ZEALLIFE 8A Solar Panel Charge Controller: Battery Regulator for 12V Solar Battery Charger, Maintainer and Power Kit, Ensuring Safe Protection for 12 Volt Batteries Review

I bought this along with a 25w panel to keep my RV batteries charged. On Sunday I placed the solar panel in the sun and left it out until Monday morning when I heard the carbon detector beep indicating low voltage. Instead of charging the batteries, the controller somehow created a drain and pulled the batteries down to 3 volts. The yellow charge light was still on and I couldn't get any measurable voltage through the controller, even though the solar panel was putting out a constant 13 volts…

A week ago I would have given this unit 5 stars. Then it spontaneously reconfigured itself from a solar charge controller to a spark gap. In bright sunlight, the battery slowly discharges. Surprisingly, the warranty period is a meager 30 days. I considered the possibility that the vehicle had been struck by lightning (or an EMP from nearby lightning) and since the price was low I ordered a replacement. Update: The new controller behaved the same as the first one. I've come to the conclusion…

I connected this charge controller to a 50 watt pad to keep my 4 wheel charged and have another to connect to my lawn mower. I came back two weeks later to not even turn on the lights on the four wheeler. It started normally every time I used it before but now after not using it for a long time I decided to install this charger to make sure the battery is fully charged when I need it. The polarity was correct and after my battery died I hopped off the quad and checked that there was power…

This only worked intermittently and many hours have been spent to this day trying to figure out why. I thought maybe there was a bad connection so I wiggled the solar panel wires and to my surprise they immediately disconnected. There were no breaks or abrasions. At first I thought that some latch inside must have come loose, so I took it apart. Whoever was going to solder that connection decided to take a break that day I think because those wires were obviously never soldered in place. It's…

This is good if you need a cheap charge controller. It only has ads about loading or loading. I connected it to the Harbor Freight solar panel using my DIY connectors so I could just snap them together. Works well to keep my pickup batteries charged. I don't use a pickup very often so I needed something to keep the batteries from dying. I like SAE connectors so I can make my own wires for the connections. (Which I did) I think if I needed another one I would take it with a digital readout so I…

Let me start by saying that I'm a retired electrical engineer and I understand how a charge regulator is supposed to work. I tried using this solar panel to charge a lead acid battery that powers my electric fence power bank. This product will not function properly and is unusable as a solar charge controller. It stops charging as soon as the solar panel stops generating electricity at night. When the sun rises in the morning, the controller does not provide battery charging current. The only…

I've never dealt with solar panels. Received the panel today, works great, performs better than I expected - 5 stars. However, don't believe the clowns who sell it to you. It took me 3 or 4 shipments to get the system and they say it's that simple - just connect black to black and red to red. That will not do. I started with the controller, then I had to find an extension cord with two clips going to the battery. They told me to buy one from Revain. That's when I found out about plugs with…