Huntingdog,
Yes I've had failures from some highly rated components--and one theft of a Yamaha Generator. But none of the failures were related to solar. My error on solar was purchasing a quality controller which would not allow expansion of the wattage on the system.
I designed the solar to work with a large battery bank of 875 amp-hours which would give me about a week of off the grid boondocking. It also allowed running the engine block heater for 3 hours before starting the RV up at -40. The full recharge would happen between trips. Cost of the system was $5.50 per watt, including the controller ($1700 for entire system). At the time (2005), the price on the panels was spectacularly low. It served me faithfully for 5 years.
When I moved to full time, that set up no longer supplied me with enough power. That meant either being a power pole princess, or getting a generator. Upgrading the solar would have meant paying a pretty penny--more than the cost of an elcheapo electric start generator. Since that wrong headed decision I've spent about 3 times what the cost of upgrading the solar would have been, on generators and directly related items.
So I've learned from the school of hard knocks--and hope to help others avoid my (costly) mistakes.
I'm now no longer full time--so there is no need to upgrade the system, but not doing so, when moving to full time, was a huge mistake (the mistake eventually cost over $7800) in hindsight.
As to the failures. One elcheapo inverter ($400), and one expensive hybrid inverter/charger (poor design by maker, but replaced under warranty), one elcheapo generator ($1400).
