BRAVO LEGEND 30 - 30 Amp PWM Solar Charge Controller

A 30-amp PWM controller for a 12V or 24V battery bank mounted somewhere dry. It works out the system voltage when you connect the battery, so you are unlikely to end up running a 24V bank on a 12V setting by accident. Thirty amps covers roughly 450 watts of panel on a 12V system, or 900 watts on 24V. At this price it is the cheapest way into a controller that handles lithium properly and shows you what it is doing on a screen.

Why this controller

• Automatic 12V/24V detection on connection, with manual override available.
• Charging profiles for sealed, GEL, flooded and lithium banks, set from the front panel.
• Three-stage charging — boost, float and equalisation. Equalisation is correctly restricted to flooded lead-acid and is disabled for GEL and lithium.
• Temperature compensation at -3.0 mV/°C per 2V cell, excluding lithium.
• Five load-output modes — light control with a ten-minute delay, timer control from one to fourteen hours, manual, debug and always-on — so it doubles as a dusk-to-dawn lighting controller.
• Overcharge, over-discharge, overload, short-circuit and reverse-polarity protection.
• Dot-matrix LCD with two-button control, and settings held in memory through a disconnection.
• UL1741 certified with the certificate published for download.

What it will not do, plainly

• PWM, not MPPT. The controller drops panel voltage to battery voltage rather than converting the surplus. With nominal 12V or 24V panels that costs you little. With a 60- or 72-cell grid-tie panel you will leave a meaningful amount of energy on the roof, and an MPPT controller is the honest recommendation instead.
• Solar input must stay under 55V. Open-circuit voltage rises as temperature falls, so leave margin rather than designing to the limit.
• IP30 means indoor only. Rich Solar's page calls IP30 "dust/splash resistant." That is not what the rating says — the second digit is zero, so there is no water protection at all. Mount it where it cannot be rained on or splashed, or buy a sealed controller instead.
• Bluetooth is listed as optional. The manufacturer's summary mentions optional Bluetooth without confirming whether a module is supplied. Ask us before ordering if wireless monitoring is the point of the purchase. The LCD is built in.

How it compares in our range

• Against the BRAVO LEGEND 40: the same physical box. Same case size, same 0.86 lb net weight, same 55V ceiling, same features. The 40 gives you 40 amps and 600W at 12V instead of 30 amps and 450W. If your array is settled at 300W or less there is no reason to pay more.
• Against our 12V-only BRAVO 30 (RS-PWM30F): that unit costs more than twice as much and handles 12V systems only. This one covers 12V and 24V. If your bank is 12V and likely to stay 12V, compare the two pages before deciding — the price gap is large and buys features other than amperage.

Installation

• Connect battery first, then solar, then load. That order is what lets the controller identify system voltage.
• Mount vertically on a solid surface with air space above and below; cooling is passive.
• Keep the battery cable short and generously sized. Voltage drop on that run is read as a flat battery and skews the charge profile.
• Put a fuse in the battery leg close to the battery. Internal protection is not a substitute for one.

Warranty and safety

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