I Don't regret it and glad I got a PWM. I went with the Bogart Engineering SC2030 paired to the Trimetric and four 130 watt panels charging four gc2. I recently helped a friend rewire his rig. He has a Blue Sky 3024 mppt with remote monitor and 470 watts and 3 agm 12 volts. I can be down 80 or 90 ah and he 50 and we are charged at about the same time. I have 50 more watts and he has mppt. As I understand it I dont believe he's getting the full benefit of mppt because his 3 panel voltages vary by almost .9 volts. They were added one at a time as his system grew.
From everything I have read mppt will do about 10 % better and that usually occurs primarily under certain conditions like very low battery and low temps at the panels.
In my friends case, he seldom goes below 12.3 volts or so and he's usually in a climate that has the panels at least warm early in the day. So he's probably not getting the best of an mppt that cost him $400. Others may explain it better???
If you do buy an mppt, buy all the panels now so you dont end up with a miss match issue. I understand PWM/parallel wiring to be more tolerant of small miss match of panels as they are not searching for a more stable voltage point??
I also like Bogarts warr. They said 4 years but if there is a problem that may be their fault they will cover it for a longer time. I would also consider a Morningstar PWM. Friends BS system goes black screen sometimes when he touches anything in the rig and discharges static electricity.
Saving $200 on a controller will put about 200 more watts on the roof. Bogarts reasons for developing PWM vs mppt was the expectation of panel prices continuing to drop and the less complex internals and power consumption of mppt. From everything I have read 30 % better from mppt isn't really going to happen but if I went to a bigger system or wanted 24 volt panels I'd go with Morningstar mppt. I stayed with 12 volt panels because their 26 inch width worked better on my rig than 24 volt panels. I can stuff 4 more panels up there where I couldn't match the wattage with 24 volt panel dimensions.
