Vanner takes the L on repairability

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[chiefshortingbull]

Louis, I worked at Vanner for 3 years and worked with James. He's a nice guy. That aside, I'll fill you in on some inside info. The VLT was NOT a product that Vanner built. They imported these from China. I personally helped unbox the VLT's when they arrived at the Hilliard office and repackage them into Vanner packaging to be shipped out to their customers. James didn't have the schematics to give to anyone. None of us had the VLT schematics because we didn't manufacture them. I can tell you a lot more if you like.

[hullinstruments]

I’ve had a few Vanner products come through my lab randomly usually from Long haul truck drivers. I specialize in component level board repair for test equipment and metrology related stuff… But I still get all kinds of random things from clients if they have something else break in their business that I don’t normally service….. i’ll take a look to help a regular customer. Therefore I end up getting all kinds of furnace boards and modules, all types of inverters and converters… Pretty much anything you would find in and around businesses

So I’ve seen a bit of everything. From x-ray machine circuit boards to controllers used for boiler systems that can heat an entire hotel.

The problem with repairability is a very common issue with higher end or industrial made modules and components. One of the best aspects of industrial high-grade stuff is that they take great care at preventing moisture and dust in grass… But there’s only one way to do that properly… something that is dreaded by all techs and repair folks…

POTTING COMPOUND!


They don’t just use a conformal coating but they pot the entire module/board in epoxy or rubber/silastic/silicone.

The most common place you will see this in your every day life is in your HVAC system. furnace/HVAC blowers usually have some type of control module secured to the end of the blower motor. Hard to recognize because it will basically just look like the standard end of a motor. fan modules.

These are commonly called ECM modules… you could Google “X13 Genteq” and that will pull it up and give you an idea of what I’m referring to.


There’s a good chance you’ve had one on every furnace or HVAC system you’ve ever owned… Looks like the normal back part of a motor but it’s actually a control unit completely potted and covered in a thick layer of rubber….. making them absolutely unrepairable. And it’s getting more common in all parts of electronics and industry. Even in standard homeowner grade washing machines… A lot of the boards will be completely potted in rubber. But of course you can make the argument that in a lot of cases it’s going to prolong the board. And it does make the devices and boards more tough and resilient. Or at least prevent it from failing due to moisture/conductive dust ingress.

But when it comes to high end professional products…. I kind of get why they do it. Obviously it keeps out moisture and dust ingress, stops vibration, yada yada yada…

But I still think companies should be willing to at least meet the client halfway and if they can’t even repair their own stuff because of the thick and extremely troublesome potting compound… Should at least give a discount or something surely could be done.

[ctbrahmstedt]

So, I made a few in line comments here and looked at some opinions. One big difference with Vanner, as @Louis Rossmann said, is that their primary market is industry. One big difference in industry is their customers cannot afford downtime. I used to run on an ambulance that had one of these inverters, we had the truck for 10 years and had to repair pretty much every system at some point (drive train, emergency lights, siren speakers, etc) The one thing we never had to touch was the inverter. It outlasted most of the components on that truck. Any time the truck was down, it cost our department money. Google how much an average ambulance transport costs, and an average number of calls per day in your city. It's not worth anyone in industry to try to repair it, it's cheaper to buy new than to have an ambulance be out of service for a week. When you buy a new car, you get a solid 8 years before you have to start replacing things, but once you do, it's another 6 months before you have to replace the next thing, and then it becomes 3 months. Industry cannot afford that, it's cheaper to buy new and get another 10 years out of it. So long as Vanner isn't actively preventing you from opening up their device and trying to fix it yourself, then I'm fine with it. It's the BMW, the OneWheel, the Zero Motorcycles, the John Deere, that are actively engineering the product to prevent you from trying to repair it yourself that I think is awful.

[Psi]

I had an interesting repair almost 15 years ago dealing with Panasonic. I had a Panasonic LCD Projector with bad IC controlled the GREEN LCD contrast. I was able to figure out which chip it was and managed to track down a service manual (probably leaked) and it listed an official replacement part number for that IC. So I emailed Panasonic service dept asking how to order that part. They said sure, but they needed to know my units S/N and proof of purchase. I got my projector second hand so had no proof of purchase. I explain that to them and they agreed it was ok that I didn't need to have it but they still wanted the S/N. After I gave them the S/N they responding saying my unit was a parallel imported unit from another country and not one sold locally and they refused to sell any parts or it. Anyway, I was able to hack the projector and inject 5.5V to force the green LCD to have contrast even though the faulty chip was trying to set contrast to zero in error. I just had to adjust red and blue contrast to match using the OSD and projector was working again. Screw you Panasonic.

[tommykarrick]

I think the worst line I always hear from these companies is “can not be repaired”
Yes it can. Technically if I take the silicon die off of a CPU and snap it in half it can be repaired. It might cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, several industry leading professionals with a century’s worth of collective experience, and machinery worth more than the state of Nebraska, but it can be done. Is it cost or time effective? Now that’s a conversation I’d be willing to have, (and with a product as simple as in the video, I’m quite certain the answer is yes) but when you say “is not repairable” you lose all credibility

[LarryKapp]

Midnite Solar is manufacturing their own charge controllers and inverters in Washington State. One of their main design engineers answers technical question on their forums and tells people what components to check and how to repair if they want to do that themself instead of sending it in. Midnite did just also pick up a Chinese inverter controller rebranded with their name and some of their design and software changes and they provide technical support and repair on these too. So there are companies in USA that support their products.

[arandomfox]

I fixed my own inverter and I just completely ignored the "warranty void if removed" sticker.
Because it'll be cheaper to fix it myself than to send it back anyway since I live in the third world.
Also whilst the build quality was very nice, they did make it very difficult to replace something as simple as the fuses.

[powerlight]

and the best part is If you buy a Chinese version/Unknown brand, the Scematics are widely available or even the manufacturer of that product will help you out.

[dziustas]

You can email any company and ask schematics for any product they manufacture. Usually they won't send you anything or reply to you. Some may give you parts diagram for ordering replacement parts but that's it. Most of that technical information only provided to service technicians who work for the same company only fixing warranty items. Technicians also sign papers that they won't leak any information after quitting this job for years. Also you can't buy special tools that they use for flashing software or even get access to it. They don't need any independent technicians fixing "their" stuff.

[zos]

Check out what a electronics design engineer called magic smoke did on CTEK battery chargers. Professional autopsy, identified the root cause, inherent design defect. At least in the EU, they no longer bicker when a consumer refers to that video featuring that model. The question is not that it failed, but WHY did it stop working. If this engineer thinks 1 cent power diodes are not long term reliable - that will mean much unnecessary electronic ewaste going forward. Bless him for refitting a chunkier bridge rectifier.

[DurzoBlunts]

Ah yes the old "if it's out of warranty, take a hike" atleast when I've bought things from Alibaba that were not some big brand they'd send a schematic if available. Have had a couple pwm dimmers schematics supplied upon request after purchases.

[solanumtinkr]

Years back at PC World they used to claim that Technical Support answered the Technical support line, but after 3 months of being screwed around by a particular store, I happened to know the voices and there job Titles and skills that went with them... Customer Service. They had nothing to do with the Technical side of things. I was sold a product that had to be able to do a certain something, that it turns out the product would go into in infinite start loop instead of achieving the goal. 3 months of unmitigated hell dealing with being fobbed off, and a technical team that had the notes on the fault IN DETAIL, and kept trying to find ways around said fault, so they could search for fault they just admitted to having a bitch of a time getting around. Utter incompetence and constantly trying to just hand the faulty goods back and get us to never come back, though incompetence implies no intent, if the intent to do nothing about it was there then that changes it to malice.

[n]

That's abysmal on Vanner's part. I'll be sure to never get a product from them unless they change this policy.

[TheRetroBristolian]

Bang on the money as always, I collect Bang & Olufsen HiFi and TV equipment, it went from in the 80s and 90s having full schematics available to in the 00s a service manual saying 'replace the board' its a joke! If you contact B&O they say 'for your safety we could never release that information' absolute bull crap!

[threeMetreJim]

An inverter sounds like something you could probably draw the schematic for yourself if you really needed to, and then release on-line for others. More than likely a bad mosfet or electrolytic capacitor somewhere; they are the parts that like to wear out.

[Scoots]

The manual for my 1980s Panasonic turntable has schematics. It's just a 13 page manual but has everything

[sharpfang]

The sellers on Ali don't provide schematics they don't have. I bought an RC relay circuit from one, opened it and began scratching my head because the connections were nothing like I knew. I wrote them for schematics, they apologized that they have nothing. I sat down and reverse-engineered the thing, drew the schematic, connected it up, worked fine. I sent the schematic to them and next thing I see my hand-drawn schematic is included in their shop listing of the device!

[nickolaswilcox]

on the bright side these things are generally easy to open up and just take a look, dont know what brand mine is but all i did was remove a few screws and everything slid out with an obvious point of failure, a set of new capacitors later and its running good as new

[Tech-Relief]

In 1978 I bought a digital Fluke bench multi-meter it came with a proper manual with all the circuit diagrams (schematics in the US right?) and service information. I bet (but I don't know) new Fluke devices do not come with this information today? Things have changed...

[jonfeuerborn]

So, going by @Chief ShortingBull 's comment, it's actually much worse than what Louis shared in the video. Vanner isn't charging extra because it's American made to higher specs, but it's doing the exact same thing any of us could do in sourcing the chinesiums, and then price gouging the ever loving tar out of them when they sell them to the consumer. If all that is true (and I can't see any good reason to believe otherwise), the company went from about a C- to an F on that item. Disappointing.