Part 3 of “My Story” — The Kunwer Sachdev Journey
The Plastic Inverter, the Fairy Queen, and the Innovation of the Decade
How a Child Getting Shocked Led to India’s Most Iconic Inverter Design
Kunwer Sachdev
Founder of Su-Kam and Kunwwer.ai, and mentor at Su-vastika and several other companies — the “Inverter Man of India”
📖 Previously: Part 2 — A New Beginning With Inverters | Part 1 — Cable TV
“Kunwer Sachdev is a businessman with a difference. He shut down a profitable business to plunge into an unexplored venture. Here too he was successful.”
⚠️ The Incident That Changed Everything
“A customer’s daughter was shocked by the metal inverter while trying to wipe it — a common tendency in Indian households to clean all appliances.”
This wasn’t the only complaint. On rainy days, people were getting shocked touching the metal body because earthing in Indian homes was weak or non-existent. I couldn’t solve this with the existing metal design. So I thought of something nobody in India had attempted: a plastic inverter.
💡 “Plastic Can’t Take the Heat” — Everyone Said
My R&D team was against it. They weren’t convinced that plastic could handle the heat generated inside inverters. And they had a point — ordinary plastic would melt.
So we did what Su-Kam always did: we innovated our way through the problem. We changed the internal circuitry completely — added a temperature sensor that would shut off the inverter if someone placed it inside a cabinet without ventilation. We improved the circuit efficiency to generate less heat. And we partnered with GE Plastics to use PC ABS material — an engineering-grade plastic that could withstand 120°C. This material was hardly used in India at the time.
It took one full year of development. Many designs and changes. But we did it.
🏆 Meet the “CHIC” — India’s First Plastic Inverter
The original CHIC — India’s first plastic body inverter. Microcontroller-based, digital, safe.
CHIC 850 Digital Home UPS — note the “Design Registration No. 221692” at the bottom. Our first IP lesson.
I named it “Chic” — at that time, young boys used to call any beautiful girl “chic.” I wanted the inverter to feel desirable, not industrial. This was 2003, and it was a bombshell.
India Today called it the “Innovation of the Decade”
Most customers used this inverter for over 20 years. It became bigger than the brand itself.
⚖️ My First Lesson in Intellectual Property
The CHIC’s success attracted copycats. One competitor made an exact copy in plastic — but used inferior material. Their inverters started burning in the market, giving the whole plastic inverter concept a bad name.
We filed a case in court. We lost. They proved we filed the design patent after launching the product, not before. This was my first painful lesson in IP rights — a lesson that would later drive me to file 70+ patents, averaging two per month.
📟 The Trendy — India’s First Digital Display Inverter
The Trendy 1250VA — the first inverter in India with a digital display showing all features to the user. Something non-existent in the industry at the time.
I always gave my models names. A few of the models became brands in themselves. The Trendy was another first — the first inverter in the Indian market with a digital display. Users could see battery status, load percentage, and all features on screen. Nobody had done this before.
I always believed that naming models created emotional connections. The Chic, the Trendy, the Fairy Queen — each name told a story, each product had a personality.
🚂 The Fairy Queen — An Inverter Shaped Like a Locomotive
The Su-Kam Fairy Queen — shaped like a locomotive engine, designed to sit in bedrooms and attract kids. Named after India’s most famous heritage train.
After the CHIC’s success, I dreamed bigger. I wanted people to have an inverter in their bedrooms. Not hidden in a corner — displayed proudly, like a showpiece. So I designed an inverter that looked like a toy locomotive engine, named after the Fairy Queen — the most famous heritage train in Indian railway history.
The body was made with incredible artwork and planning. We validated and tested it for six months before launch. I was bullish this would create waves in the market.
💔 The Heartbreak of a Small Mistake
But the Fairy Queen failed. Not because of the product — because of the packaging.
As the company grew, I started delegating launch details to my team. The packaging wasn’t designed to protect this delicate locomotive shape. The first shipments arrived at dealer-distributors broken into pieces. Most units were shattered in transit.
Once we failed, we couldn’t revive the model. The market had already judged it.
“A small mistake can shatter your dreams. This was one of my biggest learning lessons — trust your team, but never take your eyes off the details that matter.”
📖 Next in “My Story” Series
Part 4: India’s First Sine Wave Inverter (2002)
How Jagdeep Chauhan and I created the DSP sine wave inverter — and why it changed the entire Indian power backup industry forever.
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Disclaimer: This article is written by Kunwer Sachdev, mentor of Su-vastika. Kunwer Sachdev is no longer associated with Su-Kam Power Systems Ltd. in any capacity. Anyone dealing with Su-Kam should be aware that Kunwer Sachdev has no association with the Su-Kam brand or company. All photographs are from the author’s personal archives.
Kunwer Sachdev
Founder of Su-Kam and Kunwwer.ai, and mentor at Su-vastika and several other companies — the “Inverter Man of India.” Read his story →
