Morningstar Tristar MPPT 600V Solar Charge Controller w/ Disconnect Box (TS-MPPT-60-600V-48-DB) - Intelligent High Voltage Solar Panel Regulator for LA/Li Batt., 97.9% Effic., Data/Comms, 5 Yr. WTY

The Morningstar customer service team is OUTSTANDING. Don’t be afraid to buy this extremely well designed and durable product. Pete from Morningstar tech support walked me through this. I have some if these been working since 2014!

Works fantastic. I only wish I had bought this ten years ago. I have six 120 watt panels on the roof. Morningstar has Great support. I had a question and they responded very fast. I had been using a Solar Boost 2000 and replace it with another Solar Boost, then it broke. It broke. Finally wised up and bought a Morningstar Tristar. LESS MONEY !

We use this in an area with no utility power access and the meter is necessary to monitor our solar charger/inverter system. It provides a lot of useful info, and seems to work well. The only drawback we have noticed is that the push buttons have a tendency to stick at times, however, our system is located in an area that is not climate controlled and is subject to wide temperature fluctuations and high humidity. Time will tell how well it holds up.

I purchased this to replace a Midnite Solar GFPD which appears to have been grounding the solar panels. (I have an unusual installation. Please see below.) I reached out to Morningstar by email, and a Senior Technician at Morningstar was unable to make a sufficient effort to understand my situation. The Morningstar technician kept lauding their product without really understanding my unique setup. His comments referred continuously to a regular solar setup. In my case, I am grounding a small number of solar panels without an inverter to an existing solar array with an inverter, and the small number of solar panels are meant to feed a solar air conditioner as well as a solar heating element. Each (air conditioner and heating element) of them has an MPPT device, and each of them can simultaneously draw power from either the solar panels or the grid. I had heard good things from Morningstar; however, my experience with their technical support team was quite frustrating, disappointing. The Morningstar technician completely ignored the information I provided regarding the heating element, and refused to make an effort to understand its compatibility with my solar setup. I will complete my review once I have finished installing it. ===================================== Second part of review September 2024 I managed to finish connecting the ground fault protection device to my system without any help from Morningstar (please see picture of GFPD showing a green light - this means no ground fault is present). Shame on Morningstar technical department for refusing to work with me in solving this issue. I managed to feed both alternating current as well as direct current to my devices (please see pictures of air conditioner working on both alternating current and direct current). Some additional notes: the installation manual is presented as a miniaturized manual. This makes it very difficult to read, understand. In addition, the manual does not use standard colors for positive or negative direct current. This makes it difficult to follow, and I repeatedly got the connection points mixed up. To deal with this I ended up by marking on the device itself a one, two, three, or four along with an identification for either positive or negative cables using an un-erasable ink pen. (Please see the picture marked with a +3 and a -4. Notice that Morningstar has labeled by mistake both of them with a negative symbol (-)). As suspected the Midnight Solar GFPD was grounding the solar panels. Additional installation note: if you are thinking of purchasing this GFPD please be aware that there is a ferrite ring that needs to be energized. This requires a small amount of DC electricity, and this may be done either from a smallish lead battery, from the solar panels themselves, or from an AC to DC converter. Using a small battery may require an additional battery charger. Morningstar provides several feet of connected cables for this purpose with a fuse. I cut part of this cable with the fuse, and I placed a fused DC 5-amp fuse holder on the provided DIN rail. In my case, I found a small DIN rail electricity converter from AC to DC that was able to use either AC or DC electricity (in the VDC range of my solar panels) as an input, and it has a small variable DC output of about 15VDC at 2-amps (please see picture). ===================================== Third part of review Unfortunately, as I found out later I designed a partial solution. The GFPD disconnected itself once the solar energy was insufficient to maintain the ferrite energized. I will, therefore, have to install a solution with a battery. Unfortunately, the manual does not indicate either the minimum (to avoid tripping its breaker) or the maximum instantaneous (to avoid the use of a battery that is too small) watts used to energize the ferrite ring. It, also, does not indicate the watts per hour used to energize the ferrite ring. ===================================== October 2024 I disconnected the previous solution I had using only an electricity converter using solar electricity to feed the ferrite ring. I installed a new waterproof box, and I installed a battery charger using solar electricity. The output of this battery charger feeds the ferrite ring using a rechargeable lead acid battery of 12 VDC 5Ah. The reason for getting a new waterproof box is that the battery charger will not fit inside the ground fault protection device enclosure when it is installed on a din rail. In my case the din rail was necessary to keep the battery charger steady while inserting the cables. I, also, found a battery tray which I was able to attach to the false bottom of the waterproof box. The battery tray has Velcro strips to prevent the battery from falling off when opening the waterproof box. I might have to eventually upgrade the lead acid battery for a 12 VDC 9 Ah or a 12 VDC 12 Ah lead acid battery. It currently functional now during the autumn; however, it is possible that during the winter it might lack enough stored energy due to the battery and battery charger being sensitive to lower temperatures. In any case, my installation is finally working, and this completes my review for this product. ===================================== The device works as intended; however, the manual design, the manual errors, the labeling mistakes, the lack of information, and especially the lack of assistance from the company earn it a single star. This is a very complex component that requires an understanding of what it does; it has several different possibilities of where to connect it in a system, and it has different ways of connecting it. Therefore, having assistance from the manufacturer is essential, and the lack of assistance from the same is shameful. If you have a solar installation that does not conform to a ‘standard’ solar installation, then I recommend you look elsewhere; otherwise, you may not receive any technical assistance from this manufacturer.

Good info and easy to read. Just what the MPPT controller needs.

Comes with a short cable. Just remove blank face plate, plug in cable, and secure meter with the 4 screws. Use manual as going through all the menus can be confusing.

I was wanting to build a small solar set up and seen many charge controllers for like 20 and 30 bucks and a few near 80 bucks. They all just screamed cheap quality. Then I find this gem, with a huge heat sink and this thing just screams of quality! Spend a little more for something like this if you want it to last.

I ordered the wrong item. I meant to order the remote meter which does the same thing not connected to the charge controller. I did not notice my mistake until I received this item. I was going to send it back but decided it can not be that much different from the remote version and I have the option of mounting it on the controller at any future date. I use it remotely and it works great other than the buttons stick from time to time. There may be a more operational variance than I am aware of but this one works for me.