Description

We recommend Victron MPPT Charge controllers

Victron Energy makes a large series of Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) charge controllers that are widely sold by distributors around the world. If you can find them locally, they are an excellent choice since they are well made and include some very useful features. If you can’t get them locally, we can purchase them at a slight discount off list price and ship them to you from JAARS in North Carolina.

Naming Convention

Victron makes two almost identical lines of charge controllers, the only difference is whether Bluetooth is built-in or not. The “Smartsolar” models have Bluetooth capability, the “BlueSolar” models do NOT have Bluetooth. We generally recommend the SmartSolar line since it makes setup and monitoring easy.

The numbers in the name indicate the maximum allowed Solar panel voltage/maximum current. Example: BlueSolar MPPT 100/30  has a 100V panel limit, 30A battery charging limit. 30A is the most it will put into your batteries, even if more is available from the panels. 30 is also the maximum allowed short circuit current (Isc) of you solar panels as wired.

A very nice feature of the Victron controllers is they can handle significantly oversized solar panels by clipping the power output so you can design your system to deliver more power on overcast days without worrying about damaging the controller on bright sunny days. We can help you with that.

If you purchase the less expensive “Bluesolar” charge controllers you also need to purchase a VE.Direct to USB cable in order to do the initial setup of the charge controller, which makes the cost about the same as the SmartSolar controller. In either case you need to do setup  with the free VictronConnect app, which is available for Android, iPhones or PCs running  MacOS or MS Windows. There is a unsupported, but functional linux version too. The app also gives you convenient access to the data logged internally by the charge controller, which is very useful for monitoring your system’s performance.

All Victron MPPT charge controllers can handle 12v or 24v batteries, and the larger ones also 36v and/or 48V. Beware; You need to manually reconfigure them if you change the battery bank voltage after initial setup.

Victron has a lot of dealers worldwide, you may be able to purchase Victron equipment locally. If not, contact us and we can purchase it for you and ship almost anywhere in the world.

Our team in North Carolina has experience with Victron equipment and can help you get it all hooked up and configured correctly. Email us at power_systems@sil.org if you’d like setup help, a price quote, or if you just need help deciphering all the model numbers and choosing the right model.