Vantare Remote Control

[SKYCHENEY]

(12-06-2016 12:17)davidbrady Wrote:  Hi Sky,

Glad your enjoying my foray into handheld and remote control. I'll keep updating this blog with my progress. I've seen pics of Vantare model year 2000 (chassis year 1999) with the manual circuit breakers and pics of model year 2001's with the motorized circuit breakers, so the change took place somewhere between 2000 and 2001. I don't know for sure when, but a quick call to Donny Myers at DMRV will certainly answer that question. The Square D Powerlink AS is very reliable. The motorized circuit breakers are rated for 200,000+ motorized switching cycles. It's a really well thought out system. Kudos to Square D, now Schneider. Schneider has since moved to the Powerlink G3. I ordered a G3 circuit breaker to see if it's compatible with my system. As soon as I receive it I'll post my findings. Given the number of times that we motorcoach users switch our breakers I'd expect a very long lifetime from the Powerlink AS stuff. Unlike a solid state 120VAC relay system, mechanical switching provides latching and requires no power once the the transition has taken place. SSR's require constant power whether on or off and they require energized external circuitry and a non-volatile memory to restore state upon power interruption (shore, inverter, and generator). Plus the motorized CB's are an extremely good use of space. There's a lot of smarts contained into a very small panelboard package. If I were doing this from scratch I'd again go with motorized breakers over an external contactor or SSR solution.

I did notice some manual breakers on the panels in some listings and some without but I didn't pay attention to year and I wasn't sure what the new system consisted of.

I agree that the motorized breaker makes much more sense than having a relay. Actually for me, a manual breaker is just fine. I think the remote control feature is neat and fun, but I really don't mind walking to the panel to turn something on or off. I look at much of this new technology as nothing more than a toy to play with. Yet, I still seem to upgrade to it when I can. We all like new toys, after all.

My son would really love this stuff. He's studying Computer Engineering at Michigan Tech.

Keep us posted.