At the request of our customer, Dr. Kapteyn (Chief Technical Officer) traveled to Nigeria from our head office in Michigan to deliver and install two custom computer systems and a solar panel setup, in December of 2010. The original custom computers used an inverter to convert a 12V DC battery voltage into something the computers could use.
The solar panel or battery charger would charge the battery, then the inverter would convert the battery DC voltage to AC. From the get go, we were suspicious of the reliability of inverters; and sure enough, the inverters failed within about 3 or 4 months!
We struggled to find a better inverter when the "Aha Moment" struck: What if we could design the computer to run directly off the battery so we could eliminate the inverter? This concept would eliminate the inverter completely. We asked our customers' opinion, and they were very excited about the idea.
My March, 2011, we had a working model for experimenting and testing. We tested this system on the sidewalks along the street in Nigeria - battery power only - no inverter needed! We realized that if this off-grid computer system can work on the sidewalks of Nigeria, it will work a lot of other places around the world as well.
Testing under high temperature and humidity in Nigeria.
We then took what we learned from that first test and refined the design for several months to arrive at what we have available today. We have now established volume production capability and are handling significant orders.
Please Note: We build every machine to order, so you will never receive an older "last year's model" from us!
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