Best MPPT CC I Have Used, But Nowhere Near Perfect.
937537
I do like this controller for the fact that when paired with the Whiz Bang Jr it accurately charges batteries using ending amps while still being able to run loads! Have not found that option anywhere else so far. My main issues are that the firmware, software, and mobile app are so broken and poorly coded by obvious amateurs that it'll make you feel physically ill about how much you paid for it and question the legitimacy of the company entirely. Just navigating the menus on the built in display can reset all history and logs and the LAN connection has also been freezing up daily and requiring me to go to the physical device to enter LAN settings just to press "ok" to get it working again. Then there's the manual that is also a bit of insult to injury being just some printed and stapled pages that barely explain the more in depth customization options. Now onto function. At first I thought I might have a bad unit because in the morning and evening when there's between 1-2Amps coming in the device starts cycling between "Bulk" (charging) and "Resting" (not charging) and cycling a rather loud relay while doing so, customer service said that this behavior is normal... To me, this seems like a lot of unnecessary wear and tear on such a relay, also I've never had a charge controller use a mechanical relay (that I could hear at least) to stop/start charging. Finally, the device is not as "efficient" as it claims or others that I have used and for some reason I have lost around 1-2Amps output since putting it to work. It also gets warm enough to be concerning even under 15A output in a 77F space, so I've placed a couple of small 24v fans over the screened "knockout" holes on the bottom that seem to help a lot at the cost of more lost efficiency... All in all though, like I said, I have not found another CC that will at least take care of my expensive batteries as well as this device does so I do recommend it and just add more panels to make up for the lost efficiency as I have.
4009353
The bad: 1. Displays output voltage by default (which should be assumed to be properly regulated by the inverter wouldn't you think?) and the display only indicates the other options for like two seconds after a button push. That's hardly enough time to even capture the reading. kVA would be a better default display or Input voltage as most users would want to monitor their battery condition and /or battery loading. Selectable would be ideal. 2. The battery terminal nuts have plastic encased knobs that make it impossible to achieve tight cable lug connections. I had to purchase some quality metric nuts which did tighten well to the connection studs. 3. This damn thing draws over an amp from the batteries with no load connected. I believe that means it has a low power factor, but what it ultimately means for us end users is that it will eat up your battery (or batteries) if you leave it powered on even with no load. I have my inverter in my shed connected to a 115ahr deep cycle battery charged by a small solar panel through a charge controller. Works great, but when I turn it on to play something low power (like my radio), it drains it. Then if I plug in something that uses real power (like a saw or vacuum) I have less run time because of the wasted power. RIDICULOUS!!!

The good: 1. It seems to have clean stable power. 2. The soft start is a nice feature 3. Solidly built with the exception of the plastic battery terminal knob nuts. 4. The remote is really a nice feature, and it doesn't seem to draw much power if any when powered off by the remote, although I have not measured it yet.

Bottom line, it's a well made, heavy, good inverter, but too wasteful! Find one that is more efficient under no load or low load conditions unless you only plan to use it fully loaded. I suspect that the power factor is better when loaded (closer to 1).
698999
This type of chargers work, but very inefficiently.  My original plan was to use it to charge through the solar panel usb port so that I use some green energy.  However, as someone pointed out, this is a direct bypass from usb to charge a 1.2-1.5V AA/AAA battery.  As you can see, 75% of the power is purely wasted when you use 5V to charge 1.2V batteries.

A much better solution is to charge 3 AA batteries in series, or at least 2 in series.  Assume the AA battery's Voltage is at 1.25V and the USB is 5V.  When you charge 2 batteries in series, only 50% of energy is wasted in conversion.  When you charge 3, only 25% of the power is lost during the conversion (mostly in heat).  The manufacturer would actually do a better job for the earth if they make the 2 battery slots in series, instead of in parallel.
3787329
I received this as a free review sample. I subtracted a star because while this is a decent battery, it is not best in its class. For one thing the 6600mAh capacity in a 6.1 ounce form factor is neither high capacity when 10000+mAh batteries are now common, nor light at over a third of a pound. Another reason why I subtracted the star is the ports max out at 2 Amps, whereas there are batteries out that go all the way to 2.4. Again, this is still a decent battery, but I did want to mention why I rated it the way that I did.

It is fairly fast, holding its own against wall chargers when I tested it with two Samsung devices (a Note 4 phone and a Tab Pro 12.2 tablet), and an iPhone 5s and iPad Air 2. Note that the two ports are marked Rapid. Do not confuse that with Qualcomm's Quick Charge because I tested my QC-compliant Note 4 and it did not flip into that mode.  Of course, there are no claims in the specs that this goes into QC mode, but the 'Rapid' labels may confuse some folks who own QC-compliant devices (and Go Puck does have a model that is QC compliant.)

This battery charges at a full 2 Amps, so if you have a 2 (or higher) Amp wall charger you can charge it from nearly empty to full in about 3.5 hours. Plus it does not get overly hot during charging or discharging, which indicates to me that it is well designed and constructed from quality parts.

Do note that all batteries made from this technology, including competing brands, are about 70% efficient. While this one will store a full 6600mAh, losses from heat and the transfer process, and the charging cable itself will reduce the usable capacity that you transfer to your phone or tablet to approximately 4620mAh. That is still a lot of backup - more than enough to keep my Tab Pro 12.2 tablet running four more hours over the eight hours I normally get from it, and double the time I get from my Note 4 phone (plus some!)

Bottom line: this is a high quality battery that performs well. It is designed to be wearable, which is not one of my requirements. It is a little on the large and heavy side for a 6600mAh battery, and at that capacity is lower than most business class batteries currently on the market. If you have special mounting needs this is probably your best bet. If you need a general purpose battery you may want to continue comparison shopping.
2852386
Have had this setup with three 35 Ah batteries in parallel for several days now and I'm carefully checking it out by seeing how well it powers / charges different devices with a Bestek 1,000 watt inverter included. Not giving it any heavy loads. Will post results. One complaint I do have about this its its Controller: the six sockets that you have to attach the solar, battery and any out DC device - are very small. Saying it is difficult to attach the wires to the sockets in the Controller is an understatement. I'm sure some users may have had luck and got them all firmly inserted the first try, but there are other users that I've read about here that have had a frustrating time also. The sockets were simply made to small. I purchased 10 AWG wire that I connect from the battery (actually from 2 diff. batteries when one uses a parallel setup) to the Controller. That is the same size Renogy sells in their RENOGY 8' long 10 AWG Wire Copper Tray Cable-Connect Charge Controller and Battery connection. Yet, as tightly as you wrap the bare end of the wire it splinters apart partially when you go to insert it into the Controller because the socket for it is too small. If the solar panel proves to be effective then I'll give it a 5 rating and a 2 rating for the Controller = 3.5 overall.
1603235
I have a Power Bright PW1100-12 which works well and the Power Bright specifications state these are very efficient units (>90% max.) which is why I also tried this smaller unit for another need.

This inverter is heavily built and on the outside seems like a quality unit.  When first powered up using the accessory outlet adapter, the unit ran my 75 watt current draw okay.  I then switched to a set of HD cables I use for the larger inverter (which probably had nothing to do with this issue) for another test with the same load and a few seconds later smoke and flames billowed out of the back for several seconds.  The green AC power LED in the front was still on and it may have been producing AC power, but I was busy shutting down the test and did not verify.

For the money, this seemed like a great unit and it probably is.  Defects happen even to the best of items, but I replaced it with a 150 watt Tripplight which will travel better for its intended usage.
1008906
It's Great, but don't expect miracles... I have used this to charge my Android phone, a portable battery and an iPod. It works Great, HOWEVER it needs Bright, Direct sunlight. In fact, in about 8 hours of direct sun, it charged my portable battery with 2 days worth of Cel Phone power. If it's cloudy, it works, but don't expect much of a charge.

They did a good job on durability, design and usability. The loops are fine, but I wonder if they'll break. They are like a shoestring. I'd like to more rugged tie downs.

My plan was to use this for Bike Touring. For my use, it is a little heavy and bulky, but I'll take it anyway, since I expect to be without power for many days. Its pretty easy to attach to the rear bag.
2468770
I found this&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/RANDOM-ORDER-Portable-Powerbank-Charger/dp/B00PYSMBVY/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">RANDOM ORDER Portable Powerbank Charger</a>&nbsp;at my local warehouse Club. It appears to be a quality product with several features I like:

- It is more compact compared to my other power bank units with capacity in the 2600-2800mAh range (such as the&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/KMASHI-KMAX-807/dp/B00BN4C36Q/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">KMASHI KMAX-807</a>)
- The all-aluminum body feels rugged. It is rectangular so it does not roll around.
- It has a 3-LED battery status indicator (most low-cost power banks have single-LED indicator)
- It doubles as a small LED flashlight. Just press the power button twice to turn on/off the flashlight.

[Capacity Test]
I verified the battery capacity by connecting a 5-ohm power resistor as load, and monitored the output with the&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/PortaPow-USB-Power-Monitor/dp/B00NTU18KY/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">PortaPow USB Power Monitor</a>. The unit is able to sustain a current of 0.95A at 5.05V (4.8W) for 107 minutes. The total output energy is therefore 8.6Wh. This is consistent with the battery capacity rating of '2800mAh', if we assume the efficiency of power conversion is 83% (2.8Ah * 3.7V * 0.83 = 8.6Wh).

To put the capacity of this power bank in perspective: my Samsung Galaxy S3 has a 2100mAh 3.7V battery, which contains 7.8Wh of total energy. That means this power bank has just enough energy to recharge my S3 once.

[Charge Time]
While recharging the internal battery, the input current is 0.77A initially (lower when the battery is nearly full). A full recharge takes about 4 hours. The blue LED indicator blinks while charging, and remains on when done.

So far, this power banks seem to be working well as advertised. However, there is one problem I discovered during my capacity test...

[Design Flaw]
The USB port does not completely turn off! Even when the power indicator is off, the voltage from internal battery (3.7V nominal, 4.1V when freshly charged) is still applied to the USB port. This is bad for both the receiving USB device and the internal battery, because:
- A USB-powered device typically expects 4.5V to 5.5V from the USB port. A lower voltage may cause the device to malfunction.
- After the power bank shuts down due to low battery, the USB device may continue to draw a small current from the USB port. This will drain the internal lithium-ion battery below 3.0V and cause permanent damage.

Another problem is: Whenever I start to recharge this unit's internal battery, its USB port turns off automatically. That means I cannot connect this power bank and my cell phone in series, and charge them both from a single USB power outlet. Most other power banks I tested can support pass-through charging, even super-cheap units such as the&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Uniden-Aluminum-2000-mAh-Power-Bank/dp/B00KTFL226/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Uniden Aluminum 2000 mAh Power Bank</a>.

[Bottom Line]
This is such a pity. The Random Order power bank is mostly a well-designed product, but the single design flaw (unable to shut down the output) is fatal. So I cannot recommend it. If you are stuck with this product, however, just make sure to remove the USB device as soon as the power indicator goes off.

[Update on Oct 27, 2015]
- Added photo to show size comparison between various power banks in the 2600-3200mAh range
4936322
I purchased 2.6-5.5V to 5V 3A boost regulator.  It looks great electrically.  The output ripple is very small (~10mV) and regulation is excellent from no load to 1.7A where I will use it.  Efficiency measured 80.5% at 3.6V input, 5.04V output - 1.7A load.  If the INPUT gets below ~3.3V the LED turns red.  At 3.5V it is still green.  Starting into load there is a small hitch after ramp up, but it is extremely clean otherwise.  If intended to use at full power for long periods of time, I would recommend adding heat-sinking to The IC and Shottky diode - they will get rather hot, which will certainly shorten life.
With no added output capacitance I checked out the performance.
No load to Full load transient response: 350mVpp (-200mv +150mV)
No load Ripple: 70mVpp, 525 Hz burst rate
5V 2A ripple: 95mVpp, 500 kHz operation
3472969
Charge unit is true mppt, simple to install. Their attachment monitor doesn't read correct battery level, but it is great to see how much voltage is coming in from panel, input into battery, charging led (let's me know if it's charging, will tell you voltage in battery.
943953
This charge controller works great for the price but its not a MPPT controller.  I must say though this device has been exposed to much moisture and still works great.  I have 2 of them.
2152410
Thank you HisGadget for providing this item on Amazon.

Though Im unable to find it available on HisGadget site or IntoCircuits site.

One of the highest capacity back-up power batteries on the market. My planned use is not that of a Laptop, Smartphone, or Tablet. But of Ham Radio (QRP), Raspberry Pi, and some accessory gear. It has the awesome ability to run them all at once. And power calculations will get about 4.5 to 5 hours of operation at full charge.

While I am using the unit, I was planning hooking up a Solar Power charger. Providing longer use. Although there is no clear documentation stating I can do that. There is one note in the provided user manual stating to charge and restart the unit while it is under lock status for short circuit protection.

The unit is a little bigger than I expected by about .5 inch. OOPs, miscalculation on my part, for what I am doing.  This unit also does not shut off when you have a cord plugged in, and no power is being used.

Other units typically shutdown after a few minutes when power consumption is non-existent.
To test this with the IntoCircuit, I left a usb cable and DC output cable plugged in overnight. The units display was still on, and power had been consumed. Most likely from the display.

Overall, I really like this unit, it is beefy and at a good price for what it does. I won't be using it how I had planned to use it. But on the same note. I now have a nice testing battery for future projects.
311662
This is the first solar enabled charging bank Ive gotten to test out. For what it offers it has become one of my favorite charging banks for a few reasons, but there are some downsides too. I have been testing it for about a week now and here are my thoughts.

Great amount of capacity at 12000 mAh
No power needed to charge the battery itself or your devices (great for outdoor activities)
Fast charging on both USB ports at 2.1 amps
Well built and has an included led flashlight which is surprisingly brighter than I expected.

Now for the stuff I didn't like

It is definitely not waterproof. The flaps that cover the ports come open very easily and water could go right in. It is however still very water/splash resistant.
The power meter also registers when it is charging under sunlight but I could only get it to show up one green bar in direct contact. Not sure if I am doing something wrong but it will still charge up the battery in full and still remain at one green light.
280404
This tester works as advertised - displays volts, amps, watts, etc. A great tool for diagnosing and optimizing USB charging. I'd recommend this product to anyone who really needs to get the best out of their charging systems.
However, the product is not without issues: I found the overall build quality left a lot to be desired. I'm not a fan of the reversible male USB design as it seems to have connection issues in some USB receptacles. There are a few USB charging ports around the house in which the tester needs to be 'jiggled' or oriented in a specific way in order to connect. The male end also doesn't come out of the unit perfectly straight (comes out at a slight downward angle relative to the screen). Lastly, the female end is fairly shallow so you always have more of the cable's USB connector sticking out of the receptacle than you'd expect.
Overall, the unit does work fine and has a lot of really great features, but it has a few quirks and doesn't have a quality feel. If I were designing a 'version 2' of this unit, I'd use this identical screen/interface, but build the unit with a better USB female receptacle and replace the male end with a 3" cable and quality non-reversible USB connector. I hate to only give this a 3 star review but in reality it doesn't deserve 4. 3.5 stars would be about right.
3442982
I am using this in my UPS (APC BG-550GI).
First of all the problems: (mostly not battery's fault).
It appears impossible to fully charge the battery using the UPS itself.
The UPS reached battery voltage of 13.7V and stopped the charge process, indicating that the the battery is at 100%.
From what I understand I should be able to reach a voltage of 14.1 so obviously the battery is not fully charged.
Unfortunately this UPS cannot be recalibrated so it can be forced to continue charging until the battery reaches higher voltage.
I am not entirely sure how much of the capacity is in fact being used, but hopefully it is still more then the full capacity of the SLA I used until now.
So far I haven't had a power outage, so I can't comment on the actual runtime of the battery.
Reported runtime is ~32minutes (which doesn't differ much from the previous estimates of the SLA).
With that said the UPS never actually held for that long and forced shutdown at best after 20 minutes of operation.
I did run battery tests using UPS software and the battery passed the test, so I guess it will work.
Another thing that surprised me, is the time it takes to charge the battery.
My previous SLA battery charged much faster (at least according to UPS data being reported back).
Of course the hope is that this battery provides a much improved runtime and more recharge cycles.

The good:
1. Hopefully longer lifetime (more recharge cycles).
2. Higher capacity (will be tested when I experience the next power outage).
3. Lighter battery which makes UPS a little more portable (though it still weighs alot even with the new battery).
2960842
There's a lot to like about this battery pack. It's small and light weight. It looks really good and seems potentially very rugged. It also seems to be able to actually deliver the rated supply current to the phone.

The minor problem is that that battery pack does appear to have less than the stated capacity. It's only a guess based on previous battery packs though. The pack itself is only slightly larger or heaver than other 6000 mAh packs I've used.

The real problem is much worse. I have a Nexus 5X to use the battery pack with, so I charged the battery pack up to full, then connected it to the phone (yes, the phone was set to charge-only) using a USB-C to USB-C cable and left it overnight. I was expecting to come back in the morning to find a charged phone, but what I found was a totally flat phone that had shut down. I tried again and kept track of what happened.

First the battery pack charges the phone until it's fully charged. At this point a USB-C battery pack is expected to stay in the state where it supplies power to the phone until the state of the USB CC pins change. This isn't what seems to happen with this battery pack. This battery pack seems to disconnect shortly after charging is complete. The battery pack and phone reconnect, but this time the phone charges the battery - the default used until you select charge-only on the phone again. The phone supplies power to the battery pack until it's dead and then shuts down.

Fortunately I have access to someone experienced with USB-C charging and they took a look at the battery pack. They confirmed that the pack doesn't look at the state of the USB CC pins to detect port disconnect, but only measures the Vbus current it's supplying to the phone. When this drops below a threshold level for a few seconds it disconnects.

This is not the only battery pack with this problem, but the high threshold used makes the problem more obvious. This pack seems to have a threshold of  250 to 500 mA, so it disconnects while the phone is trickle charging from the battery pack. An Anker battery pack with a similar issue uses a much lower threshold of 50 mA which makes the problem less obvious, but it still happens - in Airplane mode the Nexus 5X current consumption drops low enough that the battery pack ends up being charged from the phone.
4709475
I have bought and installed 16 of these 100W 12V Eco-Worthy panels from Amazon, to add to my original field of 4 100W 12Vpanels made by Ramsond (they were the cheaper panel a few years ago, Renogy & Eco-Worthy seems to have taken their market place recently)  Each of these panels produced 5.5A+ and normally over 20V in full Florida sun, as measured on my multi-meter (I've uploaded photos with this review)

I have my 20 panels wired in series, in groups of 4, running to my Outback Flexmax80 MPPT charger via two 10AWG runs, to my bank of Trojan Deep Cycle Batteries.  These panels give me the expected VOC of 80+ (48V nominal) and at the sun's peak of the day I get the expected 27 amps of current. (MPPT charge controllers take the extra high voltage and converts it to charging current, if you're not familiar with the technology, check it out - super efficient)

The only issue (really a non-issue for them) that I didn't catch is that the panel is slightly thinner than the Renogy or Ramsond, which made securing them to my rack just a little bit uneven next to the fatter older panels. Also, the corners on the panels look a little sloppily put together, a few are bowed/bulged out instead of having a neat seam, but this aesthetic doesn't appear to create a functional problem and certainly cannot be seen from the ground when roof mounted & producing energy - so it's not a big deal for me.

The panels are, in my experience so far, worth the money ($140.00 currently) compared to other competitors in the market place.  I've liked them enough from my first order to place a couple subsequent orders to get me where I am now at 2000watts (2.0 KW)

As a quick ending note for any newbies - you have to realize that in the realm of solar a 100W label on a product rarely gets you a true 100W of power. Using an MPPT charge controller will help with squeezing out the potential wattage, but especially if using a standard charge controller you have to understand that wattage is figured based on Amps out x Voltage, and non mppt charge controllers use the batteries voltage to determine the charging voltage. For example a fully charged 12V battery will be average 12.8vdc so a charge controller will charge just slightly above that - say at 13.1V.  So, figure  13.1V charging potential X 5.5amps (lets use 1 panel in full sun for simplicity) = 72watts of power from that panel.  If using a MPPT charge controller, it takes the panels VOC, which in this case is about 20v x the same 5.5 amps = 110watts of power and is able to take all of the power from the panel it COULD produce and push more current into the battery than it otherwise would.  So, conversely a discharged battery at say 11.8V (charging from a panel like this,  in full sun) x 5.5amps = 64.9watts into the battery. Panels like these CAN produce their rated power in full sun and generally with the assistance of a mppt controller (because until your battery is darn near charged, you only get about 2/3 of your rated power production... and by then you don't need it as much because your battery is full!)  I hope this helps anyone who may be mystified as to why their power production calculations aren't working out - usually it isn't the panel - it's the charging conditions including angle to the sun / time of year.  Since going to MPPT, I've increased my solar harvest a lot...  All after several years of head scratching.  Happy harvesting folks! - David