Quote:
Originally Posted by mvmojo
In my 50+ years of boating, many of them full time live-aboard, I can say that it is RARE to find potted marine electronic PCB's. Early on it was because repairs could be made at the component level, i.e., unsolder a failed capacitor and replace it. But, now with PCB's essentially being "replace and toss", there's no reason not to pot them, especially in outdoor, exposed locations. Many boards are alleged to be conformally coated, but experience says that doesn't compare to epoxy potting. I guess potting could be a heat retention issue...? |
Thank you MVMOJO for your guidance.
Indeed the days of repairing versus replacing componentry has largely passed. With our company's distribution of outdoor power equipment, all of our portable electric product offering can not be realistically serviced in the field by legacy
engine powered product technicians that are employees at dealers. We simply have the dealer assess which of the three components is malfunctioning, the tool, the
battery or the
battery charger and to provide a replacement immediately to the customer at no charge, [there being a five year warranty on all the products]. The technicians are often well skilled as to experience and
training to
repair internal combustion engines, but truly can't even begin to diagnose the failure of any of the components of an electric powered system, let alone attempt a
repair thereof. We desire and try to require the return of all malfunctioning products back to our factory so that we can diagnose the nature of our failure, [Note if a failure occurs, we own that failure, it is not the customer's failure]. By gaining detailed knowledge of the nature of the failure we learn how to redesign, resource components, improve fabrication and assembly or better educate the end users. There are times when return to factory is not viable and the product is disposed of in the field, much to our regret. Many times the issue is mis-use or mis-treatment of the product. For example, operating the battery
charger outside in the rain, instead of in a dry
environment, or by breakage, by say, backing the contractor's truck over the garden tool. We find that an instant replacement product provided to a customer from dealer's inventory rarely result is the customer experiencing a "failure" again; lessons as to misuse or abuse are learned by the end user and the goodwill that timely service derives is rewarded in their referral business and their renewed business.
In the past we have utilized parylene coating applied by chemical vapor deposition for coating the massive stator of a 3 megawatt
wind generator, a 40 foot diameter Printed Circuit Board. [No wire or
steel in that unique stator]. The parylene coating proved to have very robust weatherization protection under extensive accelerated and abusive aging tests. The huge PCB stator was expected to last 20+ years up tower in harsh environments, as well as parylene coating of the power conversion electronics so as to provide AC grid connectivity.
Parylene coating being a slow process inside a vacuum chamber is comparatively expensive, versus say, the usual liquid
acrylic coatings but parylene is much more durable and is free of voids.
Whereas, epoxy potting is very simple to accomplish, it does require specialized tooling to form the specific pots into which the boards are placed and the epoxy is poured. We find that for our high power electronics such as within the inverters, the IGBTs / MOSFETs typically require integral heat sinks to dissipate their thermal losses to the ambient environment outside of the epoxy. Heat always being the primary constraint in both the power electronics and the machines [motors / generators] especially for high power density, permanent magnet machines. I just wish that someone would come up with a material that is highly thermally conductive and not electrically conductive. For signal and logic electronics epoxy coating would seem to be a natural practice for harsh environments. I get that graphic and CPUs with their amazing miniaturization and density require active
cooling and epoxy coating of those components would be problematic.
Epoxy potting also provides ruggedization as to mechanical properties as it glues all the stand up components into one solid block. Solder attachment provides the
electrical continuity but only provides limited mechanical support. One can readily do a Taylor Swift song on non-potted PCBs and "Shake It Off.".
Clearly up
mast components such as
Mast Head Units should be ruggedized for two reasons, a harsh environment and a difficult to access location. Of course they can't be expected to survive a
lightning strike.
But then the failure of a MHU is merely an inconvenience, one can always go old
school and just use MK1 on the telltales; a piece of yarn tied on the
shroud provides me with complete guidance as to the direction of the apparent
wind at the height of the yarn, and the feel of the
wind on my face, my touch on the steerage, and the effects on my
boat, tell me all that I need to adjust accordingly. I rarely if ever look up at the top of mast wind indicator on even my smaller sail
boats; all though I get the MHU is to provide data to a conveniently
helm mounted display, but such devices don't tell me anything that I am not already have situational awareness of. I do love having navigational aid and
engine metrics displayed at helms on a boat just as I do onboard when piloting an airplane and driving a vehicle.
In this instance, the B&G warranty provides explicit guidance as to the procedure and cost liabilities for the B&G product diagnosis and replacement. We find that consumers rarely if ever read the warranties or retain their warranties that the OEMs
contract to. It turns out that there is only one B&G dealer in the whole of Argentina which dealer may not have been conveniently located to the OP upon arrival in country during their
circumnavigation. That dealer should have been well trained by the OEM as to explaining the procedure to the customer and should have provided the customer with a printed copy of the warranty and to have explained it to the customer at the time of warranty servicing. From the start, the customer should know their rights and be able to rely on those rights being fulfilled in a prompt and professional manner. In my experience, often times dealers fail in adequately performing their contractual service commitments with the OEMs that they have relationships with and we find it often best as an OEM to intervene and just ask to speak with the customer directly and then follow up with the dealer so as to reinstruct the dealer as to what needs to be done to provide complete satisfaction to the customer.
It appears that the B&G warranty does require that the defective part be returned to the UK at the customers liability and expense, that is to say, title doesn't pass from the customer, until B&G in the UK takes custody. If the B&G product failed under warranty, I read the warranty to not require the customer to have to pay for a replacement, just to have incurred the cost of the transport of the defective good to B&G in the UK, which cost is not inmaterial when half way across the world. Under the warranty, it appears that the B&G dealer can provide replacement from their inventory if they have it in stock, and is to be provided credit or replacement for such conveyance from the stock after B&G in the UK discerns the returned defective good is covered under their warranty. I suspect that either the dealer did not act responsively or the customer did not desire to wait for such transport and warranty authorization procedure to be realized and the dealer may have
sold a replacement to the customer so that the customer could install and get on with their journey, albeit likely with the expectation that if the MHU good was discerned to be defective and covered by the OEM warranty that the OEM would make good the cost of
purchasing the replacement from the dealer's stock. In any case, B&G has invoked a dissatisfied customer and many a fellow cruiser has now heard of such dissatisfaction. Not the outcome either party desires.
Whereas, we find in practice it is simpler to have the dealers collate the defective components and bulk ship them from time to time, if they have more than one and for us as the OEM to just provide a restocking credit or product to the dealer for having the dealer provide an instantaneous replacement to the customer from their inventory. We also pay the dealer separately for their warranty services. Where we find the most difficulties is when we sell our products through non-servicing retailers, [e.g., The Home Depot, Lowes, Costco] because they do not take in defective goods nor diagnose or service warranties which Big Box approach to retailing is of great inconvenience to their customers, compared to a servicing dealer approach to retailing. Consumers take note: You get what you pay for and with big box retailers one does not obtain aftermarket support. One can only expect a satisfaction guarantee and refund for a return during a limited time period, say, 90 days after
sale. I have found the preferred practice in dealing with customers that are either unsatisfied with their product or have a defective product, that it is easiest to either refund them, or to send them a replacement and ask them to return the defective good in the same
shipping package that the replacement was sent with our company providing prepaid return shipment postage or courier labeling along with the replacement shipment. With our portable electric powered products we utilize high powered
lithium batteries, if that component is deemed to be defective in anyway, we can not have the old battery returned as it is a classified as a dangerous good, then we need to have it provided special handling by either advising of how to properly dispose of it or to have a knowledgeable certified hazardous goods dealer provide proper protective packaging and hazardous goods labeling with ground only transport, and have extra transit cost incurred to provide for the rare defective battery to be returned so that we can have our engineers diagnose what the defect [or nature of abuse] was. All of our
lithium powered products have consumer packaging labeled stating: Forbidden for transport aboard airplane or vessel. If we do ship products by air or sea then the goods are separately labelled as Class 9 Hazardous Goods with appropriate packaging, consignment paperwork and at considerable extra expense.
But all the hassles are to be on our account, we try to make things as easy as possible for the consumer and to make them whole and happy. The customer may be wrong in their action, in their inaction or in misperception, but we treat them as if they are right. We feel honored to have a person be a customer and hope to retain them as one. And if we end up ultimately losing a customer, we hope to have the relationship end with mutual respect and goodwill. And we hope to have learned why the customer was dissatisfied with our product or our post
sale service. Being able to garner direct communication with an end use customer is a very valuable event for an OEM, often as OEMs we becomes removed from such intimate discussions and relationships because of having implaced market channel intermediaries, such as distributors and retail dealers interposed between the OEM and the end user.
under the carpet.
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