More Trace unresponsiveness [RE-wrenches]

[Bob-O Schultze]

<x-flowed>Hiya Group,
I've been trying to find out as much as I can about the new Trace PS 
Inverter series before stocking or recommending them.
The PS inverters are a lower cost sinewave (actually, Trace's "Mayan 
Temple" approximation of a sinewave) machine. 2500 Watts, comes in 
12V or 24V inputs. It has a new transformer topology, using five 
instead of three as in the SW series. It has NO user interface except 
for on/off and maybe LBCO. It comes with more or less the standard SW 
defaults. You can change the settings only via plugging in a SWRC or 
SWCA.
As it ships now, the thing is a Wrench nightmare. Here's why:
In spite of years of telling Trace to give us non-volatile RAM in the 
SW so the inverter does not revert to factory defaults when you power 
it down, they STILL won't do it. The PS has no user interface. That 
means the Wrench will have to set it up in the field (after acquiring 
an SWRC to add to his list of required tools) and hope to God that 
the customer never trips the input breaker or powers it down to clean 
the battery terminals, or ????.
Of course, you could just leave the machine at factory defaults. Any 
of you EVER do that? I never have in all the installations and tech 
support I've done. If/when a power down occurs, you're in for a 
service call that Trace won't pay for. You'll also have to answer the 
question "Why did you sell me this turkey?" before you can charge 
your customer for a call either.
Another, though smaller, wart is the 20W idle draw. No big deal 
except that the default search mode wattage is set to 48W like the 
SWs. So you pretty much have to turn it on and leave it on.
None of this will make a difference to the deep discounters, they'll 
just sell the hell out of it for next to nothing and Trace tech help 
will be even busier then they are now. That business expense will be 
passed to ALL of us in the form of higher prices and piss poorer 
response times.
What to do?
How about an email barrage? It's cheap, easy, and just maybe effective.
Since it all seems to boil down to a buck at Trace anymore, shoot it at
svanderhoof at traceengineering.com
broppenecker at traceengineering.com
cfreitas at traceengineering.com
I'd really LIKE to think feedback like this will make a difference, 
but maybe I'm kidding myself. We live in hope.
bob-O

Bob-O Schultze, Electron Connection
PO Box 203, Hornbrook, CA 96044
800.945.7587 fax 530-475-3401
www.electronconnection.com

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