The Miniboost Pro is designed primarily as a stand-alone charger used when there isn't a primary battery management system. Examples would be the second battery in a ute or 4wd or a primary charger system in a trailer.
It's not designed or well suited to use with the BP35 range of Battery Management Systems for a number of reasons:
- The solar component will not operate if connected directly to a BP35.
- The solar will only work if connected directly to a battery or if the DC side of the unit is activated and charging.
- When connected to a BP35, the MiniBoost pro will give a fault code for fifteen minutes before it will start to charge.
- The MiniBoost Pro outputs around 22amps when running as a DC-DC charger. The MiniBoost runs at 20.
The MiniBoost charges as high as 14·4 volts while the MiniBoost Pro goes to 14·6 volts. When connected to a BP35 the Auxiliary input drops approximately 0·5 volts out of the incoming power. This means at most the battery will only charge to 13·9 volts for MB or 14·1 volts for the MB Pro. The BP35 takes whatever power is available from solar and then makes up the difference to max out at 30amp charge to the battery until the aforementioned voltages are reached. At that point, the solar card takes over entirely and allows the charge to reach the full 14·6 volts before dropping back to 13·6 volts in float.
The only time that the MB Pro will outperform by any significant amount the MiniBoost when connected to a BP35 is in the final 5% or so of charge while driving at night. Most of the time when driving at night, you will either be at 100% charge after leaving home or when on the way home, where you will likely connect to mains.
For these reasons, we use the MiniBoost as the standard DC-DC booster for all installs.