Hi, this is Amy from the altE Store.
I want to give you a quick little tip about how to use the locking connectors that come
on the back of many solar panels.
Now there's a lot of different manufacturers out there now that are making these, so some
of the common ones are Amphenol makes the H4, and Multi-Contact makes the MC4.
So I'm going to show you a couple of different things, just little tricks with these connectors.
So, you are going to have these cables coming off the back of your solar panel, you're
going to have a plus and a minus.
So to make the connection to your combiner box, or your pass thru box, you are going
to get an extension cable, such as this 15' H4 connector.
You cut it in 2, so then you end up with 2 connectors, one for the plus, one for the minus.
The other end is going to be bare, you strip that, you put that to where ever it's going;
combiner box, pass thru.
So the thing with the locking connector is,
you can't unlock them without a key.
National Electric Code requires a key.
So, I've gotten an H4 connector key, and I'm just going to show you real quickly.
There's lots of different pieces to it, for disconnecting you don't really care about
any of those.
All you care about is the little fork at the end here, either on the side or at the end.
Both of them will work.
I prefer using the one on the side.
So you just slide them right into the two little holes here.
And your connector comes disconnected.
So, same thing with my MC4.
I'm going to lock them, and I'm going to just use the key, to disconnect.
So, you are going to notice that the MC4 and the H4 look very similar to each other.
One little difference is on the male side, the H4 has got little protective sleeve, and
the MC4 does not.
You can get a protective sleeve if you want to be really careful, you can buy that separately.
But the H4 comes with it, and the MC4 does not.
So that's one way you can kind of tell.
And you'll see the Amphenal actually says Amphenal on it, and the MC says MC on it.
So, quite often you might find yourself in a situation where you've got equipment you
are trying to connect together, either DC Optimizers or microinverters, that say they've
got MC4 compatible connectors on them.
So they may not be MC4, but they might be another brand that is considered compatible.
So in that case, if it happens to be an H4 and an MC4, let me show you a little trick.
These will connect together, absolutely.
And the thing is, if you do need to disconnect them, because the MC4 and the H4 key has a
little bit different (I don't know if you can see that) it has a little different size,
you are going to actually need both of these to disconnect.
So I'll show you why.
On this side here, I can't get the H4 connector key to fit.
I need the MC4 connector key to go in and disconnect for me.
There we go.
Yet on the other end, on the MC4 female and the H4 male,
the MC4 connector key does not work,
I've got to use my H4 key.
And so then that will let me disconnect.
So that's the thing to remember, if you are connecting MC4 and H4 together, get one of each.
All righty?
I hope this was helpful, if so, give us a like and a share.
And be sure to check out more of our videos on the altE Store channel.
And don't forget to go to our website at altestore.com, where we've been making renewable do-able
since 1999.