This shunt is Renogy’s entry into the “smart shunt” scene. Like many other brands, they’ve got a little way to go before being a challenge to the top brands, but it’s an ok entry.
It’s only rated at 300A continuous (500A for 10 seconds), where most of the others handle up to 500A continuous. It’s got a voltage range up to 120v so it’ll suit many system types.
The accuracy (relative to the average) and repeatability were ok on all counts, even though it did read above by a couple of percent. The repeatability was also very good with very little variation.
There’s no zero current calibration but as previously mentioned, this can be either good of bad. Immediately on connection, it beeped at us which was just annoying. And there seemed to be several times we adjusted settings to stop the beeping, yet they didn’t “stick” and it kept going. Perhaps there was a glitch in the App, but we found it frustrating to walk away and when it reached top or bottom we were once again beeped at. There are some odd setting choices such as hysteresis, it’s a necessary function but the way they describe it was a bit awkward to understand (yes we do know what it is, it was just described strangely).
The App requires location data to be enabled so it’s not ideal for those who want ultimate privacy, we don’t believe it should be required. You also need to create a Renogy account to be able to use it, again this shouldn’t be necessary, just let us use the shunt stand-alone.
The App seemed a little flakey and sometimes didn’t connect, but it was mostly ok, this is common with BT devices in general. Many people seem to mention issues with App connectivity and locking up. This can get even more complicated when paired with other Renogy devices, but we didn’t test for that.
The App shows discharged Ah during the discharge cycle, however did not appear to show the same metric during charge… weird. The current resolution is great at 0.01A, but this resolution is probably overkill for a device like this.
The form factor will suit some people, and being low profile it seems neat. But many people will need to chop away some of the plastic cover to fit larger or multiple lugs on it. Labelling of the bolts could be better. I think the case design is over-complicated, and they could have left it more bland and more usable, instead of making it appear like a Star Wars prop. There’s also a very small flexible PCB with a temperature sensor that to me seems vulnerable during installation, I would have preferred to see that hidden under the shunt plate. Wiring provided once again comes without any fusing. Sense cable terminals are also very small and seem a little fragile, but they should be set and forget so it’s unlikely to be an issue.
1 Year warranty is a bit low considering it’s a solid state device. And of course product support for Renogy gear is notoriously bad, but individual experiences do seem to vary on this.
