SOLAR CHARGE CONTROLLERS

Solar charge controllers regulate the voltage of a battery pack to keep it from overcharging. They can come in Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) or Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) systems. MPPT solar charge controllers have efficiency ratings up to 98% which can provide 10 to 30% more power to the battery pack. PWM solar charge controllers send out a series of short charging pulses to the battery and constantly check the state of the battery pack to determine how fast to send the pulses.

The best solar charge controllers are the ML series ones which are the first 5 listed. They are for flooded, SLA, AGM, gel, lead acid battery and LiFePO4 (lithium) battery packs and can operate in parallel. The MPPT efficiency can be as high as 99.9% and the charging efficiency of these solar charge controllers can be as high as 98%. They also have a unique feature that will allow them to restart a lead-acid battery pack.