tee-slots to attach microinverters.These seemed stronger than Ironridge tee bolts. In retrospect, the Ironridge tee bolts would probably be OK, but SS flat washers above the microinverters are still desired.
5) Install supports and microinverters.
6) Adjust supports to correct height then tighten supports and microinverters.Note: use anti-seize grease on all stainless screw threads. Stainless can gaul and bind, especially when bolted together with power tools. Ironridge supplies their bolts with anti-seize already applied. Hardware store bolts come dry.
7) Attach cabling to microinverters.
8) Secure connectors with cable ties (see issue #2 above).
9) Secure cabling to rails with cable ties.
10) Place panels.
11) Connect panel DC cables to microinverters.
12) Secure DC cables to rails with cable ties.
13) Bolt panels down with Ironridge UFOs.

Third Issue:

At step #11, when the job was almost done, I discovered a third issue. The microinverter must be placed completely under a panel to protect it from weather. That requires an offset from the center of the 2x2 grid. Due to this offset, one panel’s wires are farther from the microinverter than the others. As hinted earlier, I didn’t check for panel cable length with my scale drawing. I just assumed that 1.2 meter panel cables would be long enough. In fact, it was extremely tight. In retrospect, I should have ordered or fabricated more DC extension cables. In this installation, ½ meter or 1 meter extensions would be sufficient for these corner panels. Longer extensions also work and simply require coiling up the excess.

That's the extent of my experiences & learning so far. The power company will install a new meter for me in the next two weeks so I can go on line and report more experiences.

Comments are welcome.

Disclaimer: This is not meant to disparage APsystems or the dealer. This is only one person's experiences and observations. I would love to hear other experiences.

Thank you.

[NewBostonConst]

Thanks for the great post. I didn't know they had to be out of the rain....I guess they don't know what IP67 means....(IP67 is dust tight and can be put under water to 1 meter depth) or is it a sun thing?

I am still waiting on UPS....we had 8 inches of snow 5 days ago (Monday) and the tracking says that they have been out for delivery ever since. So for six days its been out for delivery and still not delivered. UPS has had them for 12 days total. Will have to stop using UPS they keep giving me bs excuses.

Thanks again....I have done Enphase so we will see how this goes.

[bob-n]

I can't explain why, but there's a note at the bottom of page 9 of the QS1 installation manual that says:
"! Warning Do not place the inverters (including DC and AC connectors) with direct exposure to the sun, rain, or snow. Allow a minimum of 2 cm of space around the microinverter case for heat dissipation and proper air flow. The racking used to fix the microinverter should be reliably grounded."

I hope this helps. Please let me know how it goes when they arrive.

[Mike90250]

...........
The AC trunk is connected to the QS1 by a dangling cord 0.5 meters long. This cord has a 3-wire connector: 2 hots plus ground. The QS1 bonds and grounds to the rails by a star washer on the mounting flange.......................

What are the odds that the 10lb QS1s are going to be carried by their cord. (and then start failing in 3 years)

[Ampster]

What are the odds that the 10lb QS1s are going to be carried by their cord. (and then start failing in 3 years)

Yup. Pretty good odds. Didn't we just hear about some Optimizers or Microinverters that failed for that reason?

[bob-n]

Yup, a high risk. The box has a prominent caution against carrying by the cord, but that may not be good enough for all installers. They also engineered the enclosure so that it has a built-in handle - the mounting flange. It's perfect for carrying.
qs1handgrip.jpg

[Pir8radio]

NewBostonConst:

A nice advantage of the APSystems trunk over the Enphase Q cable is that APSystems trunk contains ground as well as two hot conductors while Enphase Q cable only contains two hot conductors. This does not eliminate the need for a separate ground bonding of the rails, however, because you don’t bolt an inverter to every rail or even every other rail. Only some rails have inverters.

FYI you must have an older cable, the new versions do not have the ground in the cables. I ended up not using their bus cables anyway. I don't like the "end caps" for the cut end of the cable. I have Qs1's installed and love them. Pictures here: https://notallmine-net.blogspot.com/...r-install.html

My stuff is mounted to a wood rack setup so none of the weight concerns apply (not a help I know), they also come with ground wire clamps which I used with my 6ga solid grounding. But they are really nice inverters so far. I like the per panel stats you get from the management interface. Second image is of newer bus cable, showing only two conductors.


IMG_0411.JPG91FInGfa4eL.jpg

[bob-n]

Beautiful install. Thank you for sharing all of the information.

About the cable you show: it seems odd that the connector has three pins, but the cable only has two wires. There's clearly a middle pin in the connector, as there is in mine.

I can't tell from the photo whether yours have the star grounding washer under the center of the mounting flange, where the ground screw goes. I didn't see that washer on yours but it could be just the angle of the picture.

[Pir8radio]

Beautiful install. Thank you for sharing all of the information.

About the cable you show: it seems odd that the connector has three pins, but the cable only has two wires. There's clearly a middle pin in the connector, as there is in mine.

I can't tell from the photo whether yours have the star grounding washer under the center of the mounting flange, where the ground screw goes. I didn't see that washer on yours but it could be just the angle of the picture.

The star washer was on the other side just stuck on with double sided tape... most of them fell off in the box during shipping, I too had broken bus connectors, which is one of the reasons I just went with 240v plugs. Yea there are three plastic pins on the connector but only the left and right actually have metal contacts in mine (bus cable) the inverter has all three metal contacts... Not sure why the change.. If you look really close at about the 7 o'clock point, in the bus cable picture above, you can read the cable says 2C/12awg

[bob-n]

We're up and running today, with the blessings of both the building inspector and power company. Yay!

Now comes the challenge of configuring the APsystems ECU-C-Zigbee monitoring device. Anyone here set up one of them? I'd love advice or experiences.

Thank you.

[bob-n]

We're up and running today, with the blessings of both the building inspector and power company. Yay!

Now comes the challenge of configuring the APsystems ECU-C-Zigbee monitoring device. Anyone here set up one of them? I'd love advice or experiences.

Thank you.

[Pir8radio]

We're up and running today, with the blessings of both the building inspector and power company. Yay!

Now comes the challenge of configuring the APsystems ECU-C-Zigbee monitoring device. Anyone here set up one of them? I'd love advice or experiences.

Thank you.

Just enable the wifi, get the app, go to add devices, and scan the bar-codes with your camera phone via the app!