In light of Bob O's post - after now 25 years of design & installation(OMG) I have been guinea pigged one time too many with New products. I second BobO's post.
I remember so clearly sitting in a presentation by a new inverter manufacturer that repeatedly spoke of MTTF, "mean time to failure" or was it, "Time to a mean failure?"[he did not have any real data so this was all he could speak on] - and their product was in the 100+ year MTTF category I had a hard time keeping my mouth shut as he prattled on. Yet here we are with failures on products that were touted as 30+ years going south. In light of solid testing and really building a solid industry with lots of certification and NEC & UL all over the place and PV Manu's dropping out of business. Where is a reality test that the gear will really deliver with the stated warranty? We are certifying the installer for safety, knowledge, installation practice and materials selection, BUT there is nothing to protect the consumer from a fraud that is 2 parts. 1 - Will the Manu. still be in business henceforth will the warranty be real? And 2 - Is the warranty stated realistic or just a speculative MTTF pile of hooey? Again the reality is that we as the seller, recommender, and installer of said equipment is the one whose reputation and business longevity is greatest effected by equipment failures. I personally have a min. of a 5 year good reliability reports requirement before I will jump on someone's band wagon with one the exception of one company - Outback power. I have seen charge controllers catch on fire, melt down & it was a wonderful thing that the wall was concrete. What would it take to have UL really time test the reliability of products? Or should someone else do this? Is this realistic? ____________________________________________________________________________ Dana Orzel Great Solar Works, Inc - NABCEP # 051112-136 [email protected] - www.solarwork.com PLEASE ADD & NOTE NEW CELL - C - 208.721.7003 O - 970.626.5253 F - 970.626.4140 "Responsible Technologies for Responsible People since 1988"
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