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Cheep Midnite classic 250 from eBay not what is advertized as

Guda

Superstrut Strut
Joined
Nov 19, 2019
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This says its a "lite". But it's some random unit made for a 3rd party with their specks that went outta biz. So I bought it before I learned all that. LINK
The price is right,but will it work for me? I have this cic powerbox (hate it) that has lead acid. I wan to Slowly add pv as I can afford & then switch to a 48v Tesla battery pack setup.
 
It should handle 3000ish watts into a 48ish volt bank. So, if that will work for you, it should.
 
I like a display integrated but, if you are using pc or other computer interface anyway, no big deal to do it that way. The whizbang and local app are sweet. Love that dashboard.
 
What does all this translate into?

Disabled Arc Fault Protection

• Buck Only MPPT

Buck? Bulk probably huh?
 
This only does not have a few functions it will work fine as a stand alone SCC. The thing I dont like is not having the Aux inputs I use both of them but they are not necessary for charging batteries. If you only have one SCC follow me is also not needed.
 
This says its a "lite". But it's some random unit made for a 3rd party with their specks that went outta biz. So I bought it before I learned all that. LINK
The price is right,but will it work for me? I have this cic powerbox (hate it) that has lead acid. I wan to Slowly add pv as I can afford & then switch to a 48v Tesla battery pack setup.
Out of curiosity what did you pay for the Lite edition?
 
The units I observed on Ebay were specificly identified as coming from a third-party, and not the regular Midnight product. My understanding was that they were a custom order for a large solar installation out in the Arizona desert, that went bankrupt, and the assets sold off. It does not have some of the standard features like Arc-fault because of the custom buyer's requirements. My understanding is that the company Midnight will not honor the warranty of these non-spec units, but they should function normally, but without the advanced features of the standard unit.
 
Out of curiosity what did you pay for the Lite edition?
$450.

@MichaelK thats exactly what I found. After I had ordered... I looked into "lite"& it was okay. Posted that in my thread on Midnite's forum & that showed up. I should be okay with it. Just using lead acid right now. Not sure if it will work with my model x battery upgrade at some point.
 
It will work fine It just won't take durect input from a BMS and it won't controll an external relay either. The aux 1 and aux 2 I/O ports are handy but not necessarily necessary
 
I had solar & wind. My wind was on a Midnite classic 150 & I was about to add a classic 250 & switch over my solar. They are nice units. In the long run this unit might run my wind.

Next I'm pv shopping. Have to drive to Portland to get the good deal on pv. 8 hours of driving...
 
I just bought a similar unit on eBay (from a different seller as Guda bought his):


Technically it's not a 'lite' because that is the Midnite Classic 250-SL which is simplified version for SOLAR ONLY model...

What we are dealing with on these is a 'Special Version', which is still Midnite Classic 250 (supports PV solar, wind, hydro, other DC inputs), but they deleted a few key features (as was mentioned before).

Mine has the following features deleted:
-AUX1 and AUX2
-Follow Me
-Speaker
-Arc Detection

I did know these features would not be present, as they were stated so in my item description on the eBay auction, I just don't need these features, and the price was decent.

I am going to use it for a bunch of lab experiments (due to its vast flexibility and configurability), to try and determine what I best want to use it for. So far the possibilities include:
- 48v battery >12v battery charger
- Prius 207.2v battery > 48v battery charger
- Portable wheel cart solar/battery to battery charger
- Wind generator to battery charger
- Gravity hydro tank storage transfer to battery charger
- Etc

It just arrived by FedEx today, it does look to be in new condition:
1608154646003.png
 
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Sadly, without a Follow Me module in these, you cannot interlink with a full Classic and gain the functionality & capability or pairing the SCC's. If you are only going to use ONE SCC these are fine. Arc Fault can be handled externally so it's not a show stopper either. It's a bummer as I have a full Classic-200 and could link another one up and at that price I'd likely jump at the possibility and setup a "supplemental winter array".
 
Sadly, without a Follow Me module in these, you cannot interlink with a full Classic and gain the functionality & capability or pairing the SCC's. If you are only going to use ONE SCC these are fine. Arc Fault can be handled externally so it's not a show stopper either. It's a bummer as I have a full Classic-200 and could link another one up and at that price I'd likely jump at the possibility and setup a "supplemental winter array".

Yeah, under theoretical pretenses I decided that I didn't need or require the clustering ability of Follow Me, hopefully in a year down the road I'm not wishing I had got one with it hehe...

I mainly was looking for a 48v to 12v battery charger but can't find anything aside from industrial application for buku bucks, or simple converters which are only good for single stage to float a battery up slowly... I wanted a full-blown multi-stage battery charger output.

And the Midnite Classic was the closest thing I could find which could offer the flexibility on the MPPT input configuration to possibly be able to integrate into all my hack-level testing projects... And even if I can't get it to work good enough as an effective 48v > 12v charger, I have plenty of other potential applications I could use this for...
 
Yeah, under theoretical pretenses I decided that I didn't need or require the clustering ability of Follow Me, hopefully in a year down the road I'm not wishing I had got one with it hehe...

I mainly was looking for a 48v to 12v battery charger but can't find anything aside from industrial application for buku bucks, or simple converters which are only good for single stage to float a battery up slowly... I wanted a full-blown multi-stage battery charger output.

And the Midnite Classic was the closest thing I could find which could offer the flexibility on the MPPT input configuration to possibly be able to integrate into all my hack-level testing projects... And even if I can't get it to work good enough as an effective 48v > 12v charger, I have plenty of other potential applications I could use this for...
Works great for me!
 
I've got 3 of the limited SL versions, @Steve_S you can parallel charge controllers even without the follow me functionality by setting each charge controllers voltage settings exactly the same. You lose a few watts but not enough to make much difference. You don't even need to have the same brand of SCCs paralleled - as long as they're all set the same.

I researched the snot out of this before I bought the SL Classic 250s just to make sure.

Alt E Store has a few videos and demonstrations of this, here's one
 
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