MWANDS.COMReviews of mwands.com

Excellent regulator

I am hesitant to write this review because I’m a big fan of small business. However, my experience with MWANDS has not been ideal. First the facts: I was in the market for a solar pond aeration system. I first purchased a Hakko HK-80 air pump (based on the size of my pond), 1” ID weighted air line, and two 12” membrane diffusers from a retailer other than MWANDS. I then purchased a 150W Suntaqe unit from MWANDS (as marketed on their website for the HK-80 pond aeration kit). At this point my pond aeration project stalled due to other, more urgent projects. A year or so later (I don’t exactly remember how much time had passed) I contacted MWANDS to purchase the remainder of the equipment. I described to the salesperson which components I had already purchased and he proceeded to prepare a list and quote for the components that I needed to buy. They included two 100 Watt solar panels, a top of pole solar panel mount kit, a pair of MC4 branch connectors, side of pole box enclosure, and a pair of 6 foot PV extension cables. During the discussion with the salesperson I expressed concern about overheating components inside the enclosure. I asked about a cooling fan and he responded that cooling fans will not be needed as they have “never had a problem with overheating”. I trusted his expertise and proceeded with the purchase. The parts were shipped 6 days after I placed the order (fine with me, no issue here) and arrived 7 days later in excellent condition. Everything was packaged well. The following weekend I proceeded to install the system. It was an easy install and I was lucky to have a clear, sunny day. The system ran great for approximately 30 minutes and then proceeded to power cycle. On then off, on then off…over and over again until the sun was no longer shining on the panels. I placed a call to MWANDS on Monday morning and explained the situation. The salesperson asked that I send several pictures of the installed system. I also offered to send video (all of which I sent to him). This marked the beginning of a nearly two month long saga in which I sent many emails, pictures, videos and placed several phone calls. This is where the service from MWANDS deteriorated. Many of the emails and calls that I placed went unanswered. In fact, there was a two week period where I sent multiple emails and left phone messages which went unanswered. It was through shear persistence that I ultimately received a call from a technician who could walk me through some troubleshooting. I won’t go into all of the details but I will say that my detailed notes on this frustrating journey could fill a book. The technical issues that were identified can be summarized as: 1. The Suntaqe sat in a box too long and lost its settings. There is a programmable low voltage shutdown/delay relay inside the Suntage. The purpose of the relay is to cut power to the inverter if the voltage drops below a programmed setting. Apparently the configuration settings are stored in volatile memory and will disappear if the unit sits too long without power. This was identified after I shipped the unit back to MWANDS for their inspection. Since the unit was more than 30 days old, I paid for the shipping there and back. Please note that there was no documentation (other than the AIMS inverter user manual) included with the Suntaqe so there was no way for me to know about the volatile memory issue. 2. Once the configuration issue with the Suntaqe relay was resolved, the system ran longer than it ever had before. Unfortunately a new issue was discovered. The 150W AIMS inverter was now overheating. The very issue I expressed concern about when placing the order! The AIMS inverter does not have a built-in cooling fan. There was also no fan included with the aeration enclosure as it was not recommended by the salesperson. This problem was identified while I was on the phone with the MWANDS technician. After all of the time and effort I spent on this system, I just about lost my mind. Luckily I somehow kept my sanity and politely thanked the technician for the call and support. At this point I decided that further communications with MWANDS was going to be a waste of my time. Fortunately I already had a spare inverter, one with a built-in cooling fan, which I use in my Jeep. I replaced the AIMS inverter with the unit from my Jeep and all was well…for a short period of time. 3. The next issue to rear its ugly head was yet another overheating problem!!! This time it was the Hakko HK-80 air pump. It’s getting scorching hot and then shutting down. After doing some research, I read that the Hakko pumps typically will run hot and should be kept in a well ventilated area. How does an MWANDS salesperson not know this? Where I live the summer days routinely get in the 90+ degree range. In fact, according to the troubleshooting page on the Hakko website: “If the pump is in a box on a hot day you are likely to throw the thermal overload and the pump will turn off. If you are seeing your pump turning on and off you must investigate the reason and fix the situation to prevent premature wear and tear of your diaphragms and motor.” Obviously, the setup I purchased from MWANDS is a recipe for overheating and ultimately a quick demise to a $300 air pump. I proceeded with an attempt to try to resolve the overheating by installing two 12v DC fans inside the enclosure and I cut/installed two additional louvered vents on either side of enclosure (in the location of the air pump). Unfortunately it wasn’t enough, the pump still continues to overheat. To sum up, I would have been much better off trenching 500 feet to my pond to run an air line from my house. I really like the idea of using green energy as much as possible but this has been an exercise in throwing good money after bad. I have a solar PV system on my house and would have achieved the same goal by trenching the 500 feet. However, I should point out that MWANDS seems to do a pretty good job as a product reseller. They have a nice website with many helpful videos, they seem to have nailed down the art of selling, packaging, and shipping. If you know exactly what you need and have done extensive research (i.e. enough research to know with absolute confidence whether or not the products will work for your situation), then MWANDS would likely be a good place to shop. However, if you must rely on them to advise you on what to purchase or if you suspect that there is potential for a technical issue to arise, then I would recommend avoiding MWANDS. They are simply too small of a business with very limited resources such that providing technical support to promptly address issues is not within their current capabilities.

Good evening we bought you wind turbines to charge in 48v and that develops 10 w max with a wind at 15 meters second and we have to spend for that more than 1300 dollards very disappointed. -BR7BT48V_AC 48 Volt AC 500 Watt 7 Blade Wind Turbine with Black Blades 2 -HWB7_BLACK 7 G4 Raptor Blades and Hub - BLACK 2 -collar_1.5in 1.5 Inch Wind Turbine Locking Collar (1 15/16inch ID) 2 -BRNG_1.5 1.5in. YAW bearing 2 -3wsrk 3 Wire Slip Ring Kit with 90A 3 Wire Slip Ring 2 BesT Regards

Totally screwed up my order. Sent the wrong turbine fan then punished me by making me drive a special trip of 75 miles to return THEIR screw up before they would correct it. No discount or reimbursement for additional costs to me. Not very happy

I bought a controller from them, but to return it because it arrived damaged Imust do it directly thru the supplier in China. Making the process very difficult . Easy to buy, hard to return. The manufacturer will not cover the product if it was damage in shipping.

Initial experience good. Sales person very helpful. Return of damaged merchandise too difficult requiring photos and authorization. Unit itself even more crudely built than shown in the photos. Much exposed wiring and terminals. Will need to figure out a way to hide these since there is no room to use the NEMA box suggested by them.

Ordered a wind turbine and charge controller. Was happy that my ordered indicated a delivery day estimate, and planned some my travel (to install the new items) for about 5 days after delivery. Nothing indicated backorder or any anticipated problems. Delivery date came & went, but I still had not received anything; no order or no e-mail indicating any delay... I contacted customer service, but all I got was some lame apologies. Then I told AND e-mailed them to hold off on shipping as I would be traveling. No one seems to talk to each other there, so wouldn't know; the item arrived at my place while I was gone. Luckily UPS had it on their truck a few more days, soI did receive my order (but it could have been sent back if I wouldn't have been home in time). Once I unboxed my order I discovered that there were incomplete instructions for the charge controller. E-mailed customer service again for better instructions, but have not received a reply for the past 10 days. I do hope that their products are more trustworthy than their customer service - so far I am very much NOT impressed with that....

The buying experience was great. No issues. Product arrived within a week. The product itself...not as good as the buying experience. Product was very poorly constructed. It appears to work, but the inner workings were not connected to the housing. Who uses hot glue on polycarb and expects it to stick? Plus the tiny screws came out. I had to rebuild it. 12 Volt Suntaqe "Power Without Batteries" 180 Watt Pure Sine Wave Inverter Controller SUN_12VPS180W