Tech-PRO® Tools is building the first online trade tool and instruments alternative store of it’s kind. More than a shopping cart and store front with images of the product(s) you are shopping for. Applications video’s and files, full product specifications, comparative products specifications, tips – maintenance and calibration procedures for the instruments you invest in. Upfront projected maintenance costs of owning the instruments and other information that most sites tuck into the back end of the purchase.
Tech-PRO® Tools customized diagnostics packages – customized to fit your current needs and designed for expansion to grow as your needs grow, with 24 | 7 | 365 full tech support for each and every product offered in our portfolio – not from an operator in Indonesia – but from field technicians that understand your applications.
We want your input in the design of your site – we want all tradesmen to be able to offer as well as read unbiased reviews and comments on the instruments you are looking at – good, bad or indifferent – we want reviews from our field brothers – because we understand breaking your back to spend hard earned money on instruments and tools that don’t even meet OEM specifications much less expectations and abusive field use.
So we want to know – do you want to be able to read and provide this feedback in the typical review format found on most sites or would you prefer a full blown Forum to interact with other trade members, write reviews and comments on these instruments and tools – take a minute and shoot an email to: tech-protools@tech-protools.com – tell us what YOU want, because we are listening.
Do any OEM’s ever look at the feedback they get for free from the field? Check out the poll on DMG’s a few posts downstream from this post – look at the poll results – these percentages represent over 1160 votes in just a few days since posting the poll – Does this not tell you anything? anything at all?
To date the HVACPROTech® Evaluation Boards have a total of one member review of the Ritchie® Yellow Jacket® 40812 Refrigeration System Analyzer – the one pictured above, not the original 40812 which was the Digi-Cool® DRSA 1200. I find that moderately curious given all the hype that was provided for this instrument – it has it’s own web page, facebook page and endless whispers and rumors in the trades publications and trades Boards. Perhaps it could be compared to the Superbowl, conventionally the most publicized, promoted sporting event of any given year and almsot without exception – the most disappointing, seldom living up to the hype that surrounds it. Maybe, it’s something much simpler though.
I consider instrument features much in the same way I look at options on a new automobile – if they were free – hell yeah, stack’em up – Hey, I’m an American, more is always better. But then reality sets in when I see what the seat warmers, integrated GPS and Harley Davidson package does to that Ford F-150 that started out at $18,000. The features are nice but unfortunately they have ballooned an otherwise affordable automobile purchase into an unrealistic dream. Our instruments are not so far departed from this analogy. Look at for example, what I consider to be the industry “standard” for advanced digital refrigeration circuit analysis – the Testo® 556/560. Most working technicians look at the 556 and have to wipe the slobbers from the front of their shirts. And there is a market for the capabilities that the 556/560 offer, but from an industry wide perspective that market can be described as niche, at best. From a working man’s perspective they are cost prohibitive and many of it’s features fall well outside the typical daily diagnostics parameters of most technicians and in the event that one or more of it’s features are needed for a specific application, it certainly is not with the frequency that would merit investing in this scope of analyzer.
Don’t get me wrong the DMG has yet to reach it’s apex in my opinion – however, there remains a tremendous market that the OEM’s are either unaware of (which I can’t even imagine), don’t care about or are simply not interested in addressing. Conservatively analog gauges out number digital gauges in our service vehicles 10 to 1. There are many, many contributing factors to that figure – but we are talking about this particular factor, because in my opinion it is the most significant. Simply put it’s over design. Overkill, engineered failure – take your pick they all fit. Let’s look at some of the design features of the 40812.
Color displays and graphing. Who among us will deny that this is not a super nice feature? I personally love both – I’m a techie, I love the graphing – but from a realistic perspective neither are essential features for any DMG – none. The color display represents a tremendous drain on the instruments power management resources – unrealistically so in my opinion. At some point we have to look at the instrument from a practical/impractical perspective, the power depletion rate of this feature, in my opinion make it impractical for typical field applications. Would they make great options? Absolutely – Do we need it? – Absolutely not.
Let’s not forget what we actually need our gauges to tell us – temperature and pressure, and depending on what side of the fence you are standing on, the pressure component may or may not even be that important to begin with – do we really need an instrument with a menu that rivals the start menu on our pc’s?
Of course we don’t. At least the majority of us don’t. You have to remember these feature rich instruments require a phenomenal processor to make all of this information available at your fingertips – the more powerful the processor, the more $$$. The more $$$ the longer it’s going to take to convert the average working man from an analog mentality to a digital mentality. How can this simplest of facts be escaping the OEM’s?
There are design features inherent to a quality DMG that are just a fact of life – like death, taxes and bills – they are essential – critical, there is no getting around it or all DMG’s would be Mastercool® or Refco®. God forbid. There cannot be any shortcuts made to transducers and thermistors -they along with the processor are the heart and life blood of a quality DMG, and I don’t question that this quality requisite in the 40812 has been met. In fact –
- they look somewhat familiar.
So our sponsored poll today is for the working man – the technician that keeps the fan’s turning and the fire burning everyday -
A while back, I did a post on my thoughts as to leak detectors and leak detection methods, in which I stated having had no personal success with the ultrasonic instruments. I have since, discovered some definite value in their application to locating leaks in some situations. The first situation was a leak in a [...]
I continue to get the occasional question, worded something like, “..Hey, do them videos tell ya’ how to charge 410A systems?” And I go into an explanation about the DVD’s covering a review of refrigeration principles with R-22 and providing some discussion relative to 410A…or sometimes I just direct them here and suggest they m […]
Airflow across the indoor coil on residential heat pumps, or straight cooling systems, is always a topic of interest for the more astute members in HVAC technical circles…and rightly so. Proper airflow, or more accurately the lack thereof, may well be the HVAC industry’s most cited culprit for substandard equipment performance and [...]
So, maybe you’re thinking troubleshooting heat pumps is about Ohm’s Law, psychrometric charts, Mollier diagrams, sensible heat ratios, COP’s and…etc., etc…? There are a lot of scientific principles explaining how heat pumps do what they do. And at some point in our training we eventually have to deal with some of the science in understanding [... […]
Just in case someone hasn’t been keeping up, 12/31/09 is the last day for legal manufacture of R-22 equipment…and may end up being the last day of legal installation of R-22 equipment. I’m no authority on the EPA regulations governing the phase-out of R-22 or R-22 equipment, but from what I read the EPA has [...]
Animated Demonstration Standard Pulldown This simulation shows a standard pulldown in an R-22 system. The digital reading is set to update once per second, so you can track the pressure when it changes rapidly. Notice how the bar graph clears to zero when the digits change. You can see that the overall trend is downwards in this [...]
1250 Conversion Kit. Now Available!!! This kit converts the DRSA 1200 to a DRSA1250 with Backlight display. The kit also includes the TV-1140 temperature sensors. You can also use the TS-1140 and TB-1140 temperature sensors with this new upgrade kit. You can purchase this upgrade kit in our online store.
HVAC StateWatch from ACCA “Each state has different rules and regulations regarding HVACR licensing and business operations. While we can’t keep track of everything that happens in all 50 states, we have compiled some basic information and links to point you in the right direction to operate a proper contracting business in each state.” htt […]
TruTech Tools, LTD was founded on the belief that better tools and better training make for better technicians. Our motto: “A true sign of a true technician is the quality of their tools and his or her ability to use them. “ At TruTech Tools, it is our mission to insure that you not only own [...]
Instructors invited to apply for donations of Thermal Imaging Cameras EVERETT, Wash. – Fluke Corporation, the world’s leading supplier of handheld test and measurement equipment, is donating $100,000 worth of infrared thermal imagers to schools and training programs for use in teaching students to perform weatherization work and home inspections. Through the […]
