I'm going to have to weigh in with a short-and-ugly review of the Renogy Rover 40A MPPT Charge Controller: I really don't like it.
During the day it seems to work for providing a 12W DC load for the ... View MoreI'm going to have to weigh in with a short-and-ugly review of the Renogy Rover 40A MPPT Charge Controller: I really don't like it.
During the day it seems to work for providing a 12W DC load for the pump that's on the bird bath. But at night (every night) it seems to be using way too much power from the battery to sit idle.
The first lead-acid battery I used eventually drained down to 2.5V! Okay, so I put it on an expensive charger and did four hours of conditioning on that battery. I returned it to service with the Renogy and the next morning it was again down to almost nothing. In this state the Renogy won't simply just charge it; it wants to shut itself down with an E1 error instead.
So I retired that battery and replaced it with a similar model. I got similar results this morning when that battery reported that it was down to 9.5V. Note that I'm not running any load whatsoever against the battery other than the power that the Renogy needs to sit idle all night.
I'm confident that I've chosen the proper configuration for this battery type. I'm confident that all the connections are sound. It's the brand. It's vampiring the battery throughout the night hours.
If I do continue to use this I'll need to create a switch for the battery to keep it going.