Anyone else running a cheap Chinese MPPT off Amazon? Sharing notes on the Renogy Rover knockoffs

I picked up one of those unbranded 30A MPPTs off Amazon a few months back — paid about £28 delivered, which felt like a gamble but I couldn't justify £90+ for a Victron on my little shed setup. It's been running a single 200W panel into two 110Ah leisure batteries since March and honestly, it hasn't exploded yet. The display readings seem plausible, charging gets up to 14.4V absorption without any drama.

My main gripe is the software — the app it pairs with via Bluetooth is absolute rubbish, half the time it won't connect and when it does the history data looks made up. I've started just ignoring it and going by a separate battery monitor I wired in (a cheap Daly BMS readout I had spare). Anyone found a way to get decent data out of these things, or is that just the price you pay at this end of the budget?

Also curious whether anyone's actually stress-tested one — pushed it anywhere near its rated 30A. I'm only pulling maybe 10–11A on a good sunny day so I'm well within limits, but I'd love to know if the thermal protection actually works or if they just print a number on the case and hope for the best.

@Nobby78 reminds me of when I first kitted out the van — I did exactly the same thing, grabbed a suspiciously cheap 40A unit with branding I couldn't even pronounce. Worked fine for about eight months, then started misreporting battery voltage by nearly a volt. That doesn't sound dramatic until you realise it was pushing my Fogstar lithium cells past their comfort zone every single sunny afternoon.

Switched to a genuine Renogy Rover after that. Not Victron money, but actual documentation, actual support, actual firmware that does what the label says.

The £28 units aren't always disasters — but when they do go wrong, they go wrong quietly. No alarms, no logs, just gradual cell abuse you won't notice until your battery capacity mysteriously drops 20%.

Weigh up the £60 difference against the cost of a replacement battery pack.

Been running one of these on my greenhouse setup for about eight months now — paid £31 for a "PowMr" branded one. Honestly, it's held up better than I expected, though I did have to do a couple of things to keep it honest.

First thing: don't trust the SOC readout whatsoever. Mine was wildly optimistic. I added a separate battery monitor (a cheap Bayite one) and suddenly realised my batteries weren't getting anywhere near as charged as the MPPT was claiming.

Also worth checking the absorption/float voltage settings out of the box — mine arrived set for a sealed battery when I'm running flooded, which would've cooked them over time.

@Nobby78 what battery type are you running with it? That's usually where these cheaper units trip people up most.