EPever EPsolar Tracer 4215B MPPT review PART 1 - 4215BN

This is a review of the Chinese EP Solar/EPever Tracer 4215 MPPT. Also applies to current BN series, circa Nov 2017. Nothing much has changed. As of 2019, this Chinese controller has been outdone by the Victron MPPT series, like the 100/50A and 150/35A, 100/30A. The Victrons have a 5 year warranty and are very fast at determining accurate MPPT. They can be modestly overloaded without too much fear, and current (amperage) output is programmable if you have it housed in a hot shed. Whilst a lot about the 4215BN is good (hardware, programmability, interface, price), its core function (to be an MPPT regulator) is poor. The current version of firmware (2019) of the 4215BN can accidentally lock into a low or high voltage solar input, so only really reliably works in 12V/12V or 24V/24V configurations, which at least eliminate low voltage locking. How can it be so hard for it to know where the maximum power point is? This can be answered by not wasting your time on it. ================ UPDATE 4: I have installed firmware version 2.05, using USB To RS-485 converter cable (Model:CC-USB-485-150U), from Domitronic. This was shipped in one week by eParcel, There was a hiccup attempting to install the firmware by their short version manual. After contacting EPsolar, tech support pointed out that the COM10 port required the RS485 box to be ticked in the device manager properties. The firmware installed instantly I turned on the Tracer. I now have version 2.05, and have tested it with the Toaster Test. It's the same as version 2.00 ================ On the package, it says "Very fast sweeping of the entire IV curve". It's certainly very fast, relative to stellar evolution (2 minutes), and it does in fact sweep the ENTIRE curve, even the totally pointless parts. It also says "Several seconds tracking speed", which I was also not able to verify. Using the toaster and towel test, it was sometimes 20 minutes, because the algorithms can get trapped in either high voltage or low voltage states, during intermittent fluffy cloud weather, or if disturbed by other events on the system. The hardware seems very good, but the software currently lets it down. It's a workable device, but I discuss some of its limitations, and MPPT performance. PART 2    • EPever EPsolar Tracer 4215B MPPT review PA...