BZ 500MPPT WOW

[Rover]

How much?

Really depends.... ordered a BZ250 which is the lowest priced MPPT that I know of, ignoring fake ones on EBay, is roughly 125 to 150 US$. A step up in my opinion is the Blue Sky.. for roughly 220$

But.. these are pretty much limited to 12v Battery Bank... Although the BZ... has a solar top end this it much higher than the Blue Sky.

End of the day, I prefer the Blue Sky... better construction.. the BZ can be a bit flaky.

BUT.... If you are thinking of growing into the 400W+ realm.... there are a ton of better choices.... don't plop down $$$ for something you will replace in a year or 2 as you out grow the controller...


I have done this.. I have a Blue Sky and and A BZ... both are being replaced by a couple of Morning Star TS 45 MPPT. There are also other mppt vendors.. but I like the the first TS 45 I bought.. so that's my plug.

Rover

[Poorboy]

My pickle is that I bought a couple 85 watt panels from sunelec a year ago and they, already, don't carry that model now plus they went nuts on shipping and want 100 bucks shipping on equivalent. I was just going to get one more as we almost had enough juice last summer but not quite. I hate to mix and match panels and I like that I can move these two panels around by hand that I have so to get that little extra juice the next best thing is an mppt. So I started looking for the cheapest and found the bz. $120-130
In a year or three I'll probably do a major upgrade and either go with brand name panels or make my own and then I'll need a better controller but I'm sure I can put the old stuff to use in my shop. Right now I just need something so we don't have to run the gennie everyday this summer to have refrigeration. I don't mind running it when it's cloudy or when we run the a/c but it urks me to run it when it's sunny. Gallon of gas a day for 60+ days. Even new retail the bz would save me a few bucks. So let me know if you decide to sell it.

[ghurd]

Rover said "don't plop down $$$ for something you will replace in a year or 2 as you out grow the controller"

Then Poorboy said "In a year or three I'll probably do a major upgrade"
and "Gallon of gas a day for 60+ days"

I agree with Rover.  Get a TS-MPPT now.

Probably a good investment to get a stack of panels now.
Save some gas and gennie wear&tear.

Dollar per watt S&H will be a lot less with 4 or 6 panels than 1 or 2. 
Might be worth it to borrow some money and pay interest, instead of pay S&H on 1 or 2 panels at a time while still buying more gennie gas?
G-

[Poorboy]

Hence the user name. There is no investing, borrowing, interest for me these days.

But Rover said

Ready to go for anyone that wants it

That's what I was going by but that was a couple of weeks ago and now it's not. No biggie.

I have had the very same model bookmarked at a couple of different sites for a few days now and will end up getting it. If I had a few hundred to spare I would do something else. Meanwhile this unit will help me out.