Outback Flexmax 80 MPPT Solar Charge ControllerWrite a review

I have had the Flexmax 80 for over 3 years now and not a single issue. I have a 24v battery bank and 1100 watts of solar in an off grid house. One great advantage is that it has the option to have the backlight on the display to stay on. The controller is in a dark storage room so it makes it easy to see without having to hit a button for it to come on. Great product, very well made.

I just recently installed one of these units at my off grid cabin in Eastern Washington. I had previously been using a Xantrex C40 and after two years my batteries were toast - as I was unaware of the downfalls of a PWM controller and it had allowed them to steadily drop to a useless voltage. Over the winter I refreshed the batteries and installed the Outback FM80 just last weekend. 10minutes after flipping the combiner box breaker and running through the setup the FM80 was online and doing it
s job. I immediately saw my array providing double the amperage I am used to seeing at a full 17.7 volts, which was then converted down to a proper 13.6
MPPT Bulk
battery voltage and the amperage was increased even further! I saw more output on a cloudy day than I had ever seen with the C40 on the sunniest of times, even when the batteries were brand new. Throughout my weekend with the FM80 I watched it do it
s magic, and could not be happier with the results so far. It
s ability to harvest the most out of your solar array is priceless and worth every penny it costs...

Two of these came with my Outback Flexpower system. It's only been 2 months but they're performing well. Have had a couple brief power spikes of 4200 watts from the array into one of them, handled it fine (4000W max. recommended).

Also make sure when you size your strings you stay well below the 150V threshold--apparently they can be damaged irreparably if you go above that. Factor in coldest possible temps. in your location when you run the numbers, as open circuit voltage on panels can increase significantly. I'm using strings of 3 panels rated at 40VOC and it's been fine--highest voltage has been 122 even on bitter cold mornings.

Know that the fans are loud--am glad these are mounted in an outbuilding, not the house. Fan rarely runs, just briefly on and off around solar noon on a sunny day. But come summer, when temps warm up, I expect the fan will run much more frequently. Just don't let that surprise you.

I own 2 of These Units So Far So Good ! They Are Tough Units I would Recommend These Too Anyone OutBack Has Incredible Service And Support and These Units Are Field Serviceable If They Need Work On Them ! The Best Money Can Buy Kenneth Viar

Used field day with two Kyocera KC130TM panels and RFI+EMI filtering and fuses installed in two discconect boxes on intermittant sunny day with some hard rain.
I used a small battery around 100 amp hours to see if i had enough panels to run a 100 watt Hf radio with around 50% transmit time to watch the voltage drop over day time conditions. (field day was 2 PM to 2PM the next day)
I installed the system in tent friday night and it was easy useing manual to start it up sat morning it started up with a few watts(it was cloudy) and built up to about 40 to 120 watts and once I saw 15 amps before transmitting the batt was about fully charged so it dropped 3-6 amps During transmitt rose to 9-12 amps and dropped back again on recieving, so system Did keep up with the radio all day and I ran the battey down to 12V after dark and connected to charge other batties for other ham radio operaters to use we where 4e and sunday morning, I did see over 17amps and 260 watts output under sunny conditions at times still intermittant weather and rain.
So I guess the moral of the story is You will not see full output if the batt voltage is high or the battery draw is low!
I can highly recommend this charger and did see 2 1/2 to 3 times the panel amps on the out put to batteries
73s
Milton

I have had one of these units for almost two years. Soon after I installed it I was noticing that some mornings it just didn
t track right. It would end up putting little load on the panels even though there was reasonable energy available.

On the Outback forums they first denied that such a problem existed. Eventually, after enough people complained, they said that a firmware upgrade was available. But, to get one, it is necessary to send the complete unit back to the factory. As I am in Nicaragua, that totally sucks.

Well, the unit finally just failed. It will be replaced with a Xantrex or Morningstar units. I have used products from both those vendors and never had problems.