Bit late getting into this post but here is some information.
Don Kessler has not worked for Palstar for many years. He had a very different view on engineering from Paul, the owner, and Don decided to pursue different opportunities.
I have a AT2KD which has had a lot of reengineering. Bought the unit new from DX Engineering back in 2017. It was advertised as a 2 KW antenna tuner. It is not. The manual says in the next to the last page in the manual not to run over 800 watts CW into the unit.
The cheep plastic rotary coil will not handle over 1000 watts. The cheap fiberglass band switch burned up in a week. I contacted Paul at Palstar about the engineering design and found out what a Adam Henry the owner was. Waited a week and called back and his wife answered the phone and bought the ceramic rotary coil from the AT4K and installed the coil to replace the burned original rotary coil supplied with the new unit. I installed a model 86 ceramic band switch and have had no problems since.
I ask Paul about the lack of an diagram on the peak reading watt meter and was told it was preparatory so the competition would not copy the design. After reverse engineering, it is nothing more than a charge hold circuit. I'll bet Kenwood/ICOM/Yasue is shivering in their boots knowing the advance technology Palstar is using...
As for the meter lamps I installed a couple of LEDs with current limiting resistors. Much better lighting. No life MTBF issues.
The market is ripe for a new US based antenna tuner manufacture.
So, pretty much a final input rating, not an output rating.
IE, it's a decent tuna for an SB220.
--Shane
WP2ASS / ex KD6VXI