Wanderer 30A wake up charge at 14.4V

My Wanderer 30 amp controller will begin charging in the morning at 14.4 volts and keep on that high rate of charge for 2+ hours.
This occurs even when the batteries are at full charge in the morning (12.6 to 12.9 volts) 
It seems that this is cooking the batteries.  The batteries should only need a brief higher volt charge and then drop down to a maintenance float charge, correct?

That's normal... Your batteries will be just fine..

If it bothers you turn off your panels... But there is no need...

bighatnohorse

this is fairly normal for a charge controller, there are some very expensive controllers that can go to float based on amps, ie at a preset low amp charge.

So the sun comes up and the panel power increases but the controller is limiting voltage to 14.4, it may take very little power to keep a charged battery @ 14.4 so the amps are limited to maintain this for 2 hrs.

Remember they get no charge at night, ideally you'd float a charged battery 24/7!

There are programmable controllers that let you adjust absorption time but the default I've seen on most is 2 hrs.
Most do not have logic to revert to float except on time. Programmable controllers generally will let you change charge and float voltages also.

Mostly, it starts charging at 15.4 to 15.5 volts in the morning. Is that okay?

That sounds high to me... You should call Renogy...

The start up charging rate has increased to 15.6 volts.
The controller is still under the one year warranty. As you can see, I first posted this question in April. I think the unit has been defective since new, or almost new.

I called Renogy tech support and they want it returned for repair or replacement.
That was Thursday (today Sunday) and no word from them yet. (They're supposed to email me a return authorization.)

Meanwhile, my solar is down. I will order a backup controller from another company.

Follow up post. . .
I called Renogy and was requested to return the Wanderer controller for warranty repair/replacement. It took them a long time and I had to call them after waiting weeks with no word. They immediately sent out a replacement.

During those weeks I ordered and used a WindyNation solar controller. The WindyNation controller worked just fine, although it does not have the automatic staged charging feature as the Wanderer. I figured that a spare backup controller would be a good thing to have.

At any rate, the "new" replacement Wanderer will charge up to 14.9 to 15.1 volts when it "wakes up" with the morning sun. And it does that everyday even if the batteries are at full capacity. It charges at the higher voltage for about 120 minutes.

One problem with that is my inverter senses "high voltage" and will go into protective shut down mode. This is not good if one wants to use the inverter to charge up a laptop and leave during the morning. The over-voltage condition from the Wanderer trips the inverter OFF.