iPanda Runner 60A

#iPanda

First glance, iPanda Runner 60A MPPT solar charge controller.

‘…..ber’ months signals the start of Christmas season her in our country. And I believe so – look what’s in the mail, an iPanda Runner 60A mppt Solar Charge Controller. So I guess I should set aside audio projects for a while.

Opening the box reveals a classy piece of hardware. Shiny black & silver, a child would say – a huge ‘iPhone’. Included are; WiFi dongle, RS485, temperature probe and mounting screws. Please note that some of these are optional items.

As always I have not claimed warranty on items I had acquired ever since – why? Because even at 6 years old I opened our phonograph player to see what’s inside (and why it sings). Well nothing changed at 60. I took it apart in no time at all. An industrial quality circuit board lay on a perfectly ventilated inside cavity, sucking cool air from the lower vent slots on both sides and expelling at through the heat sink to a much bigger slots at the top. An adequately sized ferrite core transformer occupied the upper leftmost part of the circuit board with 3 capacitors on each side secure by adhesives. Above the system connectors are two (2) opto-isolators presumably for RS485 & external dry signaling leads protection. Connectors are of good quality, so with the temperature and serial ports.

Initial set-up…

As an average person with adequate knowledge on solar power system installation, I didn’t read the user manual at all and just downloaded the App & PC software from the manufacturer’s website. It is really user friendly and you can’t go wrong on system wiring with a properly labeled connectors on the unit.

The touch controlled color display is awesome, it gives you all the essential information on system status/settings, although I was a bit confused on the four touch buttons at first since I was used to ‘Yes or No’ type of menu selection. The direct selection method later make sense. For the uninformed, it is quiet easy to mess around with the settings.

And by the way there is a multi color LED light bar in the lower center part of the front panel, a system status indicator. It can give you an overall state of system status by flashing a RGB color depending on the state of the system. It’s a nice touch I only first seen on a Solar Charge Controller.

Overall this is a good SCC for starter and advance users. You can start with a small 12 volts and later go up to a big 48 volts system. You can use most of the battery chemistry currently available on the market today and since its charging parameters are configurable, this is future proof unit, I would say.

I only have few points on my wishlist for this SCC;

- The mounting system and connector location seems awkward. It can easily dislodge in its mounting position.

- It would be nice if the front panel user interface can be locked via the mobile APP or PC software, to avoid accidental system setting modification.

- A settable equalizing time.

This concludes my preliminary test on this wonderful MPPT Solar Charge Controller. A more detailed technical testing will be done as time allows.

Thank You for your time reading this short post

JofAT MasON

(jack of all trades, master of none?)