Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I love how much information the world wants to share.

I checked out the company who makes them, yes its cheap, it would be the PWM stage that I could suspect was a little iffy, it does come with a thermo probe which is a nice touch.

it also warns that the USB plug isnt any good for an iPhone5 which is a little more honest than the company I dealt with.

I'm feeling almost confident enough to buy one.

Almost

After some fracas with Auspost they finally arrived. We only had a short time to test on two 170w panels in parallel but.

Gunagulla was right, it is not true MPPT (we opened one up to check ) The thermoprobe was not remote so not very helpful. It seems to read about 1 amp higher than reality.
The only good thing I could say about it is it has a load capability while charging a battery which can be timed.

I think someone is going to get a not ecstatic feedback.

I will possibly use it in the future as a timed supplementary system ?air/water, and to hold up spare batteries.

Re the above, the timed part only lasts one day so no good for the supplementary system as is.

After a few beers Bull, and reconsidering (and sending an email) , I have learnt a bit about solar panel controllers and solar panels and I still have a DAF battery charger, so perhaps it was worth the lesson.

Bull

If you are only requiring 12v we will be testing this one when it arrives (it is mppt, at least they put in a pic of the circuit board ) http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/130616352324 ... 1423.l2649

Cool.

It would be nice to find a MPPT device that actually did MPPT

Bull
Got it today,testing was limited to time and serious cloud cover. So far it seems to outperform the other controller using only 1 panel. We will see how it goes.

I got the one I sent back to China returned to me.

The world is nuts.

Well we have been beset by rather nasty weather but these are the results. The new controller outperforms the old one by a large margin. MPPT's claim 30-40% increase but this has been around 60% so I think the original one is total rubbish.
Problems with the new one.
It will not turn off fully when you are running from load when the sun goes down. It will if you are running the load off the battery. The company know about it and claim they are testing new firmware to correct this.
Function 5 does not work, the company are still writing new software for this.
The terminals to connect the wiring are small and although they provide crimp on terminals they are a bit flimsy.
My mate who has been doing the testing is convinced it is an MPPT controller.

It is entirely dependent on panel voltage and battery voltage. For example, and assuming the charge controllers can handle the voltage (some cheap ones have a very limited operating voltage range), then a 100W with Vmp = 36V panel (often called a 24V panel) into a 12V battery will deliver up to ~250% greater output than a PWM controller with the same panel, in bright sun and cool air temperature.

I will check with my mate I suspect I have the percentages wrong.

Can you explain the not turning off thing a bit more please. Is it designed to turn off when the sun goes down?

What's function 5?

And how do you do the firmware upgrade?



And just generally to anyone who knows stuff...can anyone confirm that it's a real MPPT device just by looking at the picture of the board?