That’s a good point about the KO sizes.
According to what I can find. A 2” KO is 51mm actual but the metric standard size is 53mm.
It’s the little things that add up.
Jay
On Jul 26, 2025, at 8:51 PM, Jason Szumlanski via RE-wrenches <re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org> wrote:
Yep, EG4 is definitely listening to installers and building out a complete line of products. There is no denying that. I was an early detractor for this DIY focused manufacturer, but that has quickly changed.
Even the modern and venerable Enphase has their ridiculous System Controller with a tapered enclosure and 1" offset backplate from the wall. It's infuriating trying to get in and out of that thing.
I do like the Midnite AIO prepunched holes, but the plastic bushings they provide don't work with my knockout punch set. They are too big. I have resorted to carbide bits to match the hole size, but getting those lined up / centered is not easy.
Jason Szumlanski Principal Solar Designer | Florida Solar Design Group
NABCEP Certified Solar Professional (PVIP)
Florida State Certified Solar Contractor CVC56956 Florida Certified Electrical Contractor EC13013208 The Discover Helios battery can be purchased with a pre-built gutter box that mates it together with a Solark 15 K. The problem is most of our installs are at least two of the Helios batteries. Michael D Nelson MD Electric & Solar, Inc. 707-684-0064 mobile 707-884-1862 office
What to me this thread shows is the lack of complete engineering from these OEM's to be able to actually install their equipment to NEC specifications by not providing the needed BOS equipment. I respect the ingenuity that has been shown here in creating the products the OEM’s should have available.
Whether it’s OEM conduit bodies/box to fit specific batteries or inverters or how to run cables or even mount cables to their batteries or battery combiner box/breakers etc improvement is way overdue.
I mean in the 90’s Trace had a fully integrated power panel with all the parts, or Outback, or Magnum or Midnite. Why have we gone backwards such that we the installers are having to do custom work to create products to install the system? These companies can buy expensive equipment from china but can’t supply a conduit box that has the same KO pattern as the inverter or integrate to the battery? I don’t know about you all but I always install a bypass switch, why don’t they have one that integrates into the system?
It’s one of the reasons i’ve been buying EG4 products. They are providing a complete set of parts all from 1 OEM: inverters/batteries,conduit bodies, battery cables. For example they have a mounting jig that comes with the battery so you can mount the inverter bracket exactly where it needs to be so they can be attached together, that is slick. It saves me a ton of time/hassle and the customer money. They have touch safe quick connect battery connectors and they sell the parts to make them yourself, I like that. Oh believe me there is any number of things I’d have them change/modify/upgrade but to me they have been thinking like an installer with providing all this equipment.
In the mean time I”ll wait for the others to bring the parts that make it easy and code to install.
Jay
I use 10x10 gutters for Midhite AIO and 12x12 for Sol-Ark. It works great. I attached a pic of a recent Midnite installation. Note that the hack job flex conduit is not mine. That was the builder's electrical contractor.
Jason Szumlanski Principal Solar Designer | Florida Solar Design Group
NABCEP Certified Solar Professional (PVIP)
Florida State Certified Solar Contractor CVC56956 Florida Certified Electrical Contractor EC13013208 Jason Szumlanski Principal Solar Designer | Florida Solar Design Group
NABCEP Certified Solar Professional (PVIP)
Florida State Certified Solar Contractor CVC56956 Florida Certified Electrical Contractor EC13013208 I noticed this on a SolArk job -- I think I bought out all of NW montana of 1" offset nipples to get 3 of them mounted to an 8" gutter once.
On the Midnite AIO's a 10" gutter is perfect to not need any offsets. But you can mount smaller gutters on various levels of unistrut to space them off the wall. An 8" gutter on standard unistrut works fairly well, and I think you could space a 6" off with two or three levels of unistrut to get it to line up well. Of course then the gutter is too far from the wall to easily mount other equipment on top of it, and it can be harder to do rear entries into the gutter from the wall. That's where the 10" gutter is nicer, because it can catch the front of the inverter, as well as an AC panel or such mounted off to the side of the inverter, and catch pass throughs into the back of it. I'm not sure about the SolArk and Fortress, but I imagine they'd be pretty similar.
Zeke
Message: 1
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2025 15:19:29 -0700
From: William Miller <will...@millersolar.com>
To: RE-wrenches <re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org>
Subject: [RE-wrenches] Knockouts far from the backplane.
Message-ID: <12d27fd24ffa361c26a5955f888d0...@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Friends:
I have noticed increasingly that inverters I have been using (Soul-Arc and
Fortress Envy) have knockouts that are far in front of the backplane on
which the inverter would be mounted. Connecting conduit from these
inverters into standard gutters, load centers and pull boxes is quite a
hassle: Offsets can eat up a lot of vertical space. Pulling elbows (LBs)
don?t really work in this situation.
See diagram below:
One solutIon is to stack pull boxes or gutters, althouigh this eats up
vertical space and increases the labor and parts count:
How are the rest of you handling this backplane problem?
Thanks in advance.
William Miller
Miller Solar
17395 Oak Road, Atascadero, CA 93422
805-438-5600
www.millersolar.com
CA Lic. 773985
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org/attachments/20250725/5dd8985c/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image002.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 164770 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org/attachments/20250725/5dd8985c/attachment.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image006.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 167762 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org/attachments/20250725/5dd8985c/attachment-0001.jpg>
------------------------------
Subject: Digest Footer
_______________________________________________
List sponsored by Redwood Alliance
Pay optional member dues here: http://re-wrenches.org
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
There are two list archives for searching. When one doesn't work, try the other:
https://www.mail-archive.com/re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org/
http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org
List rules & etiquette:
http://www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htm
Check out or update participant bios:
http://www.members.re-wrenches.org
------------------------------
End of RE-wrenches Digest, Vol 18, Issue 283
********************************************
-- Zeke Yewdall PV Engineer NABCEP #031508-89 303-523-3592
List sponsored by Redwood Alliance
Pay optional member dues here: http://re-wrenches.org
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
There are two list archives for searching. When one doesn't work, try the other:
https://www.mail-archive.com/re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org/
http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org
List rules & etiquette:
http://www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htm
Check out or update participant bios:
http://www.members.re-wrenches.org
_______________________________________________ List sponsored by Redwood Alliance Pay optional member dues here: http://re-wrenches.orgList Address: RE-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.orgChange listserver email address & settings: http://lists.re-wrenches.org/options.cgi/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.orgThere are two list archives for searching. When one doesn't work, try the other: https://www.mail-archive.com/re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org/http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.orgList rules & etiquette: http://www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htmCheck out or update participant bios: http://www.members.re-wrenches.org
List sponsored by Redwood Alliance
Pay optional member dues here: http://re-wrenches.org
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
There are two list archives for searching. When one doesn't work, try the other:
https://www.mail-archive.com/re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org/
http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org
List rules & etiquette:
http://www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htm
Check out or update participant bios:
http://www.members.re-wrenches.org
|
