The beast of a solar panel was too much for the economy controllers I tried. As I mentioned in my previous article about it, solar power upgrade, I put an antique ammeter on the incoming power that I could know how much was hitting the controller and a blade switch in the line so I could cut off the incoming juice when it became too much.
This was not a system I could just leave on its own. If I was ever going to be able to ignore it, and if I wanted to absorb maximum power from the sun on this system I needed to upgrade the controller. When my refund from the smoked controller arrived I did exactly that … using, of course, the alt E store that treated me so wonderfully.
The customer service rep, who takes that job title seriously, had great faith in one MidNight Solar calls “The Kid”. Now that mine is in and working I find their faith well founded. It is obviously well built, heavy-duty with substantial cooling fins, comprehensive data monitoring and straightforward setup instructions. Programming the many controllable attributes can be easy or custom. I am either too ignorant for, or don’t require the latter, so I chose the former.
As I settled in to trusting it for the long haul, the big black box aesthetics in my space was bugging me. My little Testors enamel paint sampler fixed it yesterday. Certainly not high art, but also not a big black blob.
