Victron Energy SmartSolar MPPT Solar Charge Controller 75V, 15A, 12/24V

This is an excellent charge controller, loaded with features, very compact, very reliable. The ability to use an app to track the solar metrics extends beyond just that capability. In my case (as a software developer and electronics tinkerer type person), I'm using an ESP32 module (about $6) to capture the Bluetooth broadcast data from the charge controller and upload it to my website, where I can easily monitor the solar performance of my camper remotely. I'm using the VictronBLE ESP32 library with additional code to upload the data to my web server. This charge controller supports around 200 Watts of solar if your battery(s) are 12 V, and around 400 Watts if your battery(s) are 24 V (15 A x 12 V = 180W, 15 A x 24 V = 360 W, however since the charge voltage is a little higher than your battery voltage, it is right around 200 W and 400 W). I'm running 400 Watts of solar (2 x 200 W) with a 12 V battery, so the charge controller can really only make use of about half of my maximum solar power. However, the upside is that on a cloudy day when the panels cannot produce their full power, having double the solar results in double the wattage (IE if one panel can only produce 30 watts on a very overcast day, then I get 60 watts with double the panels). The charge controller handles this just fine - it only allows up to the 15A to flow even if the panels can produce more. I highly recommend this controller. If you don't understand the relationship between the amperage of the controller, the battery voltage, and the wattage, then use AI or research it yourself a little. It isn't too complex. Essentially for this controller, the 75V is the maximum solar voltage it can handle (and that is determined by the properties of your solar panels, and whether you have then in serial or parallel combinations), 15A is the maximum amperage it can send to a battery or load, and 12/24 means it works with both 12V and 24V battery setups.

I have to say some kind words so far for this charge controller, in short, this is an amazing product. Early in its use, I have a small outdoor solar array using batteries to power a sprinkler system, sound system, lighting and an outlet using a separate inverter. We live on top of a hill, no trees, no wind blocks and get the worst of the weather constantly. I have been through many MANY MPPT Solar Charge Controllers and was a bit scared to go with a Bluetooth only controlled device. I was quickly impressed with the VictronConnect software, giving a demo device so I could test drive the settings and see exactly what I would get and control. Next up, how hard is it to connect and reconnect once I got physical hardware.... It was literally as easy as the demo equipment. I was able to power on the controller using Solar power OR battery, meaning as long as you have 1 power source it just works. Bluetooth connected instantly, one tap on my Android phone and the PIN on side of the controller and I was done. I did notice that the default for me was 24v when I had a 12v battery connected but that wasn't a big deal, went through set to 12 and was all set. Because I do a lot of work with solar controllers, I wanted to see how accurate and fast this little beast was on the phone app, ran a constant 25w load and the app was within a half second reporting accurately. Variable loads also gave good information, up to this point I was already sold that this was a solid device. The app is just about perfect, gives you Amp and Watt usage which is nice for quick math and efficiency conversion. I also really like that the battery stats show when your load is pulling from solar only or from battery, very clever and easy to read. Pros: Super easy to install, Plug and Play Easy to configure easy AND expert settings Complete customization of battery settings and a good number of presets Was able to configure exact settings for my 12.8v LiFePO4 battery! Feels solid and I have no doubt that it will last in harsh environments Easy to mount, Good size fits just about anywhere Easily control load on/off depending on solar input Cons: Cant find any yet but here are some things to note Mine defaulted to 24v, easy change to 12, maybe sensitive batteries and large systems might have connection issues Would be nice to have a day timer for on/off functions as well as solar input but this is being super picky If you are looking for a good MPPT Solar Charge Controller, feature rich and don't mind using your phone and Bluetooth to configure, this is the one you want. Can't comment on longevity thus far but I have no doubts this will last! Will update if anything changes...

Solar energy is a great way to have back-up power for your home or for your RV. Solar isn't super complicated, but there are a lot of things you need to know to make the best purchases. Solar charges (like the Victron) come in both PWM and MPPT. PWM are significantly less expensive, but may fit your needs. MPPT is a better option, and this very affordable Victron unit is a fantastic entry-level charge controller. It's 75/15 name refers to the maximum volts it will accept/use from your solar array, and the 15 amps it can accept/use. The Victron Smart Solar 75/15 can handle up to 300 watts of solar panels wired in series or parallel. In series, that's about 68 volts max, well within tolerances, or 16.5 amps max which will be capped at 15 amps. Truth is, except for perfect sun and panel angle, you're not likely to hit the 16.5 amps. Still, that's not bad! A great part of the Victron 75/15 design is that it has bluetooth built in, so don't need to shell out extra for a dongle. Note: if you want this, look for the "Smart Solar," if it doesn't say this, you'll need a dongle. The size of this unit is just excellent; I bought it for my DIY powerstation. It works great, giving me nearly the full 100 watts from my Renogy solar panels under ideal conditions. For the money (about $65 at the time of purchase) it's simple enough for the beginners, or strong enough to manage a modest RV. Cons: It uses small, flat-head screws, so you'll need a small "pocket" screwdriver to make the connections. The input for the wires is pretty small. I had a ferrule kit, so I was able to insert 12 AWG with no trouble. I don't know how you'd easily get 10 AWG (somewhat standard for solar) but what I had worked and I'm happy.

I purchased a couple 100W Renogy panels for our travel trailer as dry camping opens up a lot of sites for us and I don’t like firing up the generator unless I have to. The panels are deployed on folding stands which is really the only way to get them in the sun in the wooded campgrounds we frequent. I used them the first weekend with the PWM controller that came with the kit. It blinked nicely at me, but even with a voltmeter added to our control panel inside the camper there wasn't really a way to see what was going on. I started looking at adding monitors with shunts, but things start getting rather involved for my particular setup. At home in the off-season the camper is covered and plugged into shore power to keep the batteries up. I realized a few things. First, I’m paying for electricity to charge the batteries when I have two solar panels in a box. Second, the on-board inverter/charger is OK for maintaining batteries, but really lacks the ability to keep them at a full charge as they hover around 13.4-13.6 volts regardless of battery condition and with no temperature compensation. Third, to charge the batteries requires the battery kill switch to be on, meaning I’m also powering gas and carbon monoxide detectors and who knows what other parasitic loads in the camper. Not a monetary issue but things without power on them can’t cause unforeseen issues. I had originally fallen prey to the argument that you’re better off buying another panel vs. paying for an MPPT controller. That works on paper but I realized that I’ll set out 2 panels, but I will never set out 3 or 4. That meant the Victron SmartSolar 75/15 would work nicely and the cost was within my threshold of pain. The need for a separate monitor was also negated. Installation was easy as I was just replacing the PWM controller. My setup is a couple of group 24 lead acid deep cycle batteries with around 160ah. Power is brought into the storage bay of my travel trailer with 4/0 wiring where it splits off to a 3000/6000 pure sine inverter. The Victron is wired into the 4/0 cables which are only about 18” away with 10 gauge cabling. The Zamp plug that came with the camper was replaced with a 10 gauge wire unit, and the 20’ of Renogy cable going to the panels is 10 gauge. The storage bay isn’t heated so it’s within a few degrees of the batteries which are on the tongue. After doing an update the unit automatically selected 12v and the default charge setting was for deep cycle gel batteries. I was initially a little worried that there wasn’t a specific setting for lead acid batteries but the parameters of this option are apparently fine from what I can gather. Equalization is off by default. After installation I zipped the camper cover back up all I have to do now is walk by and log in to see what’s going on, no need to unzip/unlock or interrupt my nap when we’re actually camping to check our state of charge. The attached screenshots were for the first few days. I’m only using one 100W panel as I felt this would be sufficient. The battery bank was at 90% charge the first day (see handy chart) and I was pleased to see that it got fully charged but concerned that my 100W panel was only putting out 35W in full sun. A 100W panel is going to max out somewhere around 70W in the northern hemisphere on the best day in the summer and this was in January, the lowest amount of available solar energy (insolation) of the year. The following days were even worse until I understood that Pmax isn’t your panel’s peak wattage, it’s the peak that the controller will draw from the panel as it manipulates current and voltage to get what it wants. You’re not going to see a Pmax that resembles the published output of your panels unless you have a big load on them (or drained batteries) and maybe not then. This is a layman’s explanation, but if it keeps you from thinking you have a bad panel or connection it’s worth the keystrokes. Of the following three January days the first was sunny, the next was cloudy and the next was rain. The Victron doesn’t care, it still pulled plenty of voltage out of the panel and quickly went into float. It’s like a honey badger. Perhaps more interesting will be what happens when a live load is applied (such as when we’re actually camping and using power). Toggling the electric tongue jack gets an immediate response from the controller as it ramps up to offset what you’re using, then it goes back to putting the battery back to the state of charge that it wants. Comparisons between PWM and MPPT controllers are made in somewhat of a vacuum, you can spend hours reading them. In the real world of RV use the MPPT probably offers more advantages than published. On cloudy and rainy days MPPT wins, but though it’s hard to quantify it also wins when you have partial sun exposure due to your location. I love wooded/private campsites. Most examples use a sunny day with no loads and the PWM can do what the MPPT does, it just takes longer. Let’s say I’m fully charged by noon and at 4pm I decide to take a shower (water pump, exhaust fan, lights). Which one will have a chance of recovering the batteries given the limited amount of remaining daylight? Exactly.

I have a small, off-grid solar system for my shed to run lighting and a ventilation fan. It has two 50W panels connected in series, two 10 amp-hour 12V LiFePo4 batteries, and this charge controller. I had previously used a competitor's simple PWM controller but wanted to upgrade to MPPT for greater efficiency and to take advantage of having installed two panels rather than the single 50W panel I had earlier. This controller had ~50% higher voltage and current handling capability than the PWM controller. Pros: - MPPT allows for greater efficiency and using panels in series for higher voltage (~40V nominal in my case). - Very simple setup. - Supports LiFePo4 batteries. - Terminals are large and easy to connect wires to. (Tip: crimp ferrules onto stranded wires rather than trying to insert bare stranded wire. Ferrules help the wires stay together and make a better connection than bare wires.) - Built-in Bluetooth support that connects to Victron's excellent app that makes setup and configuration a breeze. - The Bluetooth data module will log data for at least several weeks and you can view it using the app. - Built in charging profiles for a variety of common batteries, such as flooded, AGM, and gel lead-acid batteries, and LiFePo4 batteries. - Lots of little additional options, like being able to enter custom profiles for batteries, limiting the boost voltage to 14.4V rather than 14.6V, setting a "tail current" to switch from absorption to float modes based on charging current rather than time, customizable float voltage, etc. gives the user a high degree of flexibility. One can also limit the charging current to below the maximum rated value if desired. - It's trivial to connect to a Cerbo GX or a Raspberry Pi running Victron's Venus OS to send data to Victron's free VRM service for remote monitoring, graphing, and allow for remote monitoring. - The user can set a PIN code to prevent unauthorized users from connecting via Bluetooth. - With the latest firmware update, certain settings can be locked and prevent even authorized users from making changes that might cause damage or be otherwise problematic without additional authorization. (This owner retains full control, and can unlock those settings so they can be changed if desired.) - Replaceable standard automotive ATM fuse offers overload and short circuit protection. - Extremely well-written, comprehensive manual and online resources are available. English-speaking staff can answer questions if asked. Active user forum for support from and discussion with other users. - Robustly made, feels hefty to the hand. - Easily mounted with screws. - No discernible RF noise from the controller. I'm a ham radio operator and my radios are sensitive to RF noise in the area, but the controller produced no noticeable noise. Cons: - No on-device display or buttons. It has colored LEDs that are either on steady or blink to indicate its charging mode (these are described on the face of the controller and in the manual), but has no LCD screen to show solar/battery voltages, currents, or other information. All configuration must be done via the app. - No built-in shunt to monitor state of charge for the battery. An external SmartShunt can be purchased at additional cost (more than the cost of the controller, in fact) to provide state-of-charge data for the battery and send that information to the app via Bluetooth or to the VRM service. The controller monitors voltage and current, but not state of charge. - The on-device data logging takes place in the Bluetooth module, not the controller itself. When you connect the controller to VRM via a Cerbo GX or Raspberry Pi running Venus, logging data is sent to the VRM service and can be plotted there or downloaded for offline analysis, but the smallest time interval on VRM is 1 minute. The Bluetooth module logs data at 1 second intervals. You can use the app to connect, via VRM, to the device and view the 1-second-interval data trends, but you can only see that short-interval data starting when you connect (you can't see historic 1-second-interval data if you're not connected by Bluetooth). In short, this is an excellent controller. Having built-in Bluetooth is very help and does not require any external module. It is easily connected to a monitoring device (not included) that can send data to Victron's VRM service and allow for remote monitoring and control via WiFi or cellular connections using that device (for clarity, the controller itself only supports Bluetooth and has a port for a data cable, but does not have built-in WiFi or cellular capabilities). It offers a huge amount of value for money, and I strongly recommend it.

This controller is amazing. it's changed so much on what have done with my solar setup. First, it's extremely versatile handing both 12V and 24V panels. it handles lead-acid, gel, and LiFePo batteries efficiently. The bluetooth gives me direct insights into what's going on with the controller.. what it's taking in, what it's sending out. I get clear insights into the charging phase and allows me to know where my battery is at in the charging process. the street light process (and load circuits) has allowed me to put in LED lights that shine on my gate after dark and shut off during the day (based on the solar input thresholds you set). The only slight negative is that you have to be within about 10' of the unit to get bluetooth to connect. it's a little weak, but that's a small price to pay for such an overall amazing unit. Overall, the unit is very well designed, super easy instructions, and mostly intuitive setup. Strong improvement from any other 'dumb' controllers you may have.

I purchased a pair of 100 watt panels and the Victron 75/10 charge controller. They are installed on my work truck to charge a 100AH battery that is connected to a 3KW sine inverter. I got the new upgrades installed on Feb 20th and within a week I had already reached the 10 amp peak output from the controller and still had more output available from my panels. I didn't even know about the 75/15 at the time and especially that it was only about $10 more. If I had known I would have just gotten the 75/15 from the start. It was easy to swap out and setup since I had just done the same thing a week ago. The Bluetooth output has about the same range, limited to about 30 feet and my system is in a metal box which limits it even more. Sure would be nice if it had a longer range. My Victron Energy Smart Battery Sense bluetooth range is much better. The 75/15 charge controller so far has worked nearly flawlessly. Minor idiosyncrasies have been noticed but nothing to really complain about. The controller reassess the power point about every 10 minutes. You can notice it in a steady sunshine condition when it all of a sudden searches the power point. It shows up in the Trend graph also as a small downward spike in the power output of the panels. I haven't maxed out the controller with my 200 watts of panels yet. But I've gotten a peak of 189 watts from them in March with the sun still lower in the sky with summer still far away when the sun will be high in the sky and be much more in orientation of the panels that are basically laid flat and parallel to the ground on the top of my work truck boxes. The recorded information is very nice. You can go back a couple days or up to a month to look at what the system was doing. I do however notice that the Power Graph of the panel watts does short you of peaks. Today I had the 189 watt peak which did show up when I looked at the Trend charge within minutes of it happening. But after the day was over I went back and the peak output was only 157 watts which is a little disappointing and one of the quirks I had spoken of. The History for the day shows that the peak was 186 watts which is much closer to the 189 watts I observed on the screen. Really wanted to see 190 watts but just after that peak the clouds came in and the output was about 50 watts the rest of the day. All in all it is a fine charge controller and I would likely stay within the system if I was to put something more permanent elsewhere than my truck.

So far so good. This is actually better than the larger 100 W and 30 amp unit. This smaller unit came with Bluetooth enabled communication to the app. Look how cool I attached a picture a screenshot from my app that’s pretty amazing !!! Saddly The larger 100watt/30amp BlueSolar charge controller I ordered for this F-450 bus off grid system failed (and does not have Bluetooth, they wanted me to buy a connector to trouble shoot, I just sent it back instead. But this smaller unit is awesome!. I only have 1 solar panel (265 watt) run to 2 batteries. I’m sending that one back, but I also bought 2 smaller charge controllers for emergencies. I hooked up the 75 watt / 15amp BlueSolar MPPT charge controller…. And so far so good. Showing solid Blue for “bulk charging” to my 2 deep cycle 12 volt batteries (in parallel to maintain a 12v system). Utah sun is shining, we will see how this goes. Crossing my fingers. Easy install. The 10 gauge wires BARELY fit in these smaller slots in this 75/15 unit. But there is a “load port” the larger unit does not have. Just in case I ever wanna run a little LED light straight off the charge controller one day I could always do that.. Update 2 days later. Going strong! FLOAT MODE. This is amazing, I love the Bluetooth app- it tells me my exact stats, charging power, battery level, . This 75W / 15Amp charge controller is plenty strong for my single 265 watt solar panel. This size works better than the big expensive bluesolar 100/30. That one didn’t even have the Bluetooth. This is so cool. Very happy with it. Adding more pics

Provato quasi tutte le funzioni del Victron e devo dire che funziona tutto alla perfezione. Il collegamento wifi e l'app sono semplicissime da utilizzare e abbastanza complete anche in termini di statistiche. Il prodotto sembra robusto fatto di buoni materiali. La morsettiera e' vermente fatta bene e ben dimensionata per il mio 15A. Le impostazioni del caricatore, tutte impostabili con app in wifi, sono veramete elementari, il voltaggio della batteria la riconosce automaticamente e per ciascuna tipologia e' tutto preimpostato ma se si vuole si possono cambiare i parametri. E' un MPPT al 100%, infatti aggiusta la potenza assorbita in funziona di quella massima disponibile. La corrente erogata a carico da servire (load + batteria) e' maggiore di quella in ingresso da FV ed a tensione inferiore (12 o 24v) come deve essere per un Buck converter. La gestione del carico funziona bene sia in termini di programmazione sia in termini di gestione della potenza. Provato varie situazioni (ad esempio Potenza FV > e < di quella richiesta da carico e dal caricabatteria etc). Funziona veramente bene, come un orologio, un prodotto semplice ma professionale che non crea sorprese. Ho letto di molti MPPT che si comportano in modo strano nella gestione del carico. Ad esempio ho letto di caricatori che non gestiscono correttamente attivazione/disattivazione carico a seguito transizione giorno notte, notte giorno e giorno notte (hai detto niente!!! da buttare) o altre situazioni strane. Non ha ventola e quindi e' silenziosissimo ed io non sono riuscito a farlo scaldare fino a 80W assorbiti. Il prodotto e' eccellente ma ha un lato negativo, il costo che non e' proprio economico soprattutto per correnti da 20a in su. Comunque se non volete problemi e non volete andare a caccia di problemi ve lo consiglio vivamente, io non mi addentrerei in caricatori MPPT da 100A che costano pochissimo, anzi, ve li regalano addirittura, il perche' lo scoprereste certamente in seguito.

Best mppt & communication for raspberry Pi

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does the job buy again.

Great solar mppt