An inverter or a giant doorstop? It's an Inverter, Damnit! [RE-wrenches]

[Mark Robinson]

That would be one BIG door!

Everything about Advanced Energy is in the hands of the bankruptcy court. If
you need it, I can give you contact info for the trustee off list. He's the
only reliable source of information.

In any case, nobody knows who is going to end up with the IP or when it will
be awarded... although I would guess within the next 30 days. I will
broadcast it to the list the moment I get the official word.

In the interim, if you wanted to get a MultiMode... I'd get one of the s/n
3000+ serial numbers from Astropower (Jason Schripsema
jschripsema at AstroPower.com - I think they have 9 left). You'll need to load
new setpoints... I'll help you...
or
one of the ones at Schott that were upgraded with new power boards and
software (Eric Wilt eric.wilt at us.schott.com at Schott).

I don't know about availability from either one of these companies.

Those are the only ones I'd touch at this point. Whether there will be
service or warranty support (free or for a fee) is anybody's guess.

Regards,
Mark Robinson
Formerly Director of Customer Service at Advanced Energy...
      i.e.. "It's all my fault!"




-----Original Message-----
From: William Korthof [mailto:wkorthof at earthlink.net]
Sent: Thursday, February 20, 2003 5:38 PM
To: RE-wrenches at topica.com
Subject: An inverter or a giant doorstop? [RE-wrenches]


I have a [lucky!] customer with an Advanced Energy MM5000.
So far, his unit has worked perfectly, and I really like the unit,
even if the company did go belly up and cost me big problems.

This customer is looking to install another PV system on a
rental house that he owns, and he would again like to have
battery backup capability. He likes the MM unit, and he set
up the data dongle to interface with his PC to make pretty
graphs and so on. In short, he's the rare customer to whom
I'd even consider offering such an unsupported inverter unit.

One of our distributor sources has a residual inventory of MM
inverters which they would happily unload for bargain prices.
Actually, that's not the motivation... the MM is a 48 V unit,
it includes the largest available MPPT input controller, and it
accepts a higher PV voltage (ie 60 or 72 V nominal). It also
supports more grid-tie PV capacity than any other inverter
(SW with GTI is limited to 120v x 30a = 3.6 kVA).

So the question arises, is this worth pursuing? Will anyone
ever resurrect AE? How reliable would one of these units be?
Does anyone have advice?

I know the AE inverters aren't 100% because the second MM
we put in (last summer) for a different customer suffered an
infant mortality issue (and we covered it; long-sad story).


Thanks for any input,

/wk

At 11:19 PM 2/17/03 -0600, you wrote:
>Greetings Larry,
>
>Due in part to a series of posts on this list, I bought a Daystar hand
>held meter.  If I remember correctly it was around $130 delivered
>(www.raydec.com/daystar).
>
>I would like to hear about other experiences with this meter.
>
>I must say I have been impressed, or maybe even a little concerned, at
>how frequently the Daystar meter indicated a watts/m2 above 1,000 this
>last summer.  On a number of days where it felt really hot from a
>human/solar perspective, I pulled out the Daystar and it indicated we
>were receiving on the order of 1,200+ watts per sq. meter (Northern most
>point in WI, sometimes 4 hours past solar noon).  Is this what we should
>be seeing up here or might the meter be somewhat optimistic?
>
>Kurt Nelson
>
>- - - -
>To send a message: RE-wrenches at topica.com
>
>Archive of previous messages: http://www.topica.com/lists/RE-wrenches/
>
>List rules & etiquette: http://www.mrsharkey.com/wrenches/etiquete.htm
>
>Check out participant bios: www.mrsharkey.com/wrenches/index.html
>
>Hosted by Home Power magazine
>
>Moderator: michael.welch at homepower.com
>

- - - -
To send a message: RE-wrenches at topica.com

Archive of previous messages: http://www.topica.com/lists/RE-wrenches/

List rules & etiquette: http://www.mrsharkey.com/wrenches/etiquete.htm

Check out participant bios: www.mrsharkey.com/wrenches/index.html

Hosted by Home Power magazine

Moderator: michael.welch at homepower.com

- - - -
To send a message: RE-wrenches at topica.com

Archive of previous messages: http://www.topica.com/lists/RE-wrenches/

List rules & etiquette: http://www.mrsharkey.com/wrenches/etiquete.htm

Check out participant bios: www.mrsharkey.com/wrenches/index.html

Hosted by Home Power magazine

Moderator: michael.welch at homepower.com

==^================================================================
This email was sent to: michael_welch at sbcglobal.net

EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?bz8Qcs.bz9JC9.bWljaGFl
Or send an email to: RE-wrenches-unsubscribe at topica.com

TOPICA - Start your own email discussion group. FREE!
http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/create/index2.html
==^================================================================