BRAVO Waterproof 8 - 8 Amp Waterproof PWM Solar Charge Controller

This is the smallest and cheapest sealed controller Rich Solar makes, and it is aimed squarely at keeping one battery topped up in a place that gets wet: a trailer, a gate opener, a boat left on a mooring. At roughly half the price of the Waterproof 10 for only twenty percent less current, it is the sensible pick if the job really is one small panel and one battery.

Why this controller

• 8 amps of solar input on a 12V battery. That is one nominal 12V panel, and a modest one.
• IP65 housing with corrosion-resistant terminals and a conformal coating on the board. IP65 means dust-tight and protected against low-pressure water jets. It is not an immersion rating, so despite the product name, do not submerge it.
• Night-time draw is only 2mA, lower than the 5mA of the larger units in the range. That matters on a battery you leave connected all winter.
• Battery chemistry is set with a DIP switch, covering flooded, AGM, GEL and LiFePO4. The 15.5V equalisation stage applies to lead-acid; set the switch correctly so it does not run on lithium.
• Over-voltage, short-circuit, reverse-polarity and thermal protection, with charging shutting down at 149F.
• Rich Solar's title calls this the number one waterproof solar controller. No ranking body or publication is named anywhere on the page, so treat that as advertising rather than a finding.

What you give up against the Waterproof 10 and 20

• No port for an external battery temperature sensor. The larger units in this range have one; this one compensates internally at -24mV per degree C and that is all. If your battery sits somewhere much hotter or colder than the controller, step up a model.
• Smaller M4 terminals taking 12 AWG rather than the 10 AWG of the bigger units, so cable runs need to be short.
• Slightly higher minimum operating voltage at 9V rather than 8V.
• Rich Solar publishes only a single photograph of this product, so there are fewer angles here than on the rest of the range.

Mounting and wiring

• Read this first: the controller uses a common POSITIVE grounding scheme, the opposite of the negative-chassis convention on most vehicles. Confirm how your system is bonded before wiring.
• Array open-circuit voltage must stay below 25V DC, with a normal window of 15 to 22V. That is a single 12V panel. Check Voc at your coldest expected temperature, because cold weather raises it.
• 12V systems only. There is no 24V mode.
• This is PWM, not MPPT. The panel is pulled down to battery voltage rather than having the excess converted, so expect noticeably less than the panel's nameplate output.
• Mounts vertically to a flat surface with the three supplied spacers and self-tapping screws.
• A California Proposition 65 warning applies to this product.

Warranty

• Rich Solar's published warranty on charge controllers runs two years and is prorated: full coverage in the first year, 50 percent in the second.
• Claims are handled by Rich Solar directly. Register the product and keep your invoice.