In my experience, it certainly is not Outback. 5 months ago, my FM80 display died and I have never received a tech support explanation or reason and after much hassle I did get the one year old FM80 replaced but it took so long, that in the meantime, my system was down and so I decided to instead purchase a Victron MPPT 150|85 at nearly double the price. Even Outback's user forums were not much help and no one could say for sure what caused this recurring problem with Outback FM80 charge controllers. I also seem to have been a lucky one to get mine replaced by Outback, though at a considerable hassle. From my very poor experience and the very poor tech support and very poor communication from Outback, I personally will forever stay away from their products.
I also prefer how the Victron Solar Charge Controller works than that of the Outback FM80. The series of soft button pushes of the Outback to change settings was enough to drive me mad and so prevented me from even wanting to use it for changing or fine tuning settings. The very poor and nearly non-existent information provided by Outback Tech Support or it's forum, also makes it very difficult to create custom user settings and to know the why and they are nearly mute on how to use them with LiFePO4 batteries, which for beginners, is frustrating as hell.
Maybe these items are now just disposable or to be recycled vs. repaired and that only highly experienced licensed solar technicians should be installing any components vs. DIY'ers? In my experience, the solar industry is constantly shooting itself in the foot with pretty horrible or non-existent tech support and information and much of it is falling behind tech advancements.
Will and others in this forum are of more help than most manufacturers, other than for perhaps the basics, where too much helpers take short cuts and use unknown abbreviations to explain the mundane. Thankfully there is a search function.
