SUNYIMA 40A MPPT Solar Charge Controller with LCD Display

I like this product because of it size small and can do a bigger work. I used this to charge my 7pcs. 12volts batteries to power up my Inverter and like I said it works fine

01/10/2021 – I purchased this and a RICH SOLAR 30 Watt 12 Volt Monocrystalline Photovoltaic Solar Panel (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FN84C9K/) to keep a 12 Volt, 7 Amp-Hour battery charged and to supply power from one of its two USB ports to operate a Wyze V3 camera mounted on a tree outside by a bird feeder; thus making a homebrew solar-powered bird-watching system.

My initial system requirements calculations include the following known parameters:

The Wyze V3 camera consumes 1.575 Watts of power with night vision IR LED turned off and camera power LED off.

MPPT Solar Charge Controller draws 15 mA of current on standby connected to the 12V battery with no external loads.

Total power consumed by the camera and controller is 1.755 Watts.

Based on these measurements, just over 42 Watt-hours of power would be consumed from the battery every 24 hours. Assuming a new battery is in use, a total of 84 Watt-hours of power would be available so the best-case operation time of the camera with no recharging from the solar panel would be two days.

To keep the battery charged would probably require an average of 50 Watt-hours per day from the solar panel due to losses in the battery chemistry when charging and losses in the 50 foot 12 AWG wire (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B077Z28343/) from the solar panel and losses in the SUNYIMA 30A MPPT Solar Charge Controller. That would imply the necessity of at least 1.66 hours of sunlight per day on the average. Because my solar panel location can only see the sun for probably 2 hours per day of direct sunlight and maybe another 2 hours per day of partial sunlight due to tree shading I’m hoping the battery will maintain its charge.

I did notice the SUNYIMA 30A MPPT Solar Charge Controller voltage display was about two-tenths of a volt higher than what my expensive Fluke meter was measuring at the battery but that’s better than 2% accuracy.

I’ll update this review after my system has had some time to operate over varying conditions of solar power output and time in the environment.

UPDATE after two days of operation: We’ve had two days of solid rain and no direct sunlight and the battery voltage has dropped to 11.5V which is still sufficient to operate the Wyze V3 camera since it was installed two days ago. Hopefully the sun will shine again tomorrow and get the battery voltage back up to above 13V. The good thing is even when it is raining and no sunshine there is enough light getting thru the overcast rainy skies to raise the battery voltage about 0.2V during the day and power the camera too.

UPDATE on third day of operation: Well, two days of solid rain with no sunshine allowed the battery voltage to drop below the default 10.8V cutoff value programmed into the SUNYIMA 30A MPPT Solar Charge Controller and the camera stopped receiving power. Today the sun came up with no cloud cover and around 11:34 AM the voltage on the battery reached the factory default programmed value of 12.6V and restored power to the USB port for the camera. The panel was shaded in the early morning by trees in the east so that’s why it took so long for the voltage to rise from the 10.8V cutoff value to the 12.6V power restore value. I’ve added a screen capture of an Excel spreadsheet that I’m using to record voltage values displayed on the charge controller and weather conditions. So far the charge controller is doing what it is advertised to do!

Update 01/16/2021 – Updated Excel spreadsheet image