7 ms·

Maybe they should just improve their product to make it more resiliant, rather than blaming customers for thinking that 148 V is below 150 V? Not everybody buyi

Maybe they should just improve their product to make it more resiliant, rather than blaming customers for thinking that 148 V is below 150 V? Not everybody buying these has a Ph.D. in physics and if it says 148 V on the label and 150 V on the other label then it's your product that has a problem, not the customer. And no matter what happens, customer support should help the customer, not blame them.

leoedin 1y ago
In both examples given you can have 2 panels in series. So given that in almost all use cases, you can have 2 panels in series, they should just say “max 2 panels in series”. Simple. A good product hides complexity from the user with sane defaults and optional advanced configuration. This feels like the same problem.
- cornholio 1y ago
  Panels are not standardized and are themselves series-parallel constructions with wildly diverse specs.
- TeMPOraL 1y ago
  There's hiding complexity, and then there's creating fake reality for people. As it is, panels are gonna produce variable power depending on the weather. Putting interoperability with third-party panels aside, to get the simplicity of "max 2 panels in series", they'd have to either cap the max power on the panel/generator link and dump the excess, or set the limit based on the worst case a customer is likely to encounter. I.e. they're either gonna waste power, or gouge their customers for extra hardware. Neither of that makes sense for an ecological product sold to a price-conscious customer base :).
  - namibj 1y ago
    The problem is that you run higher voltages with the same hardware if your in Alaska than if you're in Florida. Substantially so. "Wasting" those 5~10% during severe winter conditions isn't worth splurging on the voltage converter. Though then selling units that suggest to not run a few hundred volt strings before paralleling instead does sound bad, as the string doesn't need separate fuses rated to many volts DC.
geocar 1y ago
> Not everybody buying these has a Ph.D. in physics and if it says 148 V on the label and 150 V on the other label then it's your product that has a problem, not the customer. Idk. I don't have a PHD, but 220V sounds like 240V to me. I wouldn't do this. I feel like getting advice about how to wire up electronics should not be so hard. > Maybe they should just improve their product to make it more resiliant Adding "resilience" usually adds to the per-unit cost. I think making a web page adds some cost too, but at least that can be amortised. > And no matter what happens, customer support should help the customer, not blame them. I think that's happening here: Making a web page to educate future customers seems like a really good idea. I wouldn't have thought that necessary until I saw it, but I'm always excited to learn something new. The existing customers who did dumb should consider this a relatively cheap education in electronics; cheaper than a PHD at least! Also, whether the company also gave them rebates or credits we don't know here, but telling "customer support" they "should help the customer" is also telling them they're not helping the customer, and you don't know that.
- delusional 1y ago
  > Making a web page to educate future customers seems like a really good idea I don't think this is an official website of ecoflow. Other than that I agree. I don't think asking for a bit of knowledge from the customers is a bad thing. A warning in the manual about safety factors should be enough.
- xenadu02 1y ago
  They're just being cheap. If you're going to let customers plug panels directly into your box you should have overvoltage protection. It's that simple.
- cornholio 1y ago
  > Adding "resilience" usually adds to the per-unit cost. In this case, the cost is much less than a dollar (say, a varistor that blows the existing fuse) and it prevents a catastrophic failure.
  - immibis 1y ago
Zanfa 1y ago
This is 100% on the manufacturer if they intentionally chose to highlight the "best case" 150V, rather than the 120V lower end. Especially without any additional safety mechanisms.
- rcxdude 1y ago
  The article presents it oddly, it's not that the converter maximum input gets lower, it's the solar panel output that gets higher from the nominal quoted value (which is not a maximum, and not really intended to be used as such). Derating your converter is equivalent for the purposes of ensuring margins, but it implies the issue is in the wrong place.
  - lazide 1y ago
    The idea of safety margins has died under the more pressing type - profit margins.
    - Pet_Ant 1y ago
      Your safety margin is my profit margin. - Mr MBA
    - Workaccount2 1y ago
      The failsafe circuit to protect against this (over voltage condition) is maybe $3 and incredibly routine in anything with power. I would bet everything that it is in there. What's most likely though is that the fuse is also internal, and externally the unit will appear bricked.
    - rcxdude 1y ago
      While in general most parts will work beyond their ratings to at least some degree, this isn't really a safety margin. A safety margin is known, rated, and validated, and usually a property of a system as opposed to just one part within it.
      - lazide 1y ago
xg15 1y ago
This feels a bit like the logic behind "do not put hamster in microwave" warning labels. I think if you work with electrical or electronic systems in practice, you learn pretty quickly to respect tolerances and that data sheets are a map, not the territory. Also, electrical installations are usually seen as a field that should be done by trained personnel, not arbitrary laymen home owners. So I think the appropriate reaction would be to remind people that they should hire an electrician to do the installation, if they don't have the necessary specialized knowledge themselves.
- harvey9 1y ago
  I have the impression these are consumer products so I would them to be designed to be installed by people who do not normally work with electrical systems. If they are only sold to tradesmen that would be different.
  - xg15 1y ago
    Yeah, it would be important to understand who the company is intending to sell to or do the installation. Though the lines are often blurred, because I guess most companies would like to sell directly to end customers, even if their product requires a professional to install. Even IKEA does this. You can go in and buy an electric stove and oven, grab them from the warehouse and take them home with you right there. But it's a bit of an illusion: You're still supposed to call an electrician to actually connect the things.
    - krisoft 1y ago
      > Yeah, it would be important to understand who the company is intending to sell to or do the installation You can do that by just reading the product page[1]. The delta pro, the equipment in question, looks like a plug-in appliance. It visually communicates that it is portable (by having a wheel and a handle) and by virtue of having a power lead connect to it it communicates that you can just plug it in. They further reinforce this by writing this: "Plug & Play home backup solution". "Easy installation with completely pre-wired Plug & play home backup solution" "The solution provides a convenient home battery system without rewiring or running dangerous extension cables through your home." "Plug directly into an AC wall outlet and make sure that the wall output current is more than 15A." And on top of that the manual[2] makes no mention of needing an electrician. In contrast an IKEA electric oven's product page[3] states this: "No plug is included. Installation to be carried out by a qualified installer." and then the manual[4] states "Installation, including water supply (if any) and electrical connections, and repairs must be carried out by a qualified technician." But of course nobody reads the manual. The big difference is that one comes with a plug while the other doesn't. 1: https://us.ecoflow.com/products/delta-pro-portable-power-station?variant=40516140138569 https://us.ecoflow.com/products/delta-pro-portable-power-sta... 2: https://websiteoss.ecoflow.com/cms/upload/2022/10/12/1312845623_1665543468829.pdf https://websiteoss.ecoflow.com/cms/upload/2022/10/12/1312845... 3: https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/mataelskare-forced-air-oven-ikea-300-stainless-steel-10368781/ https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/mataelskare-forced-air-oven-ike... 4: https://www.ikea.com/in/en/manuals/matalskare-forced-air-oven__AA-2036816-1.pdf https://www.ikea.com/in/en/manuals/matalskare-forced-air-ove...
amelius 1y ago
> make it more resiliant, rather than blaming customers Yeah, this sounds very much like "you're holding it wrong".
- bayindirh 1y ago
  They can add a relay, I guess? Voltage monitoring is cheap. Relays might push price above a bit, but it's a worthy premium to pay in my book.
abcd_f 1y ago
I read it as a problem with solar panel voltage going over declared threshold of 37v in certain meteo conditions. That is the issue is with the wrong labeling of things that are being plugged into this vendor's device, not the vendor's own labeling.
- bayindirh 1y ago
  If something can go wrong, it will go wrong. So both parties should note that something can go wrong and point to that something.
- TeMPOraL 1y ago
  I believe the vendor here produces both the device and the panels being plugged into it, and while they also supply other vendors' panels, they seem concerned primarily with customers who buy all components from them and then experience this failure. I agree the labeling is an issue here, but the solution must come from the wider industry or regulatory bodies; the alternative is for vendors to switch to their own pseudo-units to internalize the math, which would not be good for customers either - think "ACME Generator2000 accepts up to 4 Power Units of input; each ACME SuperEco Panel supplies 1 Power Unit, or 1.5 Power Units if you're in Canada...". Saving users from having to do a little thinking to not brick their device is a tried-and-true excuse for vendor lock-in in our industry :).
  - ninalanyon 1y ago
    Why not label the panel with the maximum possible voltage that it can produce? Or even have a little table showing the maximum possible voltage at various ambient temperatures. It's not as if there isn't room on the back of the panel for a big enough label.
    - marcosdumay 1y ago
      The entire industry has standardized in having "typical" and "maximum" values decades ago. That problem there is completely self-imposed.
cowsandmilk 1y ago
Considering the electric code has an 80% rule for loads, anyone assuming they can use 100% of what is on a label probably should not be doing electrical work.
- immibis 1y ago
  Very true. My computer says 240V on it, so I should only use it up to 192V.
  - rcxdude 1y ago
    No, you just shouldn't assume that that's the case. In the case of a computer and mains, both of those are nominal voltages and there will be a range of voltages which are expected to function, and if you want to check for sure, you should check those ranges.
    - Dylan16807 1y ago
      The point is, voltages are usually a 1:1 match. That includes when you're working with ranges, you want the supply range to be inside the load range. And even for amps where you see that 80% rule, that's for keeping the load smaller than the supply. Solar panels aren't a load and don't work that way.
  - lazide 1y ago
    Interestingly, the peak voltage of 240V AC (typical) is 330ish+ volts. Typical house wiring is required to handle 600v due to voltage transients and wear and tear. So any component rated to 240V dc will fail immediately on AC, and even 400-500V DC is not a good idea. I guess there is a reason there is a whole category of engineers for this kind of thing.
- stephen_g 1y ago
  Which electrical code? They vary from country to country and even state/province in some countries!
- quickthrowman 1y ago
cameronh90 1y ago
I don’t know about the components they’re selling, but with electronic components, it’s on the buyer to properly read the data sheet and understand what the quoted nominal specs mean. Unless it’s safety critical, you usually don’t want a system with a bunch of active electronics to prevent someone wiring it up wrong, because those components will interfere with whatever you’re hooking it up to, such as the MPPT, the battery, or whatever else. This is like how AA batteries have a nominal voltage of 1.5V but the actual open circuit voltage is 0.9V~1.65V depending on charge level, temperature, etc. If you connect an AA to something that’ll explode at a voltage of 1.55V, that’s on you. Similarly if you buy a 470 ohm resistor, you will find in on the data sheet that’s usually at 20°C. To know what it’ll be at any other temperature, you’ll need to use the temperature coefficient to calculate it.
- necovek 1y ago
  In your AA batteries analogy, this is like saying that you do not need to state that the device exploding at 1.55V would do so, not about battery declarations (panels in this case).
  - cameronh90 1y ago
    It wasn't meant to be a direct analogy, just a simple example of how you get similar situations in general with electronic components, or really any kind of non-standalone component in most industries. Another example is fuses: a fuse rated at 20A will not immediately protect the downstream once load exceeds 20A, but rather, there will be a curve defined with respect to its nominal rating which defines how long it will take to burn out for any given current and ambient temperature. You may find at 20C, it will not even burn out at a continuous load of 25A, and at 30A it might take 2 hours. So if you're buying a fuse to protect a sensitive downstream circuit, you need to take that into account and use a fuse that's nominally smaller than the load you're running. Essentially the "nominal" behaviour is not the actual behaviour, it's just a quick way of summarising the characteristics in a way that someone familiar with the class of item will be able to understand what they're buying. Another similar situation is timber sizing, where a 2" by 4" is actually 1.5" x 3.5". In the case of electronic components, the actual behaviour will be either documented in a datasheet or just common knowledge in the industry. For example if you're buying a standard li-ion battery with no active circuitry, you'll often find the datasheet quite lacking in details because you are expected to just know the characteristics of the li-ion chemistry provided the basic parameters are provided.
mschuster91 1y ago
Maybe it would be a good idea to at least add a pair of MOSFETs (one for each rail, + and -) and a voltage meter? Like, the voltage doesn't rise to maximum instantaneously, there should be ample of time to detect voltage rising to a critical amount. So say, the input is rated for 150V, spec the components to sustain 180V, and trigger the MOSFETs to disconnect the panels at > 160V. And maybe also add a big ass buffer capacitor, that can be used to soak up a bit more energy in the case of an inrush spike before the MOSFETs actually disconnect.
- privatelypublic 1y ago
  MosFET's or IGBTs are likely what failed. And, capacitance is something you do not want on a string of PV. DC starts getting really nasty to deal with somewhere between 36-52v, with 150v of panels not being something joe-blow should be able to buy on amazon. Designing these systems to be safe is difficult.

leoedin 1y ago

In both examples given you can have 2 panels in series. So given that in almost all use cases, you can have 2 panels in series, they should just say “max 2 panels in series”. Simple. A good product hides complexity from the user with sane defaults and optional advanced configuration. This feels like the same problem.

cornholio 1y ago
Panels are not standardized and are themselves series-parallel constructions with wildly diverse specs.
TeMPOraL 1y ago
There's hiding complexity, and then there's creating fake reality for people. As it is, panels are gonna produce variable power depending on the weather. Putting interoperability with third-party panels aside, to get the simplicity of "max 2 panels in series", they'd have to either cap the max power on the panel/generator link and dump the excess, or set the limit based on the worst case a customer is likely to encounter. I.e. they're either gonna waste power, or gouge their customers for extra hardware. Neither of that makes sense for an ecological product sold to a price-conscious customer base :).
- namibj 1y ago
  The problem is that you run higher voltages with the same hardware if your in Alaska than if you're in Florida. Substantially so. "Wasting" those 5~10% during severe winter conditions isn't worth splurging on the voltage converter. Though then selling units that suggest to not run a few hundred volt strings before paralleling instead does sound bad, as the string doesn't need separate fuses rated to many volts DC.

geocar 1y ago

> Not everybody buying these has a Ph.D. in physics and if it says 148 V on the label and 150 V on the other label then it's your product that has a problem, not the customer. Idk. I don't have a PHD, but 220V sounds like 240V to me. I wouldn't do this. I feel like getting advice about how to wire up electronics should not be so hard. > Maybe they should just improve their product to make it more resiliant Adding "resilience" usually adds to the per-unit cost. I think making a web page adds some cost too, but at least that can be amortised. > And no matter what happens, customer support should help the customer, not blame them. I think that's happening here: Making a web page to educate future customers seems like a really good idea. I wouldn't have thought that necessary until I saw it, but I'm always excited to learn something new. The existing customers who did dumb should consider this a relatively cheap education in electronics; cheaper than a PHD at least! Also, whether the company also gave them rebates or credits we don't know here, but telling "customer support" they "should help the customer" is also telling them they're not helping the customer, and you don't know that.

delusional 1y ago
> Making a web page to educate future customers seems like a really good idea I don't think this is an official website of ecoflow. Other than that I agree. I don't think asking for a bit of knowledge from the customers is a bad thing. A warning in the manual about safety factors should be enough.
xenadu02 1y ago
They're just being cheap. If you're going to let customers plug panels directly into your box you should have overvoltage protection. It's that simple.
cornholio 1y ago
> Adding "resilience" usually adds to the per-unit cost. In this case, the cost is much less than a dollar (say, a varistor that blows the existing fuse) and it prevents a catastrophic failure.
- immibis 1y ago

Zanfa 1y ago

This is 100% on the manufacturer if they intentionally chose to highlight the "best case" 150V, rather than the 120V lower end. Especially without any additional safety mechanisms.

rcxdude 1y ago
The article presents it oddly, it's not that the converter maximum input gets lower, it's the solar panel output that gets higher from the nominal quoted value (which is not a maximum, and not really intended to be used as such). Derating your converter is equivalent for the purposes of ensuring margins, but it implies the issue is in the wrong place.
- lazide 1y ago
  The idea of safety margins has died under the more pressing type - profit margins.
  - Pet_Ant 1y ago
    Your safety margin is my profit margin. - Mr MBA
  - Workaccount2 1y ago
    The failsafe circuit to protect against this (over voltage condition) is maybe $3 and incredibly routine in anything with power. I would bet everything that it is in there. What's most likely though is that the fuse is also internal, and externally the unit will appear bricked.
  - rcxdude 1y ago
    While in general most parts will work beyond their ratings to at least some degree, this isn't really a safety margin. A safety margin is known, rated, and validated, and usually a property of a system as opposed to just one part within it.
    - lazide 1y ago

xg15 1y ago

This feels a bit like the logic behind "do not put hamster in microwave" warning labels. I think if you work with electrical or electronic systems in practice, you learn pretty quickly to respect tolerances and that data sheets are a map, not the territory. Also, electrical installations are usually seen as a field that should be done by trained personnel, not arbitrary laymen home owners. So I think the appropriate reaction would be to remind people that they should hire an electrician to do the installation, if they don't have the necessary specialized knowledge themselves.

harvey9 1y ago
I have the impression these are consumer products so I would them to be designed to be installed by people who do not normally work with electrical systems. If they are only sold to tradesmen that would be different.
- xg15 1y ago
  Yeah, it would be important to understand who the company is intending to sell to or do the installation. Though the lines are often blurred, because I guess most companies would like to sell directly to end customers, even if their product requires a professional to install. Even IKEA does this. You can go in and buy an electric stove and oven, grab them from the warehouse and take them home with you right there. But it's a bit of an illusion: You're still supposed to call an electrician to actually connect the things.
  - krisoft 1y ago
    > Yeah, it would be important to understand who the company is intending to sell to or do the installation You can do that by just reading the product page[1]. The delta pro, the equipment in question, looks like a plug-in appliance. It visually communicates that it is portable (by having a wheel and a handle) and by virtue of having a power lead connect to it it communicates that you can just plug it in. They further reinforce this by writing this: "Plug & Play home backup solution". "Easy installation with completely pre-wired Plug & play home backup solution" "The solution provides a convenient home battery system without rewiring or running dangerous extension cables through your home." "Plug directly into an AC wall outlet and make sure that the wall output current is more than 15A." And on top of that the manual[2] makes no mention of needing an electrician. In contrast an IKEA electric oven's product page[3] states this: "No plug is included. Installation to be carried out by a qualified installer." and then the manual[4] states "Installation, including water supply (if any) and electrical connections, and repairs must be carried out by a qualified technician." But of course nobody reads the manual. The big difference is that one comes with a plug while the other doesn't. 1: https://us.ecoflow.com/products/delta-pro-portable-power-station?variant=40516140138569 https://us.ecoflow.com/products/delta-pro-portable-power-sta... 2: https://websiteoss.ecoflow.com/cms/upload/2022/10/12/1312845623_1665543468829.pdf https://websiteoss.ecoflow.com/cms/upload/2022/10/12/1312845... 3: https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/mataelskare-forced-air-oven-ikea-300-stainless-steel-10368781/ https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/mataelskare-forced-air-oven-ike... 4: https://www.ikea.com/in/en/manuals/matalskare-forced-air-oven__AA-2036816-1.pdf https://www.ikea.com/in/en/manuals/matalskare-forced-air-ove...

amelius 1y ago

> make it more resiliant, rather than blaming customers Yeah, this sounds very much like "you're holding it wrong".

bayindirh 1y ago
They can add a relay, I guess? Voltage monitoring is cheap. Relays might push price above a bit, but it's a worthy premium to pay in my book.

abcd_f 1y ago

I read it as a problem with solar panel voltage going over declared threshold of 37v in certain meteo conditions. That is the issue is with the wrong labeling of things that are being plugged into this vendor's device, not the vendor's own labeling.

bayindirh 1y ago
If something can go wrong, it will go wrong. So both parties should note that something can go wrong and point to that something.
TeMPOraL 1y ago
I believe the vendor here produces both the device and the panels being plugged into it, and while they also supply other vendors' panels, they seem concerned primarily with customers who buy all components from them and then experience this failure. I agree the labeling is an issue here, but the solution must come from the wider industry or regulatory bodies; the alternative is for vendors to switch to their own pseudo-units to internalize the math, which would not be good for customers either - think "ACME Generator2000 accepts up to 4 Power Units of input; each ACME SuperEco Panel supplies 1 Power Unit, or 1.5 Power Units if you're in Canada...". Saving users from having to do a little thinking to not brick their device is a tried-and-true excuse for vendor lock-in in our industry :).
- ninalanyon 1y ago
  Why not label the panel with the maximum possible voltage that it can produce? Or even have a little table showing the maximum possible voltage at various ambient temperatures. It's not as if there isn't room on the back of the panel for a big enough label.
  - marcosdumay 1y ago
    The entire industry has standardized in having "typical" and "maximum" values decades ago. That problem there is completely self-imposed.

cowsandmilk 1y ago

Considering the electric code has an 80% rule for loads, anyone assuming they can use 100% of what is on a label probably should not be doing electrical work.

immibis 1y ago
Very true. My computer says 240V on it, so I should only use it up to 192V.
- rcxdude 1y ago
  No, you just shouldn't assume that that's the case. In the case of a computer and mains, both of those are nominal voltages and there will be a range of voltages which are expected to function, and if you want to check for sure, you should check those ranges.
  - Dylan16807 1y ago
    The point is, voltages are usually a 1:1 match. That includes when you're working with ranges, you want the supply range to be inside the load range. And even for amps where you see that 80% rule, that's for keeping the load smaller than the supply. Solar panels aren't a load and don't work that way.
- lazide 1y ago
  Interestingly, the peak voltage of 240V AC (typical) is 330ish+ volts. Typical house wiring is required to handle 600v due to voltage transients and wear and tear. So any component rated to 240V dc will fail immediately on AC, and even 400-500V DC is not a good idea. I guess there is a reason there is a whole category of engineers for this kind of thing.
stephen_g 1y ago
Which electrical code? They vary from country to country and even state/province in some countries!
quickthrowman 1y ago

cameronh90 1y ago

I don’t know about the components they’re selling, but with electronic components, it’s on the buyer to properly read the data sheet and understand what the quoted nominal specs mean. Unless it’s safety critical, you usually don’t want a system with a bunch of active electronics to prevent someone wiring it up wrong, because those components will interfere with whatever you’re hooking it up to, such as the MPPT, the battery, or whatever else. This is like how AA batteries have a nominal voltage of 1.5V but the actual open circuit voltage is 0.9V~1.65V depending on charge level, temperature, etc. If you connect an AA to something that’ll explode at a voltage of 1.55V, that’s on you. Similarly if you buy a 470 ohm resistor, you will find in on the data sheet that’s usually at 20°C. To know what it’ll be at any other temperature, you’ll need to use the temperature coefficient to calculate it.

necovek 1y ago
In your AA batteries analogy, this is like saying that you do not need to state that the device exploding at 1.55V would do so, not about battery declarations (panels in this case).
- cameronh90 1y ago
  It wasn't meant to be a direct analogy, just a simple example of how you get similar situations in general with electronic components, or really any kind of non-standalone component in most industries. Another example is fuses: a fuse rated at 20A will not immediately protect the downstream once load exceeds 20A, but rather, there will be a curve defined with respect to its nominal rating which defines how long it will take to burn out for any given current and ambient temperature. You may find at 20C, it will not even burn out at a continuous load of 25A, and at 30A it might take 2 hours. So if you're buying a fuse to protect a sensitive downstream circuit, you need to take that into account and use a fuse that's nominally smaller than the load you're running. Essentially the "nominal" behaviour is not the actual behaviour, it's just a quick way of summarising the characteristics in a way that someone familiar with the class of item will be able to understand what they're buying. Another similar situation is timber sizing, where a 2" by 4" is actually 1.5" x 3.5". In the case of electronic components, the actual behaviour will be either documented in a datasheet or just common knowledge in the industry. For example if you're buying a standard li-ion battery with no active circuitry, you'll often find the datasheet quite lacking in details because you are expected to just know the characteristics of the li-ion chemistry provided the basic parameters are provided.

mschuster91 1y ago

Maybe it would be a good idea to at least add a pair of MOSFETs (one for each rail, + and -) and a voltage meter? Like, the voltage doesn't rise to maximum instantaneously, there should be ample of time to detect voltage rising to a critical amount. So say, the input is rated for 150V, spec the components to sustain 180V, and trigger the MOSFETs to disconnect the panels at > 160V. And maybe also add a big ass buffer capacitor, that can be used to soak up a bit more energy in the case of an inrush spike before the MOSFETs actually disconnect.

privatelypublic 1y ago
MosFET's or IGBTs are likely what failed. And, capacitance is something you do not want on a string of PV. DC starts getting really nasty to deal with somewhere between 36-52v, with 150v of panels not being something joe-blow should be able to buy on amazon. Designing these systems to be safe is difficult.