Boards Burnt to Coal: One Hour Before Judging a New Product

Twenty years ago we were working to establish a well-rooted European brand we represented in the Turkish market. The market was used to other names; ours was tried not on charm but on patient persuasion. Then the return boxes started arriving: boards burnt to coal, motors in pieces. “Defective goods,” we were told. Yet for a product to end up in that state, someone has to put considerable effort into it — in the wrong direction.

The crux of the story was not the returns themselves but the dialogue before them: “Friend, did you make that setting? Did you open the manual?” — “Brother, we’ve been installing such-and-such brand for umpteen years.” The whole matter hid in that sentence. A hand accustomed to one brand for years installs the new product with the same reflexes; and when the product behaves differently, the blame stays with the product.

Same film, new screening

Today we watch the same film, this time with our own products in the lead role. The scenario we hear on the phone never changes: a motor is ordered, arrives by courier in the evening, and that same midnight — without ever having been tried once — it goes into installation in the field. The next day’s message is ready-made: “This product is no good.” The manual unopened, the setup video unwatched, not a single phone call made.

We do not write this as a reproach; twenty years ago, standing on the other side, we saw exactly the same thing — so the issue is not brands but the nature of habit. Habit is valuable — in the field it means speed, it means confidence. But when habit is mistaken for mastery, every new product starts work unjustly convicted: the verdict was delivered before the box was opened.

The price of fairness: one hour

The price of giving a new product a fair chance is lower than you think: roughly one hour. Reading the wiring diagram, watching the setup video, running the first installation on a bench in daylight rather than in the field at midnight. At the end of that hour you may still dislike the product — and that is entirely your right. A product tried and found wanting is the manufacturer’s responsibility; a product condemned untried serves no one — not you, not us, and not your customer whose gate won’t open at midnight.

For our part, we try to make that hour easy: wiring diagrams and commissioning videos sit step by step on the r-technic portal, and our boards carry displays so they speak with information instead of guesswork. We are asking for one hour of your time — because twenty years of experience taught us this: when that hour is withheld, what burns is not the board. It is the labour. Everyone’s.