Victron, smart solar charge controller with built-in
Victron, smart solar charge controller with built-in Bluetooth 75/10 75/15 100/15 100/2
| Dimensions: | 21 x 15 x 5 cm; 540 Grams |
| Model: | MPPT 100|20 |
| Manufacture: | Victron Energy |
| Department: | Unisex |
| Dimensions: | 21 x 15 x 5 cm; 540 Grams |
j’installe rgulirement ce boitier pour mes clients, il est vraiment trs robuste, facile d’installation mme pour les novices. bien suivre les prconisation de montage Victron.
connection via le Bluetooth je pensais tre un gadget mais cette fonction est vraiment spectaculaire et trs pratique.
je recommande vivement les produit Victron pour la fiabilit et l’innovatio
Rairah
This Victron MPPT charger is now my second one. Victron Solar products are excellent, well made and functional. This 100/20 charger has been installed on my small 3 x 100W array. It is working fantastically. Installation and setup is a breeze – the free phone app makes monitoring the Solar input (watts) and voltages of your array and battery easy to understand and monitor. There are a ton of charging profiles already stored in the controller covering pretty much every battery you could wish to charger from SLA, AGM to LIFEPO4. The controller is monitored via Bluetooth – this is where Victron let themselves down slightly, the Bluetooth range is very poor, i loose connection in the next room and my house is a new build so doesn’t even have thick stone/brick walls. There is also no remote monitoring without purchasing an additional 300 module. The Bluetooth module in the MPPT controller also does not work with Windows PC’s, it will work fine with MAC OS. Victron publicly stated over 2 years ago they were working on a Bluetooth compatibility fix for this, but as of today it is still not compatible with windows PC’s. The only option for us windows users is to purchase a Victron USB cable and tether to the controller via a wire, which is impracticable for most people. Hopefully one day windows bluetooth compatibility will come, then this product will truly be worthy of 5 stars!
I hope that you found my review helpful.
Great product easy to install. App to setup controller
Perfect top quality
Recommend for off grid DIY
There’s a few names that you can just trust, products that you know are going to be top quality just because of the name written on the case. Victron is one of those brands.
Excellent product. Keeps batteries at maximum charge. Great software to track charge and discharge. Drawback of software only records 30 days so must download regulary to keep record. Beware of the amperage limitations.
The unit arrived on time and undamaged, it was a few days before I could install it, as I had to wait for the Solar Panel to arrive. Once installed it appeared to be working correctly, but I was having an issue with a distinct lack of watts from the Solar Panel, and sometimes the wattage was fluctuating wildly, however this was my lack of understanding on how exactly these MPPT Controllers work, I assumed the Solar Reading was the power coming from the Panel, however it’s the Wattage that the Controller it actually making use of, it would be nice if they could include a feature that shows the actual Wattage being produced by the panel. Now I have educated myself, the Charge Controller is an excellent piece of kit, and as I expand my system, I WILL be using Victron again 🙂
Great solar unit and very useful Bluetooth connection to smartphone app.
Power connections are a bit small, but OK if you use correct size wire.
I bought this to accompany a 100ah lithium battery to serve as a portable power solution for camping and it’s fantastic. I love that it’s half the size of the Epever MPPT that I have. I love the bluetooth and the app. I love the fact that it can handle panel combinations of any voltage. I have it hooked up to two 18v 150w panels but I will soon replace these with one 375w 40v panel, (the type that does on a house roof).
I wanted the 100/30 but it’s another 60 and crucially, the 100/20 has LOAD terminals. I have the USB and cigarette lighter outputs wired to this, fused to 15A. Within the Victron app, you can set up Low Voltage Disconnect parameters to protect your battery. If you buy the 100/30, you must also buy the Victron Protect 65a unit at a further 40.
When we aren’t camping, the battery box lives in a box room, connected to two 150w 18v panels on a shed. Phones, tablets, laptops and my DeWalt 18v charger all get their power from here.
In this application, the 100/20 allows much simplified wiring inside the box. Even the battery cables are only 12awg cable as I can’t see my ever needing an inverter pulling more than 20A at 12v.
In short, I’m delighted with it.
For anyone who wants to know, I have the 100ah battery from Eco-worthy and a Tactix toolbox from Wickes, (an excellent box at a ludicrously cheap price of 17). The battery fits like a glove. I have a single Powerpole 30a panel mount on the box, to make it easy to plug the solar panels in and out.
Controlling a 150W solar panel stuck to roof of camper van. The BT/app working well so can see whats going on. The load output is not much use in a ready wired up camper van with hook up mains charger as well. Though you could re-wire and fit a solenoid switch to protect battery discharge to <50% when off grid. Time will tell if its reliable and keeps battery healthy. There was limited details on different battery types such as AGM / EFB etc. Also using battery monitor. The temperature can vary somewhat from battery under seat and where controller is. The voltage drop on cable appears to be just .04v. Pricing varied greatly from place to place so looked like got decent cost on Amazon. Hoping for some off grid use (12v Fridge mainly) during summer at least. Using 100Ah EFB battery. because mains charger has no option for AGM (Another 150 or so for suitable Victron Mains charger) The vans alternator is another potential charging source when moving but probably not AGM. Install was easy as fitting replacement along with new solar panal.
Bought to replace PWM controller supplied with folding 200 watt solar blanket. What can I say… Believe the hype. MPPT really does squeeze the best out of the sun. Generally getting as much as 30% more energy to charge my lithium iron battery and power my Engel Fridge plus run occasionally a 2000w Renogy invertor. Would add, get one of victrons Smart batter monitors as lithium quite picky about how it is charged Temp etc, and it sorts it out. Fault?? Should bought a bigger version.
Brilliant mppt performance, the Bluetooth functionality is clunky and needs work, mainly the software which is awkward to connect to as well as not having any offline functionality like historical records.
Really easy to setup. The bluetooth app makes setting up the unit a breeze. Seems to just work once it is setup as long as you keep it within the manufacturers temperature spec. The wide input ranges makes it easy to match to most solar systems and the 12v, 24v or 48v output makes it easy in integrate into lots of different situations.
Quality product, excellent value for money, great versatility and user configurable to suit numerous application. Have legacy units been running over 5 years. Onboard Bluetooth is great improvement over former dongle requirement. Use with single domestic high watt panel on camper vans,12 and 24v formats on lead and gel deep cycles. This 48v version using on 2 panel with standard Pylon batteries in small scale domestic off grid for load splitting. Brilliant device well worth the money.
My old unit broke so I got this and it’s great for monitoring the state of battery charge via Bluetooth, and the history log is brilliant if it’s been left for a few days
It allows you to select from a number of battery types, or a user setting where you specify the individual charge settings. Voltage measurement is accurate.
It does not have a display, just a few leds to indicate the charge process: bulk, absorption or float. Further detail can be found in the app, which gives detailed info, including historic values.
There are two features I particularly like:
1. When using solar on a motorhome like I do, there will be extended periods where the van isn’t used, so the batteries will be fully charged. Most controllers, however, will still go through the normal 3 stage charge cycle every day, pushing unneeded current in to the detriment of the battery. The Victron has an option where it checks the voltage of the battery at the beginning of the day. If it is high enough it takes it as the battery being fully charged, and reduces the time spent in the absorption part of the charge cycle.
2. Most controllers, once entered into float, will stay there no matter how much charge you take out subsequently, thus not using the full capacity of the solar panels to replace the used charge. The Victron can be set to restart the charge cycle if needed (when you have used enough to drop to a certain Voltage).
So, overall very happy with the product.
Easy to install and use with a very informative bluetooth ap, I can even see the state of charge of my van’s leisure battery from in my house whilst it’s parked outside on the drive.
Whilst wild camping in the van my battery has been fully charged everyday even when it’s cloudy.
Started working straight away and by watching various YouTube videos I was advised to request the charge voltages settings from the batteries supplier.
Well recommended .
I have been using one of these to run my garage on solar as an experiment. They are expensive but they are just perfect. You can remotely monitor you charge and discharge. It seems to manage the battery well with the 3 stages it offers. Brilliant piece of kit. Planning to expand the setup to other parts of my house, for all the non critical applications. Phone, tablet and laptop charging, running my 3d printers raspberry pi etc
I purchased the Smart Shunt, B2B, solar and EHU chargers from Victron and it’s all guess work setting this lot up. For the money you pay, there should be the best customer service out there.
The Bluetooth works from around 2m or closer.
If you’ve stumbled across this you probably already know what you’re looking at. I already had a cheaper controller installed which had caused battery issues. The use of the app makes it more controllable. So far oerforming ok.
I bought this to controller to run the two additional 110W panels I fitted on our motorhome. Easy to install, and the control software via bluetooth is simple to use. Happy.
Excellent build quality. The bluetooth app is good, even allows exporting data. I really only use it to check once on a while function, so definitely does the trick.
Terminals are decent and the heat sink has a good size. I use with 200W 12V panels and barely gets warm.
I bought two of these controllers for a dual solar installation on a boat. both controllers are working very well and the Bluetooth and app are great for checking yield. Really impressed, installed for about six weeks so far.
The app works brilliantly, gives you tons of info..
I found that my having 2 extra 25a fuses on both + and – of battery terminals caused issues with voltage readings, it caused the controller to see 13.90v when the battery was actually at just 13.60v, which stopped it charging at just 70% full. Would have no real way of knowing that was happening without the app or a detailed display.
I have also found that sticking my 60v solar output down two cat-5 cables each 40m long does not give you as much loss as you might think..
On an overcast day I am getting around 60w, and a sunny day around 250w.
Relocating the battery and controller to the site of the solar panel I am getting 61w, and 265w.
So I’m losing around 1% overcast, and 6-7% sunny, the cables don’t create any detectable heat at all.
And usually on sunny days there is more energy than I could store anyways.
So very pleased with this controller, very efficient, nice high voltage input rating, 20a output means I can even run small inverters through it to keep tabs on battery usage.
Poking around the web and on Amazon, I came across these Victron SmartSolar MPPT charge controllers which use a different battery monitoring and charge process to manage the battery charging and can get up to 30% more into the battery than a standard PWM (Sunix) controller can.
Also this particular model has built in bluetooth to connect to the Android/IOS app which is great. I also purchased the Victron ve. Direct cable so that I could connect this to a computer and monitor remotely by connecting back to the computer.
I can confirm that the bluetooth and the ve. Direct cable can be used at the same time without any issues.
Also note that higher models of this appliance 100/30 and so on have only four connectors like the 6 this has.
The key difference is that this unit can manage load directly where when you move up to larger solar installations, load will be managed by another device like the Battery Protect and/or Victron inverter which will cut load when the battery level drops to a given threshold.
Yes it’s expensive compared to cheaper PWM controllers but I have to say that I’m really, really impressed with this.
I stupidly rushed the swap-out of the Sunix controller and got the Battery and Solar mixed up with no damage to the device 🙂
Bizarrely, the battery polarity is the opposite way round to all the other input/outputs so be careful there…
My only real complaint is that the cable sockets are quite small and it really struggled to get the cables in… (Victron really want you to move up to the larger models).
Overall I’m really happy with this, no major complaints, it’s solid, very well manufactured and very straightforward to set up.