IQ aggregator or soladeck for trunk wiring

[nova42]

thanks for the input - I can consider aluminum wire, but already have 300' of 6/2 copper was hoping to use. I'll run the calculations again. I agree the the vertical feeds from the arrays would be nicer with #10 or #8. only reason I have 12 awg listed is so i can terminate with a standard enphase male connector to plug into the Q-cable array without having to cut/splice with another junction box for each sub-array. I could re-position the soladeck to the middle array to shorten the longest run

Using micro-inverters for a few reasons, (some less significant than others ):
- have a bit of shading from a tree on the garage roof as well as morning shade from the upper house
- an admittedly exaggerated concern about high voltage wiring running through the roof, attic space, house -
- rapid shutdown benefits
- module level monitoring ability benefit
- desire to minimize boxes on the side of house ( size of my system would require 2 inverters)
- not wanting to replace said inverters halfway through life of system.

[SunEagle]

thanks for the input - I can consider aluminum wire, but already have 300' of 6/2 copper was hoping to use. I'll run the calculations again. I agree the the vertical feeds from the arrays would be nicer with #10 or #8. only reason I have 12 awg listed is so i can terminate with a standard enphase male connector to plug into the Q-cable array without having to cut/splice with another junction box for each sub-array. I could re-position the soladeck to the middle array to shorten the longest run

Using micro-inverters for a few reasons, (some less significant than others ):
- have a bit of shading from a tree on the garage roof as well as morning shade from the upper house
- an admittedly exaggerated concern about high voltage wiring running through the roof, attic space, house -
- rapid shutdown benefits
- module level monitoring ability benefit
- desire to minimize boxes on the side of house ( size of my system would require 2 inverters)
- not wanting to replace said inverters halfway through life of system.

You do understand that micro inverters may fail and replacing them is much harder then a string inverter.

[Ampster]

Despite the disdain for micros expressed here, I have installed them on several buildings without the anecdotal issues expressed above.. They did solve the requirement of Rapid Shut Down and the issue of shade for me.
The Enphase manual should give you good advice on how much amperage each string can have. Thst is often expressed as a number of micros per branch. I preferred to have them each terminate at my subpanel for ease of diagnosis and other reasons related to the AC coupling capacity of my hybrid inverter. In your case since you already have the wire that can carry more Amps you may be able to combine them closer to the attic. I also found it less expensive to just use the Envoy without the aggregator, but it required a separate source of 240 volts.

[J.P.M.]

thanks for the input - I can consider aluminum wire, but already have 300' of 6/2 copper was hoping to use. I'll run the calculations again. I agree the the vertical feeds from the arrays would be nicer with #10 or #8. only reason I have 12 awg listed is so i can terminate with a standard enphase male connector to plug into the Q-cable array without having to cut/splice with another junction box for each sub-array. I could re-position the soladeck to the middle array to shorten the longest run

Using micro-inverters for a few reasons, (some less significant than others ):
- have a bit of shading from a tree on the garage roof as well as morning shade from the upper house
- an admittedly exaggerated concern about high voltage wiring running through the roof, attic space, house -
- rapid shutdown benefits
- module level monitoring ability benefit
- desire to minimize boxes on the side of house ( size of my system would require 2 inverters)
- not wanting to replace said inverters halfway through life of system.

FWIW: Some reasons why the smart money avoids micros/optimizers:
- More parts to fail, violating the KISS principle. You'll appreciate this when 42 inverters start to fail one by one.
- Lots of heat sensitive electronics in a harsh environment (a roof) that's usually about the hotest or wettest or coldest place around.
- Good luck when you need to get at a micro for service/replacement, especially if away from an array edge, not to mention what it does to the probability of screwing up a micro/panel if it needs removal/replacement to get at the one needing service.
Any one or all of the above are significant and good reasons to not use micros.
- Most folks get quite bored with panel monitoring after a short time. When that happens and monitoring becomes an ignored PITA, one micro failure may go unnoticed as output is not affected that much. If a string inverter fails, it becomes obvious with the first read of the next electric bill.

Have you done a shade analysis to estimate shading losses ?

[SunEagle]

Despite the disdain for micros expressed here, I have installed them on several buildings without the anecdotal issues expressed above.. They did solve the requirement of Rapid Shut Down and the issue of shade for me.
The Enphase manual should give you good advice on how much amperage each string can have. Thst is often expressed as a number of micros per branch. I preferred to have them each terminate at my subpanel for ease of diagnosis and other reasons related to the AC coupling capacity of my hybrid inverter. In your case since you already have the wire that can carry more Amps you may be able to combine them closer to the attic. I also found it less expensive to just use the Envoy without the aggregator, but it required a separate source of 240 volts.

I never said that micro's were bad. I just wanted to poster to understand that replacing a micro may be more difficult then a string inverter depending on it's location.

Micro's have come a long way and IMO are now much more resilient then they were when first introduced. Although the issue of changing one out because it is up on a second floor roof and in the middle of the pack has to be considered and compared to other ways to deal with equipment issues or rapid shut down.