Victron Energy SmartSolar MPPT 100V 30 amp 12/24-Volt Solar Charge Controller (Bluetooth)

I use this connected to my VENUS Os on a Raspberry Pi. It was a little tricky to set up but it has been running great. With this setup I can access the MPPT controller from my phone anywhere now. I also connected by 2 JK BSM as well so it that can be read from the internet too. Much appreciate Victron making the project Open source. It is a high quality interface. As for the MPPT controller it runs 8 to 10 hrs a day at max output of 15A since I have 400W of panels connected and I rotate them during the day for optimum angle. The unit runs cool and I have had no issues.

I purchased a couple 100W Renogy panels for our travel trailer as dry camping opens up a lot of sites for us and I don’t like firing up the generator unless I have to. The panels are deployed on folding stands which is really the only way to get them in the sun in the wooded campgrounds we frequent. I used them the first weekend with the PWM controller that came with the kit. It blinked nicely at me, but even with a voltmeter added to our control panel inside the camper there wasnt really a way to see what was going on. I started looking at adding monitors with shunts, but things start getting rather involved for my particular setup. At home in the off-season the camper is covered and plugged into shore power to keep the batteries up. I realized a few things. First, I’m paying for electricity to charge the batteries when I have two solar panels in a box. Second, the on-board inverter/charger is OK for maintaining batteries, but really lacks the ability to keep them at a full charge as they hover around 13.4-13.6 volts regardless of battery condition and with no temperature compensation. Third, to charge the batteries requires the battery kill switch to be on, meaning I’m also powering gas and carbon monoxide detectors and who knows what other parasitic loads in the camper. Not a monetary issue but things without power on them can’t cause unforeseen issues. I had originally fallen prey to the argument that you’re better off buying another panel vs. paying for an MPPT controller. That works on paper but I realized that I’ll set out 2 panels, but I will never set out 3 or 4. That meant the Victron SmartSolar 75/15 would work nicely and the cost was within my threshold of pain. The need for a separate monitor was also negated. Installation was easy as I was just replacing the PWM controller. My setup is a couple of group 24 lead acid deep cycle batteries with around 160ah. Power is brought into the storage bay of my travel trailer with 4/0 wiring where it splits off to a 3000/6000 pure sine inverter. The Victron is wired into the 4/0 cables which are only about 18” away with 10 gauge cabling. The Zamp plug that came with the camper was replaced with a 10 gauge wire unit, and the 20’ of Renogy cable going to the panels is 10 gauge. The storage bay isn’t heated so it’s within a few degrees of the batteries which are on the tongue. After doing an update the unit automatically selected 12v and the default charge setting was for deep cycle gel batteries. I was initially a little worried that there wasn’t a specific setting for lead acid batteries but the parameters of this option are apparently fine from what I can gather. Equalization is off by default. After installation I zipped the camper cover back up all I have to do now is walk by and log in to see what’s going on, no need to unzip/unlock or interrupt my nap when we’re actually camping to check our state of charge. The attached screenshots were for the first few days. I’m only using one 100W panel as I felt this would be sufficient. The battery bank was at 90% charge the first day (see handy chart) and I was pleased to see that it got fully charged but concerned that my 100W panel was only putting out 35W in full sun. A 100W panel is going to max out somewhere around 70W in the northern hemisphere on the best day in the summer and this was in January, the lowest amount of available solar energy (insolation) of the year. The following days were even worse until I understood that Pmax isn’t your panel’s peak wattage, it’s the peak that the controller will draw from the panel as it manipulates current and voltage to get what it wants. You’re not going to see a Pmax that resembles the published output of your panels unless you have a big load on them (or drained batteries) and maybe not then. This is a layman’s explanation, but if it keeps you from thinking you have a bad panel or connection it’s worth the keystrokes. Of the following three January days the first was sunny, the next was cloudy and the next was rain. The Victron doesn’t care, it still pulled plenty of voltage out of the panel and quickly went into float. It’s like a honey badger. Perhaps more interesting will be what happens when a live load is applied (such as when we’re actually camping and using power). Toggling the electric tongue jack gets an immediate response from the controller as it ramps up to offset what you’re using, then it goes back to putting the battery back to the state of charge that it wants. Comparisons between PWM and MPPT controllers are made in somewhat of a vacuum, you can spend hours reading them. In the real world of RV use the MPPT probably offers more advantages than published. On cloudy and rainy days MPPT wins, but though it’s hard to quantify it also wins when you have partial sun exposure due to your location. I love wooded/private campsites. Most examples use a sunny day with no loads and the PWM can do what the MPPT does, it just takes longer. Let’s say I’m fully charged by noon and at 4pm I decide to take a shower (water pump, exhaust fan, lights). Which one will have a chance of recovering the batteries given the limited amount of remaining daylight? Exactly.

Liked everything - ish it had a stronger bluetooth signal. Other victron units in same bay work great.

Wish it came with an included readout giving battery state of charge etc.

I bought this for my first solar install-- 600 watts-- on a cargo trailer converted to an RV in spring of 2018. This unit was so painless and easy to configure and use that I purchased a second Victron as part of an identical twin solar setup Ive now installed in my home to power my computer stuff and TV. (Yes, this review was written on solar power.) Its ludicrously easy! My only quibbles-- not enough for me to take off a star-- center around the smartphone app. (In my case its the Apple version.) Its a good, well-organized app overall, but... First, if you have more than one controller in more than one location as I do, you have to close the app entirely between checking them or else the software seems to become confused and wont register the second controller. Also, I wish the smartphone could remember at least the last data it dowloaded, so that I could store the controller data from the trailers array and look at it later. As things are now I have to stand outside in the hot sun and study the arrays past performance, etc on the spot, as its only available while the bluetooth is actually connected. Update-- November 2018. Im still liking these very much, and have upped my home setup to 1200 watts at 24 volts nominal. The Victron controller is handling it fine.

I use this to charge my battery with solar. With the Bluetooth capability. Now I can monitor the status of my second battery.

After purchasing a 26$ controller, which seemed to work okay, I decided to upgrade to a bit more professional controller for my simple solar solution so I could have a better view of what was really happening with my 400 watts of solar panels dumping to 2 marine deep cycle batteries. This unit is everything that I expected and much more. The bluetooth interface is amazing. 26$ will get you a charge controller and most likely it will work but with the bluetooth interface (iPhone, IPad, and Mac) on the Victron, I can watch this one work real time along with built in trending. It keeps track of my power generation daily with bar graphs showing peak Watts and Volts per day along with battery charge max and min. I can see, while writing this, I am currently making 301 watts and have been generating for 3h 43m in bulk mode loading the batteries. For me, that is worth the extra money and 5 stars for Victron for making a product that is easy to use and very stable. NOTE: Make sure you size it right. Many different models to chose from to fit your solar size.

Seems to work fine. I have the SmartSense battery monitor which this uses to get accurate battery voltage and that is really helpful since I have a ~20 wire run from my solar controller to my battery. But having now owned 4 different charge controllers in the last 7-8 years, I dont think Victron is worth the extra $. Heres why: First, you get zero support. Thats right, Victron will only provide support to certified resellers, so if you have a problem and you bought from Amazon guess what? Youre SOL. In my case I believe theres a bug in their charging algorithm, but I literally cannot talk to anyone at Victron directly. (That said their community support is great, but its not the same as actual technical support). Second, some of their really useful features (like being able to monitor charge voltage over time and graph it) only work if you disable screen lock and leave your bluetooth device (phone, typically) connected and running the app. Dont change apps because your graphs will reset. Why cant this run in the background? The unit does have daily stats but that doesnt help me when Im trying to understand why charging isnt cutting out as expected. My personal issue is that I have a LiFePO4 setup (which this device does support), but I want to cut off charging on my setup when the battery hits about 90%. The Victron has several settings to shorten the absorption times, all of which seem to work when I drain the battery and need to recharge it. However if the battery doesnt get drained one day and starts off full, the unit still goes into bulk mode for several hours and ends up topping off the battery. I assume this is a charging algorithm-related problem, but its disappointing behavior and defeats the reason I purchased the device.

At first I ordered a budget MPPT charger, only to learn later that in order to program it to use a Lithium battery required ordering another part, which makes it not such a bargain after all. After reading reviews on Victron stating how easy this model is to program, I decided to try one for myself. It was indeed very easy to setup the unit on my iPhone, and switch the default setting to lithium. I enjoyed watching the charge history from day to day. The Bluetooth connection is strong enough to connect from pretty far away. Im really enjoying using the application. The solar charger is working great. Id definitely buy one again.

This is a good solar charge controller, once you setup the battery parameters correctly it works really good, it is efficient. What may makes it difficult for some people is the fact that you need the specs from your battery manufacturer to know the battery charge voltages to setup absorption, float, and equalization (only for Flooded or if your battery manufacturer requires that) You need a special usb cable if you plan to use the app in a laptop running windows, unfortunately the bluetooth connection doesnt work for that they say on the Victron forums that they are working on it. The bluetooth app is good, I allow me more distance for monitoring my batteries with more independence, instead of looking to the tiny LCD screen of my old and trusty PWM SCC. UPDATE: this controller have the tendency to consume the battery no matter the chemistry you have. Same thing happens with SLA or LiFePO4 you have the battery all the way to the top and then the controller takes from 12 to 20 amps per day. I have disabled the load, it is permanently off but if you use a voltmeter it shows that you have 0.6 volts on that and 0.1 volts if I disconnect the solar panels. I suppose it is a design defect, but who knows. I will be moving on to a different product this time because at the rate it discharge a battery you are wasting precious solar energy and there are cloudy days that wont allow the battery to be fully charged.