My newer
solar panels were bought from a local person who was not a dealer and bought/sold a wide variety of stuff so had no technical background in solar but the
price was waaay below market and the panels were brand new, see spec in image 2. All my mates said don’t buy them, they’re probably Chinese junk. As it happens I believed that most panels in my neck of the woods were Chinese manufacture so what the heck - I bought them.
Then the price of
MPPT controllers from a best-case supplier in NZ was eye watering (NZ$285 each) and claims that they were “made in
Germany, not China” tried to justify the cost. So I went back to China-made and found controllers that were 15% of the price. I thought OK, so if I buy them and they fail, it’s not a financial train wreck.
I bought two for the grand price of NZ$34 each, delivered to my home. Sounds too good to be true, right? But the original two are still functioning perfectly after a little over a year. So much so, I bought another two, replaced a “German” one that was on the original panels (on the
radar arch, 3rd image) and was looking a bit dodgy and a spare (just in case).
Moral of this story? Don’t be talked into spending vast amounts of
money for “branded” solar kit. The cheaper products are so
cheap, you can keep a cupboard full of spares (if paranoia requires it) and still be financially better off.
Or you could buy a controller as advertised in the 4th image