Peplin Creek
5 year old buck +
What kind of batteries are you using? Lithium’s will never show low.
Cuddeback's Cuddelink
- Thread starter Peplin Creek
- Start date
My last round of battery changes were after I tried Dpacks, then solar panel with the aa included. I went with lithium and found they give full power then shut off as well. Which I’m ok with if it wasn’t 30 days, those babies are not cheap!
I’m sure someone out there has already fabricated a conversion cord for the d packs, or a external battery pack that plugs In the same way. If only we could find them!!! The season is coming quickly!
hunt&fish4
Yearling... With promise
Feel your pain. We have the G Series almost a year now and getting better but still doesn't seem to working as well as advertised. I wish I would have keep my battery receipts for 6 cameras. Solar panels have helped but hearing the batteries sent with have been known to have issues and different brand recommended - more $. I am trying to be optimistic but like you can't afford to keep spending ...
How many pics did you get?
hunt&fish4
Yearling... With promise
Have am
What maH rated battery did you buy? Seeing quite the price difference and don't know enough about to know if worth spending the extra$$. Thanks
I believe they were Rayovac Fusion. 20,000mah. They all tested at 1.66v.
I think D cells have about 8 times the capacity of AA’s.
Wow I just looked at my report it was 280 images, 13 days. Energizer lithium
A battery’s Mah really means nothing if you don’t have a corresponding current that it relates to. A lot of mfg don’t state mah at all. Here is the specs for AA & D.
I also have some Energizers in 2 cameras, but they are not linking to get a report on them.
Yes AA lithium
Here is my start and end of battery cycle
Attachments
Camera 14= shows “LOW” at 13 days & 51 pics. Something’s not right. Unless you are just extremely unlucky on batteries.
I’ve been following this discussion for a month or so now. I really like the information provided. This year I put my cams out on June 22. A cell home, 5 J black flash and 1 power house black flash. I have the cell set to send me images every 3 hours. All cams are set to take 5 pic bursts, 15 sec delays. Only the power house is set over a mineral lick, all others on trails or fields. I do get an occasional email in between the 3 hours, I assume when it hits a certain amount of pics on the home.
For the first 3 weeks all was great and right on time. On July 19 it stopped sending me pics during the day. I got the 9am email and then nothing. After midnight it sent me several emails with pics all the way back to that morning. I noticed it sent me 2 emails with the same pics in some cases. It also sent me 2 emails with the report that morning, several hours apart. Actually 1 report only showed 1 cam connected, the other showed them all.
Since then it has been intermittent. Some time frames I get emails every 3 hours as expected. Other days it misses some emails, but always seems to catch up. Normally when it catches up I get some emails sent twice though, including reports. Has happened 3 days in the last week. I assume the double emails are using up my data quicker. The reports have rarely had pics in the image queue, so I don’t think that saturation is an issue. Batteries have all been status of OK, 32 days on all batteries so far (I built some DIY battery packs and have them connected, but I can’t confirm they are actually being used after reading some of the other posts about external batteries above. Another topic for later maybe). I was suspecting that the issue may be I’m losing service, but that doesn’t explain double emails. I did order the high gain antennas and will replace them the next time I am on the property to be sure.
Just checking to see if anyone has experienced anything similar, or has any ideas?
Thanks
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
For the first 3 weeks all was great and right on time. On July 19 it stopped sending me pics during the day. I got the 9am email and then nothing. After midnight it sent me several emails with pics all the way back to that morning. I noticed it sent me 2 emails with the same pics in some cases. It also sent me 2 emails with the report that morning, several hours apart. Actually 1 report only showed 1 cam connected, the other showed them all.
Since then it has been intermittent. Some time frames I get emails every 3 hours as expected. Other days it misses some emails, but always seems to catch up. Normally when it catches up I get some emails sent twice though, including reports. Has happened 3 days in the last week. I assume the double emails are using up my data quicker. The reports have rarely had pics in the image queue, so I don’t think that saturation is an issue. Batteries have all been status of OK, 32 days on all batteries so far (I built some DIY battery packs and have them connected, but I can’t confirm they are actually being used after reading some of the other posts about external batteries above. Another topic for later maybe). I was suspecting that the issue may be I’m losing service, but that doesn’t explain double emails. I did order the high gain antennas and will replace them the next time I am on the property to be sure.
Just checking to see if anyone has experienced anything similar, or has any ideas?
Thanks
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
john volkman
5 year old buck +
sent you a PM with my number , id rather not trouble shoot on the forum
john volkman
5 year old buck +
this is almost certainly one of two issues,
1. your cellular service in that area is marginal and its going in and out.
2. you have an internal issue with your cell home and it needs service or to be looked at.
with all cell units - if the que hits 30 images it automatically emails them regardless of what the setting is at because that is the max the que can hold.
Here is the first thing I would check. I would check all the batteries that were removed. If some are still good, you may have bad connection in the battery pack. Whereas you are losing a paralleled bank of batteries. Which in effect are losing capacity.
john volkman
5 year old buck +
Just wanted to make this clear so im going to put it in all CAPS! DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON LITHIUM AA"S , they do not offer enough benefit for these cameras to warrant the extra cost. Running good D batteries in a booster is the most economical way to extend battery life. Solar is a good option when you have a camera in full sun and you make sure the batteries are fully charged before you deploy them. That said, if you run your cameras from late summer thru fall, D's are still a better option cost wise if you consider the cost of the solar panel compared to the cost of the booster. . The batteries included in the solar kit are the same brand we recommend for replacement. i do recommend getting a good trickle charger like the tenergy model to insure each battery is good and fully charged if you run multiple solar panels.
I’ll be changing to the high gain antennas this weekend. I’ll see how things run after that.
Thanks John
john volkman
5 year old buck +
remove the burst mode on your cameras unless you are looking to pull extra higher rez images off the card in the camera, you will only get the first image of the burst transmitted anyways. If you want more pics move your camera delay to 5 seconds , 1 image per trigger and your link delay to 5 seconds also. this way you will get all your images transmitted and it will also save you some battery since you removed the burst mode.
I do like to go through the larger quantity of pics when I pull cards. Sometimes it is the 3rd or 4th pic in the burst that gives the best view of the buck, or other subject. A lot can pass by in 5 secs also. Not that I don’t miss things with the 15 sec delay, so probably no difference there. Not sure if the 15 secs start when the trigger occurs, or after the last pic in burst completes?
I had over 7000 pics in the first month on my mineral lick, with burst of 5 on. If only the first is sent to the home, then around 1400 pics to the home. 2500 or so pics on the home from all cams in the first month. If I would have had more triggers, that count would probably be up quite a bit. I did pay the overage last month. Not that $5-$10 dollars is a major issue, but not sure how many overages you pay if you send too many pics.
I do like the idea of saving battery if that would be significant. My property is 3 hours away, so when batteries die it can be days or even weeks before I can get there to change them. Also when changing settings, if I’m not happy with them it can again be weeks before I can get there to change them again. A lot to think about. All part of being a trail cam junkie I guess :).
I’m including this mornings report as well, in case it shows something you may see that could be addressed.
john volkman
5 year old buck +
report looks great , one of the better ones ive seen as far as connection strength and all cameras have up to date firmware!I do like to go through the larger quantity of pics when I pull cards. Sometimes it is the 3rd or 4th pic in the burst that gives the best view of the buck, or other subject. A lot can pass by in 5 secs also. Not that I don’t miss things with the 15 sec delay, so probably no difference there. Not sure if the 15 secs start when the trigger occurs, or after the last pic in burst completes?
I had over 7000 pics in the first month on my mineral lick, with burst of 5 on. If only the first is sent to the home, then around 1400 pics to the home. 2500 or so pics on the home from all cams in the first month. If I would have had more triggers, that count would probably be up quite a bit. I did pay the overage last month. Not that $5-$10 dollars is a major issue, but not sure how many overages you pay if you send too many pics.
I do like the idea of saving battery if that would be significant. My property is 3 hours away, so when batteries die it can be days or even weeks before I can get there to change them. Also when changing settings, if I’m not happy with them it can again be weeks before I can get there to change them again. A lot to think about. All part of being a trail cam junkie I guess :).
I’m including this mornings report as well, in case it shows something you may see that could be addressed.
