Don’t Buy Things Made in China.

[Alan]

Don’t Buy Things Made in China.

There is No Honour. Loyalty. Respect or Guarantee.

Its costing the Earth. Not Saving The Planet.

http://navitron.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=860.0

Substantial modifications were made.

The front, rear bearing plates were fabricated from steel, the rotation gear box was removed and replaced with a ground mounted version. The blade hub was fabricated from steel.

All my bits are still up there.

The only bits left from China were the blades.

What bits came off again and went two hundred metres. ?

[martin]

Can we just clarify one or two things here? - both turbines with which you had trouble were not purchased through Navitron, and you made substantial alterations to one (or both) of them, and it/they have broken again?.........

[chaso]

If you wanted a Guarantee you should have gone to Navitron.

If you want to buy anything be it from Canada America China e.t.c. you don't get the same support and Guarantee as you would from a local seller.

[Alan]

The Mini rant is not directed at Navitron in any way.

The small one was purchased from Navitron. When it failed, new blades were purchased and the design was modified to stop it failing again.

The post is made to make people aware that going Green is not as straight forward as you first think.

If I was to evaluate the initial production / transportation energy consumed for Windy Boy inverters. Chinese Inverters. Heat pumps. Wind turbines. Over the years for the actual energy produced locally it would make any one trying to help save the Planet give up totally.

This coupled to conversations with Chinese suppliers.

One quote received

“ I am so sorry that bring you some troubles,  you should realized that it is very hard for China factories to provide a good guarantee except famous brand products.  In China, there are about 50 factories to make wind turbine, but only have 3 factories provide a good quality products.  “


Having just purchased a 6 K.W. Grid inverter, to be told

Thank you for buying the ? from the . Many years of experience in the design of grid-connected inverters have gone into the development of this device. We hope that the device will meet with your complete satisfaction when you use it with your wind power system.


To be told its not suitable for connection to a wind turbine.

Navitron tubes, yes Great. Every house should have them.

As for the money spent on other items. I am far from convinced.

[guydewdney]

caveat emptor?



but i feel for you - for what thats worth. My nav' kit has been fine (panels and GSHP) if a little noisier than expected (glycol quietened the gshp a lot..)

[Gixer]

I bought a Chinese small lathe, there are forums with owners praising these things to the hilt.

Take a tip, if you're tempted, don't

Instead go and find a used small British industrial lathe,

I bought a well used Smart and Brown lathe, well and truly used and still works perfectly turning is an absolute joy to carry out.

More than can be said for the Chinese item, now used as an "expensive" variable speed polishing machine, about all it's good for IMHO.

But then my solar panels are no doubt Chinese, they work wonderfully well..........It's been raining and hail stoning hard most of the day here and they still heated by tank some.
Amazing !!

[Ted]

If I was to evaluate the initial production / transportation energy consumed for Windy Boy inverters. Chinese Inverters. Heat pumps. Wind turbines. Over the years for the actual energy produced locally it would make any one trying to help save the Planet give up totally.

Strangely I am in the middle of doing exactly this. More may be revealed soon.

[Ivan]

I think location has a lot to do with wind turbine lifespan. For example Provens are very rugged, but they are also criticised on their lack of power in low winds. The chinese turbines are designed for low wind areas and produce fantastic amounts of power in low wind when other turbines are idling or even stationary, but of course exposing them to high winds will cause damage. Take Frotter's for example - when he received the higher wind speed blades, he was unimpressed with the output, having grown accustomed to the output of the longer blades.

'Don't buy goods from China' is a sweeping statement, especially when you think that 95% of non-perishable goods probably come from China.

Don't confuse energy payback with financial payback either. Most renewable energy equipment (even PV) pays for itself in energy terms very quickly (financially may be another matter). Will be very interested to see Ted's results. I'd like to do the same thing for our products, but don't know where to start - there's such a lot to take into consideration.

SteveB calculated the energy cost of transporting the evacuated tube panels from our factory in China to Navitron HQ - 3litres of oil equivalent per panel. That's equivalent to ~120MJ (33kWh) - say about a week's heat output in summer). Yes, it might be better to produce it locally, but 1)we don't have any industry left in the UK to mass-produce anything and 2)we'd use much more energy-intensive processes, as we're all scared of manual handling/manual work. The factories would be heated/air conditioned, newer, fancier, more tarmac/concrete, more people sat in front of computers all day etc etc. I suspect the energy improvements for local manufacturing would disappear in the heavier use of energy.

[billi]

Hi

Upto now  my chinese products are ok .. i cannot complain cause it was my choice ....

I am pretty fed up with some European  suppliers , like" Energy Batteries " (squadron) from the UK   ... never again ...

charge a lot and do nothing ....

Billi

[Alan]

With the 10 K.W. turbine power produced has always been proportionally used in various fail safe loads by fail safe electronic controls. The turbine has never been exposed to winds greater than 13 metre per second.
It would appear that because of blade / hub design problems  or blade swept area being well in excess of turbine capacity a controller is required to match the load to increase in rotor speed only.
That way the turbine can be down rated for evaluation at various load percentage levels. 
Any still in use should be considered as liable to fail.

Regards

Alan

[PEMTEK]

Hi Billi,

A branch of my company purchased a mountain of energy squadron batteries which you could charge and charge and seemed normal. As soon as any significant current was needed the terminal voltage would drop to nothing in minutes. We complained to no avail and bought some MK batteries that have proved faultless.

As for comments about not buying anything made in China, they make almost everything and sadly have some of the best engineering skill and highly skilled young workforce in the world. They put us to shame in many respects as you would find if you visited the right places. It is true that if they are not controlled  or poor quality goods are purchased in the first place then that is what you will get but that is true from anywhere.

Phil

[camillitech]

If you didn't buy anything made in China you probably wouldn't buy anything at all What you should do is buy from an importer who can sort out the wheat from the chaff and at least speak the language. OK it'll cost you a bit more but that's what your paying for A GUARANTEE that means something. Me I'm sorry I've no sympathy with people (including myself) who buy things directly from China then moan about it when the thing breaks or is not fit for purpose. I've bought quite a few meters, electronics, chargers and power supplies direct from various suppliers some have been excellent, some have been OK and some have just been plain garbage. They had 2 things in common firstly they were all very cheap and secondly if any item went t*ts up I was met with gobbldygook emails and complete indifference which is fine for me as I've rarely spent more than 20 quid and considering the percentage of cr4p that I've bought I think I'll make that my limit from now on.

Cheers, Paul