We had a club dog trial supply event trailer with a HF solar setup on it. This trailer was hauled all over by different volunteers to events over many years. As with many community owned things, no one person was responsible for maintainence/upkeep of it. It would get picked up from wherever it was stored by one volunteer, and put back into storage (not always the same place) by a different volunteer after the event. IOW, it was on auto pilot.
The battery was an AGM type. That setup was trouble free for many many years. It would probably still be working if the trailer had not been totaled by a volunteer.
So the HF stuff IMO, can serve a need.
If I were a solar snob, I would have simply held my fire.
Let the person try it out and report back. With HFs generous return policy, it is a risk free experiment.
Looking at PTs signature, he has a LOT of money wrapped up in equipment.... And I remember him having some failures with some of it a few years ago as well. So the high dollar stuff is not a paneca... It can fail like anything else.
The cheap stuff may just be the the ticket for some people.
