Victron V other brands

[bds70]

Victron seem to be a giant in this world, but there are others.

Does anyone have any views regarding MPPT that would be as good or better than a victron 150/100 smart solar MPPT.

Do other brands have repair ability or R they all like victron and seal the units in such a way as to make them totally unrepairable?

What about Epever?

 

[Brucey]

Victron seem to be a giant in this world, but there are others.

Does anyone have any views regarding MPPT that would be as good or better than a victron 150/100 smart solar MPPT.

Do other brands have repair ability or R they all like victron and seal the units in such a way as to make them totally unrepairable?

What about Epever?

Some can be repaired, Midnite Classics for example. Midnite hawkes bay and barcelona 600V. Probably also the rs450 series in metal cases.

But hard to beat a 150/100 or 250/100 with 5 year warranty, make sure you buy it from a dealer that has a great reputation for support like current connected.

 

[chrisski]

IME as an electronics technician from 30 years ago, modern stuff is not repairable to the component level, just the board level at best, but most likely the whole unit.

A lot of the boards require micro soldering that I can’t do.

I’ve seen some schematics for some electronic devices, not solar, that users have created themselves.

Some tier 1 equipment is repairable, but that equipment is pricey and parts for it can be pricey. My Outback Radian inverter has three modules that can be replaced which is the entire internals, each at a nearly cost of a new inverter. The Outback MPPT has a couple of minor components that can be replaced like the fan and AFCI board, but not the main internals.

The Outback stuff looks repairable to me, but schematics are proprietary and not for the general public, so any trouble shooting would rely on a great deal of electronics theory and guesswork, which can have bad consequences if it goes wrong.

 

[740GLE]

I’d say Midnight would be my next brand I’d look at.

Those classics are mighty nice, just not cheap.

I have too much other victron gear that if my SCC goes south, I’d just buy another.

When your 150/100 was running, did you notice hot temps? How often was it sitting near 100a charging?

I wonder if you throttled back charging to 80a it’d run a little cooler and last longer.

 

[Brucey]

I’d say Midnight would be my next brand I’d look at.

Those classics are mighty nice, just not cheap.

I have too much other victron gear that if my SCC goes south, I’d just buy another.

When your 150/100 was running, did you notice hot temps? How often was it sitting near 100a charging?

I wonder if you throttled back charging to 80a it’d run a little cooler and last longer.

He did get 9 years of service out of it so not too shabby. Shame he didnt pay the 10% to get the extra 5 years of warranty coverage. Good news is they are significantly cheaper than they used to be as well.

 

[bds70]

Some can be repaired, Midnite Classics for example. Midnite hawkes bay and barcelona 600V. Probably also the rs450 series in metal cases.

But hard to beat a 150/100 or 250/100 with 5 year warranty, make sure you buy it from a dealer that has a great reputation for support like current connected.

The dealer I got all my stuff through is the biggest in the country (Australia) I believe. Many other dealers send their warranty stuff to them. But having now discovered, in order to open the case you have to half destroy the unit, I can see why they say, "duh if U have done the troubleshooting on the web site, then it's probably cactus, buy a new one"

I have never been in favour of things that an owner can not repair, tinker with, even break if they wish. I look upon it as the worst type of corporate consumerism. Probably why I have a 25 yr old Honda CRV, runs like a dream, do all the mechanicals myself. If I break something I get a replacement part and off to go again.

5 yr warranty? I personally do not think that's a long time. 20yrs should b the standard when your talking major energy systems designed to remove ones reliance on fossil fuels power.

I’d say Midnight would be my next brand I’d look at.

Those classics are mighty nice, just not cheap.

I have too much other victron gear that if my SCC goes south, I’d just buy another.

When your 150/100 was running, did you notice hot temps? How often was it sitting near 100a charging?

I wonder if you throttled back charging to 80a it’d run a little cooler and last longer.

The max the panels can produce according to the calcs is 82.76A. and that's under perfect conditions that are never met in the real world. No it never got hot.

I have 2 MPPT & 2 multiplus (don't ask) the 2 chargers together charge a 4 battery in parallel 12v 280A/H battery bank. So neither are really working that hard.

Personally I am beginning to think, like many other consumer items there is a time redundancy built into these units, so they do fail at a certain point. Not precise of course but no longer built to last.

I was not offered any warranty extension when I bought nearly 4k of equipment. Not sure if that's because it is not available in Australia or because they don't like to offer that to customers.

 

[Q-Dog]

Can you get Morningstar there?

 

[Glock24]

Morningstar seem to be built to last bit it is very expensive.

I bought my Morningstar MPPT controllers used for like 1/3 of full price and they had very little use.