500 Watt Solar Charge Controller

You go walking into your local HF store and you will find the Thunderbolt Magnum charge controller going for $79.00. To be honest $79.00 is a little steep for a basic controller with a LCD. The info that the LCD provides is pretty basic. Giving you the volt status of your batteries and amps coming in or going out depending if your using the load terminals on the controller. The good news is that on Amazon you can find real good deals on this exact same controller. I bought 2 within a week. The first one I purchased was $42.00 including shipping. The second one was $29.99 including free shipping. Prices do seem to fluctuate on Amazon a lot depending on the vendor. The bottom line is that I bought 2 for the price of 1 at HF. Now for the price I paid, this is a very good controller. Controllers in the $30.00 to $40.00 price range give you LED status, charging, charged, etc. If you want digital info it requires using a multimeter. This will do everything that a basic controller will do and provide you with good basic info on the LCD. For $30.00 this controller is a steal and for $40.00 a very good buy.....

When reading the manual and it describes the use of the display button reality is different. As you press the display button to cycle through the different modes it doesn’t match with what the manual describes should be happening. For the price this controller should have at least a display that shows what it’s doing as the default screen.

So disappointed. I used to have this controller (which stopped working after getting wet) and it had ab 8mm connection hole. That is not there anymore and the cord in the picture is not included (!!), so I'm stuck either trying to find that cord and paying more or trying another product. I've contacted Thunderbolt, but no word yet... (Pictured is the old version and the new one with fewer connection options and no cord.)

Good Product. But can be found way less expensive. Monitors and shows result of PV input and power to Battery's. I have them in parallel. 12 of them. in 10 years only two have died. So a 80% good rate not bad at all. Well Made and Larger than expected receptacle for the wire is a big plus. Not water proof.

I install solar out in Hawaii, we had a bunch of small modules we weren't using so I wanted to do something with them. I made a solar generator with two 75 watt modules and bought this controller for a 35ah deep cycle battery. Works really well, no issues, only wish the LCD was backlit. Anyway, for the price and the size it handles, it's definitely worth it. Also, if you're mounting a charge controller inside of something, it's not great for being an internal charger, you'll need it on the outside of whatever you're creating. Nit picking aside, I definitely recommend it.

We've had this in operation for 2 years at our ocean property and it has worked flawlessly. Very inexpensive for what it does.

Does not work at all. No display. Nothing. Frustrating.

This item works very well. A good price for a good product...I am very happy with the product and would recommend it.