
The included solar controller is really cheesy. Almost nothing inside
the box. Many reports of failures of these controllers, so mine
instantly went onto the shelf as an emergency backup. |

The solar controller I'm using is a MorningStar Sunlight-10. Regulates
up to 10 Amps (120 Watts). Fine for my initial setup. A
slick feature about this controller is that it has the ability to control
lighting. When the sun sets, it starts a 10 minute timer to verify the
array hasn't been briefly shielded from the sun. The internal relay
then supplies up to 10 Amps of 12VDC to external lights. The amount of
time they are on is adjustable by turning a small switch. I'm
using this to turn on my LED garden lights, and a 400 Watt inverter, which
is connected to a couple of Compact Fluorescent (CF) bulbs. More on
that later... |