I've had TWO units fail in the last 2 years.
One was covered under warranty. yes we did all of the diagnostics to insure the unit was malfunctional. Victron DID honor their warranty. It was 2 days worth of labor to get it out of the space, and re-install the replacement.
So here we are, about a year later, almost to the day... The warranty unit has failed in the same way, first the generator input, and now the AC Input.
This is most definitely a design flaw.
I'll be engineering my own solution for AC Input to go straight to the DC Bus via some power supplies. But I'm SERIOUSLY disappointed in this product due to the design flaw. Had I known that this would be an issue, I would have definitely gone with something much more simple.
PKYS was the dealer, whom mis-informed me about the capabilities of the quattro 10K. He indicated I could go down to 15A, which it cannot, but only comes down to 19A. Furthermore, when the AC Input started to behave flakey (as in refused to take power in), instead of having a discussion about it, he'd rather argue. Also indicating that ESS was supported, but turns out that cannot happen here in the USA.
Thanks much to Victron corporate for helping me sort it out and troubleshoot and finally getting the unit replaced. That being said, here we are again... A year later, and the same problem, which is enough for me to conclude it is a design flaw, and not a fluke unit. As such I'll be designing my own variable AC->DC solution since even if it were to be replaced AGAIN, the unit would inevitably fail AGAIN. It's less labor (but more cost) to engineer a different solution which won't fail due to normal use, and modular in nature such that a single failure would not cause a loss of power such as is the case now.
I do love the Victron stuff. And the warranty and such is spectacular! Big applause there! I wish they'd look farther into this problem, and come up with a solution, and perhaps a new board without the desgn flaw. Replacing the board is probably a lot easier than removal/replacement of the whole unit. Yes, it's really crammed in there, safe and sound, plenty of circulation, and lots of protection.
This is my ONLY complaint so far... Unfortunately it's a big one. I wouldn't use these units anywhere you cannot have an AC Input failure due to normal use. When they fail, it's slow, and then suddenly.
It could be, and this is just speculation on my part, but it could be that the Virtual Switch is what causes the unforeseen problem that causes failure to surface. In both units, the virtual switch was enabled shortly before failure occurred. Virtual switch is used because ESS in the USA is not an option.
