30 AMP Harbor Freight PWM Charge Controller vs eBay MPPT Charge Controllers

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Regulating your solar system's battery level is paramount to any stand alone or off grid solar system. Harbor freight offers multiple items to build a solar kit including the solar panels themselves, connectors, alligator clips and charge controllers. These items are all sold separately from harbor freight.

Today's harbor freight solar panels are in-fact a massive improvement from the past thin film solar kit. While harbor freight has improved their solar items eBay and Amazon have also become in-dated with various solar panels and solar panel accessories. My solar system does it's job and it features solar panels from harbor freight and charge controllers from eBay.

	Harbor Freight Controller	eBay Controller
PRICE	$76.99	$15.00
AMERAGE DISPLAY	YES	NO
USB PORTS	NO	YES
DUSK TO DAWN LOAD CONTROL	NO	YES
BATTERY DISCHARGE PROTECTION	YES	YES
AMERAGE AVAILABILITY	30 AMPS	30 / 60 / 100 AMPS
SOLAR INPUT VOLTAGE	up to 25 V	12 / 24 VOLTS
CHARGE CONTROL PROTOCOL	PWM	MPPT
PART NUMBERS	68738, 94790, 56195	The Perfect Part

Why I Chose eBay MPPT Charge Controller

Affordability

These charge controllers are very affordable and can handle up to 30-100 AMPS @ 12 VOLTS or 24 VOLTS DC. I chose the 30 AMP version from eBay as it's sufficient for my needs with the plan to combine additional charge controllers if more capacity is needed. They can keep my lead acid car batteries fully sustained just fine and regulate my off grid applications. They look at the voltage of the battery and kill my load application if the level becomes to low, there by protecting the battery.

At the time of purchase, back in June of 2023 I purchased my MPPT off eBay for $15.00 FREE shipping.

Flaws Using Either Charge Controller

Both charge controllers, although compatible with harbor freights solar panels, have screws that clamp down to your wire or wire terminal. This means that you cannot simply "plug" the solar panel into the controller as harbor freight equips there solar panels with SAE connectors. I was able to accommodate this in my solar setup by using SAE cables formerly used with Motorola Radius radio equipment.

The harbor freight charge controller uses flat head screws to clamp down the connections while eBay uses Phillip's screw heads.

eBay MPPT Functionality

Pro eBay

1. Offers up to 100 AMPS for purchase on eBay. For my setup, 30 amps was sufficient.
2. 2 x 5 VOLT DC @ 2.5 AMP USB PORTS
3. Phillips screw clamp style connector.
4. Charge Protocol: MPPT
5. Programmable load stop/start

Con eBay

1. No display of incoming solar amps, load amps, or current amps in the battery.
2. Voltages read just slightly north of actual voltage. 14.6 is actually 14.3ish.

Harbor Freight Functionality

Harbor freight only offers charge controllers up to 30 AMPS and have a rather large price premium over that of the eBay controllers. It should be noted that the harbor freight charge controllers are in-fact heavier than eBay.

Pro Harbor Freight

1. Display of amperage incoming from solar panels.
2. Display of load amperage.
3. Simpler design. Only has two buttons as opposed to 3.

Con Harbor Freight

1. Price tag. These charge controllers start at $76.00
2. Only up to 30 AMPS are offered by Harbor Freight.
3. Limited functionality. Does not have dusk till dawn feature that eBay charge controller offers.