Damaged GS Inverter from Shipping. . .or not?

1 minute ago, The Blind Wolf said:

Nope its still reading at 26.43v this morning and still running dish washer. got plaenty of power.  and waterman even if split phase your still running on one phase either 120v l1 or l2, only diff is one is at a 180 degree back and forth from the other so shouldn't make any diff.

It shouldn't but it would load the transformer differently. Center tapped transformers can have different characteristics when one side is loaded vs if both sides are loaded. In you case, your transformer is a single doubled output L1 & L2. In my case, it is a single phase across L1 and L2 but center tapped. With light loaded L2-N, the magnetics of the transformer would be different than if operated as a single phase only.

Yeah, didn't think on that one, yeah, cause the magnetic field would cause flux changes and such. 

On 5/20/2021 at 7:51 PM, Sean Genetry Solar said:

First, this is the first major shipping issue we have seen. I am wondering how you know it was dropped and if you have some sort of proof I can make a complaint especially considering that the unit may in fact fail before 1 year and I can hold them liable for that. 

I wouldn't say first as mine was also damaged a bit in shipping but it seemed to be pretty much cosmetic and easy enough to fix with careful use of a pliers other than the broken plastic pins that held the end covers on. It did hit hard enough to slightly bend the corner of the bottom mount but the metal flip cover took the brunt of the impact as it was more bent and the plastic pins that held it were sheered but the screw on the bottom of the cover held but was impacted hard enough to flatten the threads where it went through the cover.  That is UPS for ya, as they throw and drop packages all the time around here.  I did send you an email with a google drive link to pictures at the time.  I looked it over thoroughly before powering it up the first time with a current limited supply.  So far its been working like a champ powering the whole house except the range, dryer and water heater for a couple months now.  It would still consider using a warranty void sticker on each corner since mine flexed enough in shipping to almost completely sever the one warranty sticker which was in the pictures in the google drive link I sent at the time.  It is still partially intact by about half.  It was on the corner that took the impact during shipping.

GS Inverters, so tough that even UPS can't break 'em.

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8 hours ago, kuhrd said:

I wouldn't say first as mine was also damaged a bit in shipping but it seemed to be pretty much cosmetic and easy enough to fix with careful use of a pliers other than the broken plastic pins that held the end covers on. It did hit hard enough to slightly bend the corner of the bottom mount but the metal flip cover took the brunt of the impact as it was more bent and the plastic pins that held it were sheered but the screw on the bottom of the cover held but was impacted hard enough to flatten the threads where it went through the cover.  That is UPS for ya, as they throw and drop packages all the time around here.  I did send you an email with a google drive link to pictures at the time.  I looked it over thoroughly before powering it up the first time with a current limited supply.  So far its been working like a champ powering the whole house except the range, dryer and water heater for a couple months now.  It would still consider using a warranty void sticker on each corner since mine flexed enough in shipping to almost completely sever the one warranty sticker which was in the pictures in the google drive link I sent at the time.  It is still partially intact by about half.  It was on the corner that took the impact during shipping.

Yours would have been first revision with the end covers (and yes, the plastic pins ALWAYS get busted!); we have since deprecated those, and gone with a metal box cover on the one end.

For the 3rd order (should start production any day now) we have asked them to modify the chassis design slightly to add corner reinforcement.  Should help considerably with those sort of issues.  What we are glad to hear is that at least so far there have been NO fatal damages to GS inverters due to shipping.  Cosmetic, yes.  Functional...not so far.  Which is good.

I guess Sean considering it "the first significant damage" was because it reportedly was "dropped 2 stories"...but upon seeing the photos, it sounds like yours took more of a hit. 

Well I amit I did over dramaticly stated it was drop two stories. more like it had to be dropped at least 8 feet to do the damange on the side.  Also, I've just took the slave out, and you can tell where basicly the same area, its having a issue during shipping.  Like I said, I think if sean takes two 1x1" stock wood and run it the length of the bottem rail when its in the box, would probley help otu from the  side, also, I would highly suggest putting foam on the bottom of the inverter, I noticed there isn't any support in both boxes for the middle, and due to all the weight these things have, that would cause metal streess in the middel being held on both ends with no support in the middle.  and that might have been what caused my damange, not sure, could have been drop could have been just the sheer weight of the thing.

And dang, I just got done putting the slave on its ply wood, and I have to say, I bearly can even pick the blasted thing up. geesh, and the 12k is going to be even bigger??? Yeah, please, Oh please put more foam int he middle sides for that one. geesh. might have to consider pallet shipping those things.

Yup.  The 12k is well past 100lbs; I seem to recall 120lbs.  Shipping max is 150lbs before we have to switch to freight shipping.

9 hours ago, Sid Genetry Solar said:

I guess Sean considering it "the first significant damage" was because it reportedly was "dropped 2 stories"...but upon seeing the photos, it sounds like yours took more of a hit. 

For mine it looked like someone went to pick it up from the light end and it flipped on them while they were carrying it from about waste high (or the height of a drop from a truck tailgate) or so as the double box, foam and end cover took the brunt of the hit.  When I checked mine I had checked the transformer isolator on the bottom and shined a light in the vents on the side to make sure the transformer looked like it was still pretty much in the right place.

I can definitely say that the unit chassis is built well.  I can say for certain that at least for UPS around me packages go through hell and back because they have to work fast and it's not their problem if it breaks whereas FedEx packages look pristine like they just came off the shipping dock although I have heard friends in other states telling me FedEx is the worst so I guess it really depends on the area and quality/stress level of the employees.  I remember when Sean was saying how much trouble he was having with USPS but where I live USPS pretty much beats everyone except for maybe Speedy Delivery.

I used to own a computer store and every so often we would have to ship an entire computer (this was before they had all the packaging options and brackets to safely ship custom computers fully assembled) and we would often have to ship a system with heavy duty straps, zip ties and hand cut and glued up foam pieces inside the computer that the customer would have to remove along with a minimum of 2 inches of closed cell foam on the outside of the case and a double box just to make sure the computer would arrive in one piece without damage and even then sometimes stuff would get broken.  Had a near $3500 machine returned because someone ran a fork lift through it.  That one was a fun one to try and get the insurance back for since UPS kept claiming we didn't package it well enough when you could plainly see someone ran a forklift fork through it hard enough to poke through both steel sides of the case and just mangle it inside the box.

They were really terrible around last October-December.  Conveniently, I guess..........

Back to normal now though.