MidNite Solar?

[Trukinbear]

I lament having spent a year's worth of my disability on all this MidNite Solar stuff I have. After the incident where at the close of business on a Friday they told me that my broken MidNite Classic 250 that had been in service for 9 months, was actually 9 years old and out of warranty - that I should send it in with the equivalent of a blank check (without even trying to diagnose my problems) - I melted down over the weekend and shot my mouth off on their forum. I went back and deleted it even before they told me on Tuesday that they'd cover my unit under warranty, and I apologized... and have done so several times since. Now they just ignore me, I've got an open service ticket (over a week old) with no contact back, nobody from MidNite will answer any of my questions. I'm trying to (I must be an idiot) buy more stuff, but have questions - they just ignore me. I sing their praise on all the other forums, and to my constant parade of neighbors who want solar advise - but should I? Anybody else piss them off and now can't deal with them. or is this just me?

 

[schmism]

Hear is my .02. Im not the type to buy all in on one manufacture. That said, if I was all in with one brand, I'd work really hard not to burn that bridge because well... all my eggs are in that basket. Seems you have learned that lesson the hard way.

I like my MidNite solar combiner box. Seemed to be the perfect thing I needed for my ground mount setup. Makes sense given who they are and what they do. However I have never been a fan of their SCC since the 90s when they were doing outback products. Seemed overpriced and just as prone to issues and questionable support as the companies with products half their price. (as you seem to be finding also)

Would I continue to use their products? It would depend on what it was and what the solar market continues to develop. I don't want to become brand myopic and fall out of touch with developing products/trends just because my fav dinosaur brand is well... a dinosaur.

 

[Trukinbear]

Nobody else made stuff for charge controllers (DC coupled) to be controlled by my SMA inverter - and their system makes my inverter see the Classics as though they were the SMA dc-coupled charge converters that aren't sold in the USA. In my defense - at the time I was freeking out, first I was at 50% power with one Classic down - then they tell me at the close of business on Friday that my $1100 9-month-old Classic was 9 years old and not under warranty, didn't try to diagnose my problem to try to get me back online for the Weekend, and suggested I could send it in and they'd tell me how much I owed to fix it. According to them, the Forum isn't even a channel to service from them - I'd gone there to see if any of their users might be able to tell me what to look for to try to get me back on... and I ended up complaining that all they wanted was my money. I know the service guy read it though because he said something about the blank check when he contacted me on Tuesday. It wasn't like I was making threats or anything, just expressing that I thought they cared more about getting money from me, than solving my problem and getting me back online.

 

[Trukinbear]

Oh, cool... now they're talking to me.