Solar Charge Controller, 12V/24V Auto 10A MPPT Solar Panel Battery Regulator with USB

Looks generic but works great! I opened the controller and it is an authentic mppt controller.

I was able to hook up panels as long as I stay below the 10 amp limit. It blinks when it's charging. I had one unit that didn't work as expected, but the company kindly replaced it and the new unit seems to be working fine. The only thing I didn't like is that the wire terminals are fairly small. 6 gauge doesn't fit, 8 gauge doesn't fit well, but can barely be made to fit, 10 gauge can fit pretty well. Because of the small gauge of wire that can be connected, it typically works best for small power inputs, such as small panels, which is ultimately my goal anyways.

The value of this is very good- as soon as I hooked it up, it was good to go, and my small solar project was off and running.But due to an accidental touching of the power output, it "died". ..Opening up the box (there are 4 screws on the back), I found two fuses- GREAT! Then I looked closer, and both fuses were directly soldered onto the board. What's the point of having protection if you can't change it? So now I need to buy a mini fuse holder, solder that in, and then then just replace the fuse.Good that it's cheap and works effectively. Bad that when it fails, you have to physically modify it to be robust to pretty simple faults. That's why it's only a 3. A simple fault should not permanently break the unit- short circuits are pretty common.

Very cheap but it does work... Until the 2 falsely rated 15a fuses that are soldered into the board fry for no reason. I new a return would be pointless on this so i removed the fuses and replaced them with real proper fuses. Seems to be working ok now. Also, it has to be able to draw from the battery it is charging to power the device, which is just stupid, making it not work for most battery packs that charge with barrel connectors. You'll have to use a separate 12v battery to power the controller and charge the pack off the load lines.

While this does a good job of keeping the battery charged, it creates a serious radio frequency interference (RFI) problem. I found it to be the worst around 50 MHz, the 6-meter ham radio band. I had to take it out of service and replace it with a different product.

It's unbelievable to me that you can buy a device like this for there price of a ham sandwich and have it arrive at your door less than 24 hours later. At first I was concerned as none of the lights came on when I hooked it up to my battery, but then noticed faint light coming through the bottom of the label turns out the label was on upside down, and it wasn't hard to peel it off and flip it around.I left it hooked up to a 100w panel for most of the day, and in mixed clouds and shade it put between 20 and 50 watts into the battery continuously, depending on the conditions. Even as the sun was getting low around 6PM in April, it was still charging the battery at more than 20w. The finned aluminum back stayed cool to the touch at all times. For the price it seems crazy to complain about build quality etc. It managed to connect to my awg 10 cables without too much difficulty, which is more than can be said of some more expensive units.If you need an all-day-every-day unit for off grid living, this probably ain't it. But as a device for occasional experimenting (or keeping car batteries charged during the plague) it's perfect.

The APINEE 10A MPPT solar charge controller looks like an MPPT controller, but mine is electrically functioning like a PWM controller. The MPPT voltage for the 12 v solar panel should be about 17.5 volts for max power, but solar panel input voltage is only 14 with a battery voltage of 12.2 using this controller. It does charge but it certainly does not appear to be working as a MPPT charge controller.

Easy to install and works great.