Great Customer Service from Array

[PedroDaGr8]

We often complain about bad customer service from many Asian companies but I feel that it is only fair to commend them when they do things right as well. Some of you may remember this thread about the Array 3645A power supply. This supply was treated pretty roughly before I received it. It had a couple of blown power transistors and the ground binding post was snapped clean off.



I spent a while trying to find a matching replacement with no real luck. I decided that maybe Array could sell me one or tell me where to get a hold of a replacement. I sent an email to their contact on their webpage (see note below) explaining that I had acquired a power supply that was in rough shape and was looking for said binding post. Within literally 8 HOURS I had a reply from Scott Zhang,  Sales Director T&M, stating that they would give me the requested part but explained that it wouldn't be economical to ship a binding post internationally and could I wait a bit for one of their local distributors to place an order and they would ship it with their order and have the distributor relay it on to me. While some may object to this request, to me this is a perfectably reasonable request, considering I was getting this for free and to be honest they didn't have to do a dang thing. There was no warranty involved or any other reason for them to do this. Several weeks pass and 2 weeks ago I get an email from Scott letting me know that one of their local distributors has placed an order and that the distributor would be receiving their order in about 2 weeks. On Friday (two weeks to the day) I received ANOTHER email from Scott letting me know who to contact in order to get the part shipped to me.

To be honest, most other companies wouldn't have given me the time of day. Not only did Array respond to my email (most wouldn't even bother responding to say no, let alone saying yes), they shipped the part to me at their cost. Lastly, the follow through by Scott was impressive and thorough. If shipping a small replacement binding post received this level of attention I'm sure all of his sales receive AT LEAST this level. I have had a hard time getting most American companies to demonstrate this. Scott deserves all of the kudos. Hopefully, Scott you get some orders because of this! He has no clue I am posting this (my email address isn't even the one I used on this forum).

Note on the email: Their site is a bit messed up, if you are on some of the product pages and click contact us at the top it gives an address of shirley@array.sh. This address is wrong, apparently shirley has been gone a while, the proper one goes to sales (on the main page click contact us). Scott said they check both but that they get a lot of spam on shirley.

[PedroDaGr8]

Thanks. It's always useful to get personal recommendations for Chinese companies. Some are excellent and some are... not. I would never have considered Array until now.

How do you find the PSU in general? Have to tested it out at all?

First off let me say that its not a precision power supply. To be fair it wasn't designed for that; it was designed to be a capable basic power supply and it seem to do that job pretty well.  It seems to hold its specs pretty tightly and gets comfortably down to the single digit mV output. When it came to me it had two blown power transistors and a darkened sense resistor. That being said, based on the testing I did, someone abused this supply (either used it to sink a lot of current or someone really overdrew it). I pushed it at its full output for over 30min and it handled it just fine. The fan didn't bother me a bit. Once warmed up little to no drift in output over a few hour period (just based on rough observation nothing intensive).

Build quality wise, it's far from cheap Chinese junk. If you look at the tear down I did, all of the parts are from first tier manufacturers. The exception being the filter caps for the logic IC Vregs which are CapXon, the main filter cap is Nippon Chemicon. The solder work was clean and it appears they took good pride in making this thing safe. All internal wires are wrapped in heat resistant tubing, every metal piece has its own attachment to ground (so even if it happens to not be in contact with any other case metal it is still grounded, etc.  Additionally, they used a more expensive toroidal transformer than the much cheaper EI. Voltage sense leads terminate at the jacks (so theoretically you could easily extend them outside the case).

[PedroDaGr8]

That's very interesting, looks like Array gear is worth considering.

I seem to remember that Array is the ODM/OEM for BK Precision (and a few other companies) electronic loads.

Also, the PS I have is rated 0-36V 3A but it actually goes up to 37V 3A. It's only 1V extra but it is nice to know the machine handles higher than its rated range.

[mimmus78]

Well I just was forced to spend 50€ to get a knob from a well known and reputable US company (minimum order was 35€).

I was happy to pay the knob 0.50€ and 10€+10€ for shipping and handling costs, but this was not possible.

I asked if I can add a multimeter probe kit ... and after 3 days they replied this is not a part (but an option) and so it cannot be on the same order.

Ended buying two knobs and two bumper kit, soon or later I will put bumper kit on ebay and make happy someone don't like to buy 3 bumper kit for getting one.

I spent 10 days and more that 10 email for buying a knob :-) really, some times I ask myself what is wrong with them.

[PedroDaGr8]

And it gets better, I received the package today and I received not one, not two, not three but FOUR binding posts. A replacement green one and another full set (black, red and green). I think I may use the extra red and black to extend the sense lines outside the case.

[PedroDaGr8]

And today I now have a fully safe power supply. Even checked the resistance between this front pin and earth ground on the power plug, it's less than 0.01ohms according to my UT61E.

[saturation]

This is good to know and thanks for this post.  Their customer service seems as well thought off as the engineering I see in their eload and your PSU.

[Monkeh]

And today I now have a fully safe power supply. Even checked the resistance between this front pin and earth ground on the power plug, it's less than 0.01ohms according to my UT61E.

The earth connection on the front panel is not for safety..