AEI/Beacon M5 Fireworks II [RE-wrenches]

[Matt Tritt]

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  This is an interesting subject to say the least.

  From my experience in manufacturing all sorts of stuff, virtually
everybody outsources at least some portion of their product and most
companies will go for the cheapest bid from their suppliers.

  It's no secret that most of our inverter manufacturers actually produce
the bulk of their equipment "overseas", not here in the US of A, and that
includes the Good ones!

  The problems with the GC 1000, I believe, were a result of the rush to
come to market in a time when the choices were very limited for grid-tied
anything, and the short-cuts that were taken in order to establish an
industry presence early. I distictly remember that at the time there was a
certain "vibe" (on the phone, at least) of a kind of reserved panic with
several of the employees when asked technical questions.

  People make mistakes when they're in a hurry.

  Most of you will also remember that Trace was producing an even less
reliable product at the time, that made the GC seem like a minor miracle by
comparison! I still have several GC's out there working flawlessly, (and
some that were problems from the get-go) even though they aren't as
efficient at producing power as I'd like to see. Oh well.

  The point is that before the introduction of SMA to the American market,
we didn't actually HAVE a reliable inverter for batterlyless grid tie. Or a
battery based one for that matter.

  Matt T
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: "Geoff Greenfield" <Geoff at Third-Sun.Com>
  To: <RE-wrenches at topica.com>
  Sent: Wednesday, September 08, 2004 11:11 AM
  Subject: RE:AEI/Beacon M5 Fireworks II [RE-wrenches]




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  I'm glad my feeling of being "burned" by AEI was not so literal - yikes!

  After dealing with many failed GC-1000 units and nice but frustrated tech
  support at AEI, one bit of info seems appropriate -  One guy explained
that
  a lot of the difficulties they had were related to the "contract
  manufacturing" that actually put the product together (they subbed it
out).
  They would have specs for the electronic components, even by manufacturer,
  and all of these would have an acceptable "tolerance". He said that while
  things would work well on the bench, but as the manufacturing process went
  on, some of the boards used different components, and the combination of
the
  different "range" of different components all added up to funky-ness...

  I don't know if this is typical of electronics manufacturing, (or if it
was
  the excuse of the day), but it would seem like a good basic question (for
  Beacon and any manufacturer) how much of the manufacturing/assembly do you
  actually do, and how do you address quality control on the rest of it?

  Sincerely,

  Geoff Greenfield
  NABCEP Certified Solar PV Installer TM
  GLREA Certified Photovoltaic Systems Integrator/Installer License Number
  0211-01

  THIRD SUN SOLAR AND WIND POWER Ltd.
  340 West State Street, Unit 25
  Athens, OH 45701

  Phone (740) 597-3111
  Fax   (740) 597-1548

  www.third-sun.com

  End of RE-wrenches at topica.com digest, issue 1557
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