Member postings for Roland Mann

Just a follow up to what has happened here, which is rather interesting.

My discussions with Drives Direct were fruitless, and so as he was continuing to repeat sell the same 1/2hp inverter as a 3/4hp inverter, with no information in the listings that it was 'hacked', I left negative feedback on ebay.

The next day I noticed that the negative feedback had gone. No idea how this happened, but it seems to undermine the feedback system completely if somehow a seller can remove negative feedback.

I'm trying to find out what happened, but communicating with Ebay is like trying to get an audience with the Queen.

Roland

Thanks again for all the opinions. Very interesting.

I'm new to this forum, so I'd like to say I'm impressed by the fantastic range of expertise here!

Roland

That, it seems, is what the dealer is suggesting.

Thanks very much guys for the opinions. My initial reaction was that I was being conned, but being unwilling to jump to conclusions I kept asking for more information about this 'uprating', and why it was not revealed in the listing. The thing I find interesting here is that this a not apparently a bunch of cowboys. He says:

<We have 30 years expertise in inverters from 0.1HP up to 1 Megawatt and not only do we sell these but we service and repair the whole range down to component level and we are Teco's UK service agents, we get asked by Teco and other inverter suppliers to give advanced technical support so when we supply an item we know what we are doing...>

In one of the latest messages (after I said I had spoken to Schneider's technical department) he says:

"These people at technical departments you seem to think know everything have to deal with a vast range of products and the knowledge of any specific range is limited and they can then only go by the information they had and in 99% of cases thats the manual you have, and reading that it says nothing about upgrading etc,
The makers want you to by an expensive new model at £250 so they will tell you it can not be upgraded and if you want to do that then thats fine,

Only the factory design engineers who like us understand every working area of the unit and also know the software inside out would know how to upgrade products BUT they would not tell you and likewise we would not tell you how its done but its out there in the market on all sorts of products, for example i drive an Audi Q7 and by going into the ECU, the computer that runs the engine i have reprogrammed it to give me an extra 100HP of power, the makers will not tell you that can be done and the technical department will tell you its not possible, we have here a range of IMO inverters, the i-drive 1.5KW unit is designed to run motors up to 2HP, you call IMO and tell them you want it to drive your 3HP motor and they will tell you to purchase a more powerful unit BUT send that same 2HP unit to us and in 5 mins it will be a 3HP unit !"

I am at a loss to understand why a company which has apparently a considerable business and track record should be doing this. It is extremely odd.

Roland

I have recently bought a Schneider Altivar 61 on ebay, from a dealer 'Drives Direct'. It was advertised as being able to power a 3/4hp motor, single to three phase.

When it arrived I downloaded the instructions, which showed that the inverter was rated at 0.5hp with a single phase input. The higher power rating was for a 3 phase 240v input.

I questioned this, and was told that this drive had been 'uprated'. Having spoken to Schneider technical support they told me this was not possible.

This I reported back to the seller, who informed me (after some hassle, I must say) that he had reprogrammed the trip rating from half to 3/4hp, and this was a 'trade secret'.

The seller has attempted to cancel the transaction and refund my money, but I am concerned to know whether this practice is common and/or safe.

In the listing the item was described as new, and no mention was made of reprogramming it. He claims to have sold more than 60 of these to satisfied customers.

The datasheet for the exact model is here: http://www.datasheetlib.com/datasheet/778647/atv61h075m3_square-d.html

Any thoughts?