Richard Perez , Start Talking to us - Pagan, don't stop talking to us [RE-w

[Bill Brooks]

Baran,

Can we now call you BaRANT? ;-) All legitimate questions with some of the
tact missing (understandable given the frustration of the last six months).

This is in no way exonerating Xantrex from responsibility on the performance
of their product, but I think there is something that must be said right
now.

I think there is a naive understanding of how new products are developed in
this industry. Experience over the past 20 years in the grid-connected
inverter industry has shown that virtually every new product on the market
has had significant development issues to overcome before it was truly ready
for market. Is this right or good---no---but it is absolutely real. (The
only exception to this rule I can think of was the American Power Conversion
SunSine unit built in the early 1980's---it is still better than any
inverter ever produced, and many of those units remain in service even
today)

There are new products coming on the market right now that need to be viewed
from the very same perspective. As I emphatically teach in my training
course--if you are willing to be part of the product development team on a
new product, buy one, put it on your facility, learn about what works and
what doesn't, and give the feedback to the manufacturer. Otherwise, you have
no business installing this new equipment on a customer's home that is going
to hold your system to a high level of expected performance.

I'm really not sure that we are well served by the black and white thumbs
up, or thumbs down approach in Home Power Magazine. All new products have
"issues" and the best way to resolve them is to point them out to the
manufacturer and let them determine whether their market warrants fixing
those "issues" or not--it is their call.

You as a wrench, on the other hand, must protect your interests of staying
in business and providing reliable products to your customers. Whether you
like it or not, this means that you must be very conservative about new
products and wait until they have had significant positive field experience
before deploying on customer's facilities. This goes for modules as well as
inverters. Most wrenches stay on the "bleeding edge of technology", but the
longer you stay there, the more blood you lose. Until you have good solid
field data from someone who knows what to look for in products (like where
are you going to find that these days?), you must approach new products with
extreme caution and only apply them in a demonstration mode.

If wrenches in California had taken this approach with the Sun Tie
(regardless of whether Xantrex said it was ready for Prime Time or not), I
believe we wouldn't have nearly the mess we have now and Xantrex might be
closer to a solution in improving their product.

So---should we name names of what products are not ready for Prime Time.

Not Ready For Prime Time Players:

Xantrex SunTie
Vanner RE24-4500DGT
Advanced Energy Multi-Mode 3 and 5
Trace SW-UPV batteryless version


Prime Time Players:

Xantrex SW Series
Advanced Energy GC-1000
Trace Technologies PV-series
Sunny Boy 2500
Omnion 2400 (if you can find one)


This does not mean that items on the "Not Ready" list won't make it to the
"Prime Time" list. It is likely that those inverters will become major
players in our market for years to come. Just go slow, learn, help develop,
but don't jump to conclusions. The wrench has some blame in this process and
must accept that blame like big people. Venting frustration is fine as long
as the goal is better products that better serve our industry.

Okay--now I've gotten everyone mad at me--but can you refute my findings?

Moral of the story is..."Those who run with haste to new products, will
continue running until they are bankrupt"

Bill.

-----Original Message-----
From: Baran Galocy [mailto:livewire at c-zone.net]
Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2001 9:20 AM
To: RE-wrenches at topica.com
Subject: Richard Perez , Start Talking to us - Pagan, don't stop talking to
us [RE-wrenc


Sorry to those who wished this closed - I feel violated, as a wrench member,
and must speak out on this forum.

First, to Pagan, a hearty welcome.  I truly appreciate your presence, and I
wish you had made it to this list in a different fashion (are you reading
this, Richard?)  I appreciate your presence because I feel that you are more
than qualified to be here, and I want someone to hold accountable in the
Xantrex Conglomerate.  Tag, you're it!

I want, and expect, to see in the very near future answers to things like
"SW's missing Silent-Sell feature, Why two Sun-Ties (straight from the
factory) are cycling on and off with less than 50% on cycling time (but
independent from each other), Why the Sun-Tie has an 8 character display for
"Total Daily Produced Power" [sorry - that one is rhetorical - the question
really is why do you power the display with array dc, allowing it to fail
every night such that the watt hour meter is restricted to a daily, instead
of a true cumulative function?], Why I measure 1,750 watts of dc power into
the Sun-Tie (with a Fluke-36), but only 1,200 watts of ac power out (when it
isn't cycled off!), yada, yada, yada.

My welcome to you is heartfelt, Pagan, AND you are in a tough position.  You
have been monitoring this chat-space forever.  Now that you are a "wrench",
it is incumbent upon you to answer all complaints, in this public forum, in
a timely and complete manner.  Perhaps that was Richard's intent - to
finally have someone from Trace whom we can hold accountable to this network
as a whole.  This is an unenviable job because we techies can smell spin-job
a mile away, and we won't take no wooden nickels.  You, on the other hand,
would find yourself in the unemployment line tomorrow if you publicly fess
up to all of Trace's warts and shortcomings today.

Personally, I have a problem with a conglomerate that goes on a take-over
spree (Xantrex), winding up with most of the US inverter market (Heart /
StatPower / Trace), raises wholesaler's prices while holding the retail
price fixed, and can't even get the bugs out of its over-hyped,
rushed-to-the-market, lightweight contender for grid-tie domination in the
US (Sun-Tie series).    This problem is compounded when I talk to your tech
support crew.  Dean, Roy, Brian & Ken are all knowledgeable and helpful, but
they are ill-equipped to deal with a faulty product.  Now we are all in
clean up, and a rushed product that doesn't come close to its rated specs
outside of a temperature-controlled test laboratory, is floating around by
the thousands.

So, Pagan . . .please get that I understand fully that you are not the
company you work for, and I do not hold you personally responsible for the
performance of Trace products.  I do hold you personally responsible for
publicly addressing all of the listed complaints, without the benefit of pr
spin.  If you are able and willing to do this, I welcome you once again.  If
you can not, or will not do this, I ask that you immediately withdraw from
the wrenches network.


Richard, Greetings!   I do not recall seeing posts by you here, at least not
in the recent past.  Now, I am requesting that you address this forum
yourself.  While I welcome Pagan on this list because she is now obligated
to answer questions that were once simple rants and raves about Trace
products,  I am mortified by the way in which she appeared.  From out here,
it looked (looks?) like Xantrax's deep advertising pockets were more the
reason for Pagan's sudden arrival.  Especially since we wrenches voted
(rather un-officially) not to have non-wrenches on board.  Michael was kind
enough to explain to me off forum (and how many others - thanks, Michael)
that this wasn't the case.  Still, I take great umbrage in the fact that a
difference between Michael and Pagan was settled, in sorts, by you.  The
settling of differences by the parties directly involved always appears more
smooth than when settled by a third party.  I anxiously await a response on
Richard's part.  If this has already happened, my bad, and please forgive my
missing of it.

Now for something entirely different  . . . rant-off, Baran


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