Morningstar Tristar MPPT Solar Charge Controller Survives Lightning Strike

Two days of overview at the off grid homestead. My Morningstar Tristar MPPT solar charge controller survived a lightning strike. This thing is amazing. Rock solid.

It has been raining a lot recently. It has not been good for solar power production at the off grid homestead.

In the night we had a bad thunderstorm which blew out my solar power. There was a nearby lightning strike and a pop inside my tiny house. Then the solar charge controller went all goofy. The display showed a mess of chinese looking characters and the display was scrolling from left to right.

I first shut off the master solar panel cut off switch and then waited for the lightning to pass.

After I felt it was safe to work on the wiring I removed the main positive wire of the solar charge controller and waited a few seconds for the device to reset.

I feared the charge controller was damaged permanently but I wanted to try it out anyway in hope.

To my surprise and relief the Tristar solar charge controller is working well. I am quite amazed.

The Morningstar Tristar MPPT solar charge controller is rock solid and takes a lightning strike and still works. This is awesome.

I have no idea what got hit by the lightning. There was about a one second delay between the flash and the thunder so it was not directly overhead. I have found not physical damage to anything out on the homestead.

Thank you Morningstar for manufacturing such a solid device!

I have been cleaning up the off grid homestead off camera. I have to admit I was embarrassed about the mess out here but the winter was harsh and all my wood and supplies were under snow and ice. I had to wait for spring to clean it all up. Now is the time.

The ducklings are not living out with the Bantam chickens full time. They are doing well there it seems.

It has been a cloudy spring and the solar panel production has not been good at all during this season. This is to be expected though due to my being surrounded by trees and the sun is lower in the horizon.

I am going to be working on the solar panels to improve the solar power output though in the next few days.

But soon the sun will be higher and I will have power to burn just like last summer. Last year I was running an air conditioner on solar power alone and still had power to spare.

Follow my daily progress on the path to self sufficiency on my off grid solar homestead.
https://www.youtube.com/user/techman2015/playlists?view=50&shelf_id=10&sort=dd

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