Doing your research.

[RupertG]

I agree about the need to try to get objective reviews, but I have grave doubts about it being viable. I am often prompted to do comparative reviews on certain types of equipment, but however much I might want to adequate testing etc is way outside the equipment I posses (and in many cases my expertise).

 

I think one would need to employ product testing laboratories, if for no other reason to get them to put their neck in the noose, and then get hold of the items under test.

 

I was asked to compare inverters - think how much a representative sample would cost - then they would have to be life tested and stress tested, probably to destruction. I have no idea how to go about objectively testing "anti-sulphation" electronics or even fuel additives.

 

It might be possible to do something a bit like Which where members report on their experiences of equipment, but I doubt one would get the volume of users on one particular item to make such comparisons valid. I am also sure that in a lot of cases the people who could give an informed report would not have bought such items in the first place.

 

What happened here in the past is a good example of the problems faced with publishing the truth.

 

I tend to the view the bigger and more glossy the add the less I trust it, and once I find them publishing misleading and sometimes down right wrong information I am even less likely to trust anything they say.

 

I fear it is left up to individuals to learn as much as they can about a subject before making major purchases. We can not rely upon Advertising Standards because I have just had to make a second complaint against a marine electrical related firm who, after a brief period of truthful adds have just gone back to lies. (no I will not name them, but i will say a pure 12 or 24 volt boat has absolutely no need of a galvanic isolator - and even if it did many people feel there is a better solution.

 

Tony Brooks

 

I once did work on a comparative review of uninterrupible power supplies (which are, after all, inverters in a box with a big battery), while working for a magazine which prided itself on having well-equipped labs, cast-iron methodology and decent amounts of properly trained staff. Not uncoincidently, said magazine's rates were four times the competition - and rather pleasingly, it still made money (phew!). It was a while ago now, but I seem to remember we hired proper waveform monitors, dummy loads, variometers and the like for the UPS test. (The biggest surprise was just how ugly the building' own mains supply was - multi-kV spikes, waveform like the Matterhorn), But still, there were things we couldn't check - important things, like behaviour under various dangerous fault conditions, and lifetime/reliability issues.

 

For those, we had to use our experience: between us, we had power engineering experience enough to spot when heat might induce long-term unreliability, for example, and we talked to various battery experts about how usage patterns would affect the cells. We also carried out a yearly (and extremely thorough) Service and Reliability Survey among the readership, which brought in a lot of data about a lot of things.

 

At the end, we made sure we reported what we'd found out in the labs differently to the things we had a more subjective view on. Some were obvious - tinning a multicore cable before putting it in a screw connector is just plain dangerous - but others were judgement calls. If you can't afford the labs, people and time to do the full monty, then you have more judgement calls and fewer actual facts. That's OK (there were plenty of things we couldn't test but had to report on, even with a million quid a year lab budget), as long as you're straightforward in how you present your methods, findings and conclusions. Then it's up to the reader to decide how much salt to take with what you think.

 

And I think that one person with knowledge and time and a bare modicum of test equipment could come up with a useful comparative survey of inverters; and with the Internet and forums so that others can chip in, ask questions and raise issues, it could become _very_ useful. Whether or not it's capable of supporting its own weight commercially, I can't say (but suspect that it could). The other good thing about an online community is that where you don't have the expertise, you can quite often find people who do - good old fashioned journalism then takes over.

 

The law, by the way, is rather less draconian than people imagine. You do have to know about the difference between facts and opinion, and how to report them, but if you find that Cowboy Electronics' latest wonder-gizmo is producing three millivolts of a banana-shaped waveform instead of 240v bootiful sine, then by golly you're allowed to say so. With names and, if you so wish, a reference to their advertising that says different. A wise chap will double-check, of course, but if you're happy to go to court with your findings, you'll find you never do.

 

(We never did, on our magazine, despite saying some very bad things about some very big companies and having some very threatening noises made. We very quickly printed the very threatening noises. They very quickly stopped.)

 

R

 

(what _is_ a galvanic isolator, m'lud?)

[ChrisPy]

Sounds like a good topic for debate on this forum . . .

 

don't get them started .............................

[carlt]

Sounds like a good topic for debate on this forum . . .

 

There are many threads concerning this subject, on the forum, which could be revived, rather than starting a new one........

 

Oh dear...They all seem to be locked.

[dor]

Can't see that there is anything to discuss regarding a galvanic isolator on a purely 12 or 24 volt boat. Surely you only fit them if you have a 240V landline?

[Tony Brooks]

Can't see that there is anything to discuss regarding a galvanic isolator on a purely 12 or 24 volt boat. Surely you only fit them if you have a 240V landline?

 

 

Agreed, but look carefully at the adds in Waterways World and Towpath Telegraph this month. Not every boater is a well informed as those on this forum.

 

Happy to say Advertising Standards have asked for & received a JPG of the add.

 

 

Tony Brooks