Enphase field MTBF: M190: ~36 Years M215: ~316 Years M250: >357 Years

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Sorry to hear of your M250 failure.

Line 219 - no failures but four of the M250s have been removed and replaced with S280s in July of 2016 to take advantage of the higher power rating of the S280 with the SolarWorld 275watt modules . Number of installed M250s on that spreadsheet line is now eight.

Line 236 - no failures of the S280s attached to the Sharp 235watt modules.

Need to add another line for four S280s that are attached to the SolarWorld 275watt modules .

Thanks!
 
SurfHawk said:
Line 232: No failures on my S280's.
Updated. Thanks! You now have over 25 device-years of operation without any failures.
pclifton said:
Sorry to hear of your M250 failure.

Line 219 - no failures but four of the M250s have been removed and replaced with S280s in July of 2016 to take advantage of the higher power rating of the S280 with the SolarWorld 275watt modules . Number of installed M250s on that spreadsheet line is now eight.

Line 236 - no failures of the S280s attached to the Sharp 235watt modules.

Need to add another line for four S280s that are attached to the SolarWorld 275watt modules .

Thanks!
Thanks, pclifton! Since I do not have any installations of S280s before September of 2016, I'm wondering if your July of 2016 date is a typo. Since you provided an update in February of 2018 without a mention of this change, I am going to put your latest changes in as of July of 2018.

Please correct me if my correction is in error.

With the above changes, the overall MTBF of the M250s with one total failure now stands at 450 years. The overall MTBF of the S280s with no failures is above 154 years.
 
RegGuheert said:
One more note: A second one of these early, out-of-warranty M250s is also showing signs of imminent failure. I will report here if it fails completely.
It has been sunny for the last day-and-a-half and I can see that TWO more of the remaining eight out-of-warranty M250s are failing. The failure mode is that they always produce power, but they will not produce above a certain power level. One seems limited to about 100W while the other is limited to about 120W. Over the past two days, one harvested 70% as much energy as its neighbors and the other harvested 75% as much. At that level, Enphase would consider them both failed (assuming we could get seven straight sunny days around here).

I find it very strange that three of the nine early-build M250s that I own have decided to fail within a few weeks of each other after years of proper operation. I must say that I regret purchasing these used units. Fortunately, all the other inverters I have purchased are/were new with warranty. I decided a year or so ago to purchase spares to cover these nine "just in case". I didn't expect to need them so soon!
 
RegGuheert said:
RegGuheert said:
One more note: A second one of these early, out-of-warranty M250s is also showing signs of imminent failure. I will report here if it fails completely.

Wow, that is very unusual to have so many fail in the same timespan! I was going to ask about the failure mode, but you answered that. I saw a similar failure mode on many M190s, but like you, I am very disappointed to see it in the M250s as well.

Like you, I purchased enough spares to completely replace all my inverters, except my spares are S280s. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. BTW, you are correct, the install date for my four S280s replacing the M250s was 2018 -- sorry about that.

Respectfully,
Ken Clifton
 
RegGuheert said:
I find it very strange that three of the nine early-build M250s that I own have decided to fail within a few weeks of each other after years of proper operation. I must say that I regret purchasing these used units. Fortunately, all the other inverters I have purchased are/were new with warranty. I decided a year or so ago to purchase spares to cover these nine "just in case". I didn't expect to need them so soon!
It's official. Three of the nine early-build M250s have failed, and I have updated the spreadsheet to show the failures. They failed less than five years after their manufacture date. That brings the overall MTBF of the M250s in the spreadsheet down to just 150 years.

I'm still stumped by the three nearly-simultaneous failures. I suspect electrical stress must have been involved, but that begs the question of why the other 6 inverters of that type (and the other 45 inverters of other types) did not fail due to the same stresses.

I'm not happy I purchased these 9 used inverters. OTOH, it makes me glad that all of the other units I own are still under warranty!
 
I have an update for you; I have had a failure.

My system is on row 224 of the spreadsheet, in Bellingham, WA. https://enlighten.enphaseenergy.com/pv/public_systems/TsvT250858/overview

I actually have 24 M215s with 250W panels that came online Oct 4, 2013 and 24 M250s with 255W panels which came online March 26, 2014.

One of the M215s failed on July 14, 2019. It was replaced under warranty with an M215-IG on July 25, 2019.

All other inverters continue to perform normally.
 
Ha, funny to find this thread here. I had come across the spreadsheet somewhere else and had it bookmarked.

I am in Michigan, with an M190 system installed in May 2011, with 21 m190s. As of now, I have 6 remaining original 190s. I have replaced more than 15 m190s though, as maybe 2 of the replacements also failed. None of the newer style m190IG replacements (9 in the system currently) have failed _yet_. So my MTBF is on the low end. ;)

On a separate little hobby project, an AC coupled off-grid battery backup inverter, I have 4 used ebay m210s. 2 have been going for 3 years, and the other two for 8 months so far. None of those have failed _yet_.

If anyone is removing m210s, or even m190s, I would be interested to take them off your hands. If you're a day's drive from MI, I could help replace them if you like. PM me please!

Dale
 
ltbighorn said:
Row 226: No failures/issues with my 12 M250s as of 2019-04-18.

Forgot about this thread (seems like most of us did!), but fwiw, 3.5 years later and still no failures on my 12 M250s as of 2022-11-20.
Looks like Row 232 on the current sheet.

Now I'm just trying to figure out if there's a way to prevent my Envoy-S from auto-updating from the D5.x firmware to the new D7.x, as the newer one forces the requirement of a JWT token generated by Enphase over the internet to access the data locally off your own Envoy-S... not a fan of that.

My 2015 Leaf is also still chugging along, hanging at about 85% capacity for the last few years.
 
ltbighorn said:
Forgot about this thread (seems like most of us did!), but fwiw, 3.5 years later and still no failures on my 12 M250s as of 2022-11-20.
Looks like RegGuheert hasn't been here in a few years, so unlikely he will see this and update the spreadsheet.

ltbighorn said:
Now I'm just trying to figure out if there's a way to prevent my Envoy-S from auto-updating from the D5.x firmware to the new D7.x, as the newer one forces the requirement of a JWT token generated by Enphase over the internet to access the data locally off your own Envoy-S... not a fan of that.
I have a really old Envoy (the white oval one) - last software build date is from 2020 - will they be doing the same thing there, do you know?

ltbighorn said:
My 2015 Leaf is also still chugging along, hanging at about 85% capacity for the last few years.
Excellent news that the rate of capacity loss has stabilized and 85% isn't bad. Would be a lot better if it had started with 30-40 kWh, though, instead of 24! 24 kWh usable or 75-100 mile real world range is still around the minimum value needed for most people.
 
DaveEV said:
Looks like RegGuheert hasn't been here in a few years, so unlikely he will see this and update the spreadsheet.

Seems that way, yes. Hopefully he's just off immersed in other fun hobbies!

ltbighorn said:
Now I'm just trying to figure out if there's a way to prevent my Envoy-S from auto-updating from the D5.x firmware to the new D7.x, as the newer one forces the requirement of a JWT token generated by Enphase over the internet to access the data locally off your own Envoy-S... not a fan of that.
I have a really old Envoy (the white oval one) - last software build date is from 2020 - will they be doing the same thing there, do you know?

I don't know. My Envoy-S on D5.0.48 has a build date of Feb 18 2020. I could see them not wanting to bother updating older systems, but I don't have any evidence as to that, and if your last build was from 2020 then you got an update around the last time I did, so it may happen again.

ltbighorn said:
My 2015 Leaf is also still chugging along, hanging at about 85% capacity for the last few years.
Excellent news that the rate of capacity loss has stabilized and 85% isn't bad. Would be a lot better if it had started with 30-40 kWh, though, instead of 24! 24 kWh usable or 75-100 mile real world range is still around the minimum value needed for most people.

Sure, more would be lovely, but I knew what I was getting into as an early adopter, and I got quite a deal with all the incentives at the time. I mostly use it as a town car, sparing my older ICE vehicle the wear and tear. The ICE does road trips, where it gets 2x the MPG vs in the city. When I bought it I figured that if it was at 50% range in 10 years it'd still do that job, though of course I hoped for better and it seemed likely based on other people's experiences. If it continues to hold at 80-85% for the next 7 years I'll be pleased! By the next time I need to buy an EV the options will be even better than now. :)
 
So 8 of 12 of my 7+ inverters are now putting out very little power. I got ahold a Enphase tech support and got a human in about 60 seconds (impressive). They logged onto my system from whatever part of the world and told me I needed a firmware update since the panels were 'skipping' or not syncing to the grid or something.

Has anyone else experienced this? It's been 2 days and I'm still waiting for them to get fixed. I had assumed a fix was available and just had to be pushed to my system but now I'm starting to wonder. They said they'd get back to me with updates via email but after connecting with a tech support person in 60 seconds I didn't expect a firmware update to take days.
 
Just as a follow up, my system has been fixed by a firmware update to the inverters. Enphase must have done this over the web since I took no action. They were very responsive at first but the update only occurred after the supplier I bought the system from contacted them as well.
 
Glad to hear you got your system fixed.

Ours was enabled (Xcel PTO) on May 1. So far quite happy with production. All in all a very good experience.

We went with Photon Brothers in the north Denver area. Would recommend them to others.

System:
18 REC Alpha Black 400 panels
18 Enphase IQ8A micro inverters
Enphase combiner box

Nominal rating: 7.2 kW
Actual peak production thus far: 6.0 kW.
 
Enjoy it! I probably won't have to pay Xcel anything for electricity until Oct/Nov. Maybe even longer depending on when I get more panels installed. I'm waiting for a few more mounting parts now and then need to update my roof before installing them.

One thing I learned is that you can't combine 7-series and 8-series inverters in the same box so I'm using IQ7+ inverters (325W panels). Hopefully I won't have to update the firmware on these too but if so, I know what to do.
 
That's my understanding as well, you can't combine IQ8 series with the earlier series. I imagine their PLC protocols are different, as the IQ8s are grid-forming, and the prior generations weren't.

Considering how much rain and smoke we've had, I'm quite happy with our production. Our billing cycle rolls over mid-month, and we had no electric on our bill in just 2 weeks on that cycle. Not bad.

Since we're new to this, it's all new data for me. So far so good.
 
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