What kind of solar controller and remote panel do you have?

Blag

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What kind of solar controller and remote panel do you have?

· Posted: 09.04.2018 · #1

>20a MPPT controllers seem to be the way to go, and I only see MT50 remotes on ebay so I'm assuming they're the most popular remote display?

What kind of controller & remote do you have and are you happy with it?

There's such a variety available, it's hard to pick one...

the fat controller

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Re: What kind of solar controller and remote panel do you have?

· Posted: 09.04.2018 · #2

what about a dual charge controller to keep the cab and leisure topped up?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Votro…dpSrc=srch

Bounder

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Re: What kind of solar controller and remote panel do you have?

· Posted: 09.04.2018 · #3

Morningstar Tristar MPPT are probably one of the best systems available.
https://www.morningstarcorp.com/products/tristar-mppt/

big D

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Re: What kind of solar controller and remote panel do you have?

· Posted: 09.04.2018 · #4

I have 2 of the victron 100w panels with the Victron Mppt controller. Monitored by their App. I also got an additional relay installed to auto switch charging between the 2 leisure and the vehicle battery. Great job,works a treat. Supplies and installed by http://www.leisuretechnicalsolutions.co.uk/

baguette

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Re: What kind of solar controller and remote panel do you have?

· Posted: 10.04.2018 · #5

I have One Of These which I have found to be very good. It had my 2X100 watt panels producing 80 watts during the middle of the day in December in the South of Spain.

Beware of many charger controllers falsely claiming to be MPPT.

FF into about 9 minutes [url=

]HERE[/url] for the most important piece of info which will help to make sure you have a genuine quality MPPT unit

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Re: What kind of solar controller and remote panel do you have?

· Posted: 10.04.2018 · #6

I have the same as Baguettes. More than twice as good as my last one.

Blag

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Re: What kind of solar controller and remote panel do you have?

· Posted: 11.04.2018 · #7

I like the look of that one.

Do either of you have a remote meter for monitoring your usage & input, or is the LCD on the unit enough?

I have a generous service compartment in our wardrobe (with a removable wall) and I was thinking of placing the controller behind the wall to hide the wires. That's why I'm leaning towards having a remote meter that I can mount in a more convenient location.

baguette

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Re: What kind of solar controller and remote panel do you have?

· Posted: 11.04.2018 · #8

Mine is in the garage. I didn't bother to run the wires into the living area as the info on the screen, while being useful and interesting, is replicated by the CBE panel over the door.

If you want info such as time to fully charged and time to discharged in hours and minutes, battery condition, real-time load and charge current, consider getting One Of These. They are particularly useful to show what impact an inverter might be having on your battery.
There ate two versions, one for loads up to 100amps which works with inverters up to about 1000 watts and another for loads up to 200 amps if a larger inverter is used.

Blag

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Re: What kind of solar controller and remote panel do you have?

· Posted: 19.06.2018 · #9

I'm still in two minds about solar controllers! I definitely want to go with MPPT but there are a lot of options out there. I like the look of yours & Ally's Solar (Brand) controller but I can't get a decent data sheet on it to do a comparison. Do you have one?

I've narrowed my list down to 3 choices (so far):

* Solar (25A 300w) same brand as Baguettes and Ally's
* Epever Tracer 3210A (30A 390w)
* Victron 100/30 (30A 440W)

Right now I'm leaning towards the Victron (with bluetooth) as I like the specs of the unit and the monitoring & data logging capability. It's a bit more spendy than the chinese controllers, but I only want to buy once and be happy with it.

I know I'm probably over thinking about it, but I tend to geek out over stuff like this.

Specs:

https://www.bluemarinestore.co…i4QAvD_BwE

the fat controller

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Re: What kind of solar controller and remote panel do you have?

· Posted: 19.06.2018 · #10

Well I am going to throw another make at you, Votronic, these are German made Mppt controllers which from reading reviews on other sites are well thought of

http://votronic.de/index.php/e…ontrollers

The Mppt versions have dual charging and AES ports on them

Blag

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Re: What kind of solar controller and remote panel do you have?

· Posted: 19.06.2018 · #11

Quote by the fat controller

It's all good John, the more info the better

Dual charging is a good feature.

panda

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Re: What kind of solar controller and remote panel do you have?

· Posted: 19.06.2018 · #12

This is my controller....Great unit at reasonable cost....

https://www.ebay.ie/itm/25A-30…20c01274f2

Blag

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Re: What kind of solar controller and remote panel do you have?

· Posted: 17.07.2018 · #13

Well i pulled the trigger on an Epever 30A MPPT unit. The reviews and specs are pretty good and it's only just over the €100 price point I originally had in mind. There's a little bit of a pucker factor ordering it directly from an eBay seller in China, but we'll see how it goes. Ebay and Paypal have enough buyer protection built in I guess.

I decided to spring the extra €20 for a plugin Wifi module. I don't fancy having a modern digital display in view in our oul camper, so the wifi will allow me to hide the equipment outta sight and monitor the solar panel & battery performance through an app on my phone. The app looks pretty user friendly also.

I'll update again when I have it installed and I've given it a whirl.

Blag

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Re: What kind of solar controller and remote panel do you have?

· Posted: 14.08.2018 · #14

The Epever MPPT controller kit arrived last week, a little over 2 weeks delivery from China.

It worked straight out of the box. I had a small issue trying to get the WIFI module to talk to my Android phone, but I eventually figured out how to put it right. My wife's and sons phones connected to the module automatically no problem, but my phone didn't. The only difference, my phone is new and running on Android 8.0 whereas my wife's and sons phones operate on older version Android software 5.0. It was a matter of recording the IP and gateway addresses for the module (from my sons phone) and manually inputting them on mine. After that it worked fine.

So now, it's doing it's thing and I'll bench test it for a few weeks before fitting it to the camper.

I also bought the optional temperature probe (not pictured) which I'll fit in the battery storage locker.

There's a youtube creator called Adam Welch who made several very useful videos about the Epever equipment. This was very helpful considering the instructions supplied with the wifi module were useless! In this video he reviews the setup procedure for the wifi module and steps through the features on the app.

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