Hi Guys.

 

Any Ideas on Value MPPT Solar Controllers out there?

Regards

 

Been using the Micro Care 10amp and 20amp units for a while now.

3 x 10amp units at work to power remote alarm installations.

Personally I use a 20amp unit in my camping trailer.

 

The 10amp units is extremely cheaply made, but it is made in SA at least.

To date have not had any problems with them.

 

For my camping I started with a 10amp unit, but this blew due to moisture.

Granted the unit was not inside a box.

It still charged the battries, but could not use the switched output.

GW Store swapped it out for me with a new unit.

Later on I added some more load, so upgraded to the 20amp unit.

No problems to date.

Micro Care - Retail March 2013.pdf

i bought a ProVista MPPT 30A controller for R1500 incl in December. works fine for me. I have 4 x 180w panels on it and am getting around 27.4amps out of it.

Have a look at:

Outback Flexmax - 60A or 80A units, Still the best on the market in my opinion

Victron - Giving Outback a go, 70A and a 12/24V 15A unit

Phocos - Nice 12/24V unit, 30A

Morningstar - TS45MPPT and TS60MPPT, good value for money, up there with Outback

 

Midnite Solar, they have a higher than 150VDC input voltage 

Studer has brought out a new 80A controller, very nice with loadshed, just to damn expensive

Steca has a couple

 

And then you get a lot of chinese ones, but the ones I mentioned here is the top of the range products.

Hi Mike,

Are you using the provista controller you bought continuously or just for recreational purposes?

I have one on a 12volt totally off the grid domestic system with 6 x 105Ahr batteries...no inverter because all appliances 12volt...  it allways shows that the bulk voltage is 14 .6 volts and float voltage approx 13.7volts the highest amps i have ever seen it show at midday is 10 amps to the batteries..how many more pv panels of what size do i need to add to charge the 6x 105Ahr batteries sufficiently to keep my 12 volt fridge/freezer on all night it draws an average of approx 5 amps... it is currently activating the low voltage cut out on its own at about 10hr00 max ... or to be safe if im similtaneously charging laptops or phones say we work on 8 amps for 15 hours of night? something Ive noted it does is if i switch everything off at about midday the readout shows its putting less than 1amp to the batteries but if i then switch the fridge/freezer on and it is drawing 7 startup amps the controller imediately starts pushing up to 8amps to the batteries... does this not mean that at midday the battery bank is fully charged? is there any adjust ment to push more current to the batteries at midday?

 

assistance from anyone who is familiar with these controllers will be appreciated...

 

thanks

Why do you want your fridge to run all night? Keep it closed and switch it off or put it on a timer to run when the sun is shining.. 

Why do you want your fridge to run all night? Keep it closed and switch it off or put it on a timer to run when the sun is shining.. 

i have been pondering about this as well. Does the fridge not consume quite some power when it is powered on again in the morning?

No, it consumes the same. Its just the duration that is longer My fridge and freezer together pull about 200W, In the morning they run continuously for about 2 hours and then are on and off as per usual.  

 

I have them on a timer from 7-5 currently. I'll adjust that in summer to start earlier and finish later, as they will have more work to do when its warmer.  

I had my 30year old freezer on a timer as well but discovered that it draws too much power in the mornings. So now it's running constantly at about 100w/h

I'm late to this conversation, but I just had a Microcare fail on me. The whole story is here. I have to add at this point that Microcare asked me to ship it back to them (again), but I've already figured out what failed and I'm just waiting for parts from RS before I'll fix it. After that I'll probably reverse engineer it a bit more and then I'll decide whether I'll sell it on or maybe use it as a base for some ideas I have.

 

http://izak.github.io/2015/08/04/the-microcare-sage-begins/