Over the last 12 years I have installed 5 different solar setups in 3 different vehicles. The Bravo 50A so far seems to be the complete ticket. The Bravo 50 is connected to a 100ah LiFePo battery with internal heating ability, 160W solar panel, and hooked up to the vehicle battery as well.
There are several reasons why I prefer this one over others. Cost- I got this for about the same as, or a lot less than other combo dc-dc/mppt setups. Connections-the Bravo 50A connections are designed to handle fatter gauge wires than other boxes out there.
Juice capacity- the 50A is plenty for my needs.
Display and Bluetooth- the display has a lot of information available(I put a copy of the instruction manual page with the key to display data on the battery box for reference) and the SRNE app connects really with my phone for remote viewing, and has a nice pictorial image of what's happening with solar, alternator, etc charging.
Two way vehicle battery charging- many systems have a dc-dc charger that is one way, ie vehicle alternator to auxiliary battery, but few have excess solar juice to vehicle battery. The 50A does both, and during a 4 night parked set up, the excess solar did indeed go to the vehicle battery.
It was pretty easy to swap out the former mppt and put in the Bravo 50A. I set the Bravo for Li battery and so far just using the internal factory settings.
I've only had it installed for about 3 weeks, but we did test it on a camping trip where we parked for 4 nights with temperatures down to freezing(low of 28F, highs in the low 60s). We were running some LED's at night, charging phones, a WEboost cell signal booster, and running a 60l ARB fridge.
So far I'm liking it, and about to swap out the old system in another vehicle for this same setup, with a few differences. The other vehicle has 2x100W solar panels and I'm going to try and add 2 LiFePo 100ah batteries to see how all that works. We have an extended 2 month road trip coming up this winter for a better test before we head out for another session of field work next spring.
If it fails I'll be back here whining, otherwise, consider it a decent system.
November 2024
