Adrian, it's good to hear you finally got what you wanted from your older unit, however I never got the impression - here or anywhere else - that APS themselves ever had any sort of handle on any revelant-to-us aspect of their product/operation, before or after "the whole China debacle".

Here's hoping it works out for you, in any case.


Best regards,
Paul

PurePower wrote:

The overheating she refers to occurred on a small sub board that provides charging current to the battery string. It happens that we made a minor change in location of the board when we started full production that moved it out of an area of greater air flow and the heat sink needed to be increased to preserve the cooling level of a power transistor.  It did not overheat in our bench tests, and many units in the field never experienced overheating. In hifigeekgirl's case it did overheat. The result was a recurring alarm and descriptive error code raised by the on board diagnostics which was presented on the front display. The PurePower+ automatically protected itself from overheating by shutting down the regeneration and charger. That doesn't seem too stupid to me.  The engineering change required to remedy the problem was very simple and effective. Increasing the heat sink size by 50% reduced the component temperature to well within acceptable operating range and even continuous operation at 100% load did not increase the charging board operating temperature.

Though these devices are marketed as such for hi-fi use, in fact there really is no "affordable" universal solution to AC power correction from an electrical standpoint, especially not for hi-fi, where amplifier topology might be just about anything, and these amps might be running right along with sensitive low-level devices that have basically "opposite" needs.  While this does not excuse APS' shoddy operation or - apparently - ongoing lack of insight into the matter, it should serve as yet another reminder to GSC readers that "plug and play" really means "roll the dice", product price or mfg. promises notwithstanding.  Of course this does not mean no one will ever find a solution to his own, particular problem.  Rather, it means that each of us is - ultimately - looking for a unique solution, and it remains likely that we may have to do some futzing with any given piece of equipment that we attempt to integrate into a system.  Again, Romy's case is the best example here of this idea, albeit he appears to have caught APS "at a good time".  Anyone who just bought one and sent it back without clearly targeted objectives, there were no clearly targeted fixes.

Paul S

In  late December hifigirlgeek reported an error message on the display of her PurePower+ that indicated our diagnostic system had detected an overtemp reading, which caused the PurePower unit to go into protective shut down.

We diagnosed the source of the problem in Canada almost immediately, tested an effective solution and offered to effect the warranty upgrade at an approved depot in New Zealand. hifigirl geek  suggested she could save time and effort by using her own local technician to carry our the work. We discussed the repair and  provided the instructions to her technician, who impressed us with his professionalism and knowledge. We approved of his carrying out our warranty work because of his very long experience in high end audio and his credentials. We offered to ship the required heat sink part. Instead the technician indicated he could supply a suitable part himself.  He did so and completed the needed update in early January. The unit has performed correctly ever since.

hifigeekgirl was insistent that we replace the original unit with a new PurePower+ 2000 at a shipping cost from Canada to New Zealand of over $1500. We explained that her PurePower warranty remained in full effect and that the factory service would have been essentially identical. This was  a simple mechanical repair. Her original unit is to all intents and purposes identical to current production and there is no benefit to a replacement. 

We feel we fulfilled our warranty obligations quickly and efficiently, and hifigirl geek  has the benefit of the best  audio power conditioner available that will operate reliably for many years. She can count on our continued support and our warranty will protect her investment.