BRAVO 30 PWM - 30 Amp 12V Solar Charge Controller

A 30-amp PWM controller for 12-volt systems, aimed squarely at installations that live in damp air — boats, coastal cabins, humid trailers. The circuit board is conformally coated and the terminals are corrosion-resistant, which is the actual reason to choose it over a cheaper controller. It is a 12V-only unit and the array side is limited to 25 volts, so it is a controller for a small, simple, parallel-wired array.

Why this controller

• Conformally coated internal board and corrosion-resistant terminals and connectors — protection against moisture on the inside, not just the case.
• Generously sized power terminals: 8 AWG stranded, torqued to 17 in-lb. That is properly rated for 30 amps, where many controllers in this class top out at 10 AWG.
• Will wake a lithium battery that has shut down under BMS protection, which matters on a boat or a vehicle left standing for months.
• Digital display of charging parameters and battery settings, with LED status indication.
• Battery profiles for flooded, AGM, GEL, calcium and lithium.
• Port for an external battery temperature sensor. The sensor itself is optional and not supplied.
• Over-voltage, short-circuit and reverse-polarity protection, plus thermal protection.
• UL1741 certified, with the PWM-series certificate published for download.

What it will not do, plainly

• 12 volts only. There is no 24V mode. If your bank is 24V, or might become 24V, this is the wrong controller.
• Maximum array voltage is 25 VDC open-circuit. That is a low ceiling and it has a hard consequence: wire panels in parallel only, never in series. A pair of nominal 12V panels in series will exceed it. Open-circuit voltage also rises in cold weather, so a panel rated 22V Voc at 25°C can approach the limit on a freezing morning. In practice that means around three 100W nominal-12V panels to reach 30 amps.
• IP22, not weatherproof. IP22 protects against fingers and vertically dripping water. It is not a sealed unit and must not be mounted where rain or spray can reach it. If the controller has to sit outside, buy from the sealed BRAVO Waterproof range instead.
• PWM, not MPPT. The controller pulls the array down to battery voltage rather than converting the surplus. With three panels the energy you give up starts to be worth real money over a season, and if you can keep a controller dry, an MPPT unit is the better long-term buy.
• "Designed to meet CE standards" is the manufacturer's own phrasing on EMC and FCC compliance. That is a design statement, not a certification claim, and we are not going to restate it as one. The UL1741 certificate is real and downloadable.

Is this the right 30-amp controller for you?

• Our BRAVO LEGEND 30 costs less than half as much and is more capable on paper: 30 amps as well, but 12V and 24V, a 55V array ceiling instead of 25V, three-stage charging with equalisation, and temperature compensation. If your installation is dry and indoors, buy that one and keep the difference.
• Choose this unit instead if the environment is the problem rather than the electronics — a coated board, sealed-grade terminals and a thin case for a tight bulkhead are worth paying for on a boat. That is the whole argument for the price, and we would rather say so than dress it up.
• Note on naming: Rich Solar sells an MPPT controller also called the BRAVO 30. They are different products. This is the PWM version; check the SKU (RS-PWM30F) if you are cross-shopping.

Installation

• Vertical wall mounting, on a solid surface.
• Common positive grounding — check this against the rest of your system before wiring, particularly on a vehicle with a chassis-negative ground.
• Torque the power terminals to 17 in-lb. Under-torqued terminals are the most common cause of heat damage on a controller this size.
• Fuse each panel string individually at the combiner when running two or three in parallel. A single fuse at the controller does not protect a faulted panel from being back-fed by the others.

Warranty and safety

• Covered by Rich Solar's published limited warranty; terms are on the manufacturer's warranty page.
• Carries a California Proposition 65 warning for cancer risk and reproductive harm.