I know, it's a cluster, i tinker a lot, so the shed doesn't get fancy boxes/enclosures When i bought this exact item (Amazon is the actual seller currently and was also the seller back when i purchased the product) it was $8.50 and i just wanted to hook up a 12v SLA deer feeder battery with a 5 watt solar panel. Every thing i researched basically said i didn't NEED a charge controller at that wattage, but i do know over-charging is bad for batteries, so i bought this cheapo on/off charge controller and it does what is says cuts-out @ 14.2v (sometimes we tap 14.3v for less than a second but instantly drops w/cut-out) and cuts-in at 13v. It does not say PWM charging, it does not say MPPT charging, this controller is nothing fancy and i would have never paid $18 for it like it is currently listed for. At the time of purchase, i also bought a cheapo PWM controller (for another project) and it was cheaper than this item currently is and i can still find identical PWM controllers (upgraded actually since now they include USB ports) that are cheaper than this SUNFORCE controller. Unless they bring this price back down, i'd say get a real charger, especially if you are using a real deep-cycle battery. I would not recommend this product to anybody while there is better, cheaper, and more feature rich products abundantly available (unless you are just too lazy to spend 20 min on the internet figuring out what voltages you need set in (or atleast check and confirm appropriate defaults), in which case, shame on you for taking on a technical project while refusing to learn the technical details) I have given it the credit it deserves, it works, and for me it was a good value at the time, but this item is 214% the price it was a year ago (i.e. 114% more than i paid for it) and there are many products that are better and even had improvements while staying at the same price point from a year ago. This sunforce charge controller really is nothing special, 7A charging w/o PWM or MPPT, right now i have a different 10A PWM charge controller in my cart, it is under $15, has a display, adjustable settings (if you like), and even load terminals to ignore (just wire up same as this model, only connect your battery and PV panel to the controller and wire your load straight off the battery) Dear AMAZON: i have copied this review and saved it as a word document. If you take down this review too, i will repost it. I have not listed any competitor prices or SPECIFIC products aside from the product being review. It has been compared to another similar product, all items mentioned are relevant to the product reviewed.
