JLemon
5 year old buck +
I also run a couple of the X-Change cameras with the strobe. Generally field edges that I’m not worried about walking in and changing cards.
Cuddeback's Cuddelink
- Thread starter Peplin Creek
- Start date
I have a camera that after a rain is constantly taking pictures. It’s the G series powerhouse. I noticed it a couple weeks ago at the last rain. It took pics the whole time it was raining and then it went back to normal. It rained again last night and it did the same thing. This time it has not stopped taking pics and is transmitted them all to the home camera then sending them every 2 hours. I’m assuming the camera is defective? Also, when this camera dies, it a few hours from my home, it will break the daisy chain I have set up and I will not get pics from the cameras connected through it? What about the thousands of pics it’s going to send, just eat the cost?
JLemon
5 year old buck +
I’ve had 3 do the exact same thing during a rainstorm. 2 went back to normal but the other had to be sent in under warranty. They were great about it and got a new one to me quick. I have all mine in cuddesafes so they should be somewhat protected from the elements.
I have all mine in cuddesafes also. Are you having problems with one particular model? I only have one powerhouse and all the others are dual cell and the powerhouse is having the issue....
FredG
5 year old buck +
Before you go to the trouble of sending it back you could take the upper front trim face off and make sure the gasket around your flash module is seated correctly and doesn't have any debris caught up in it and then take off the lower trim face and carefully (don't scratch) remove the PIR fresnel lens and make sure the underlying o-ring is correctly seated and clean. While you have the fresnel lens out, make sure there isn't any water laying about inside the camera. Also make sure that the drain holes in the bottom corners of your cuddesafe are clear for drainage.
JLemon
5 year old buck +
I’ve had it happen to dual flash and double barrel strobe. Several others on here have had the same issue.
tdawgcj7
Yearling... With promise
Any word on the 3563 or the adapter cord? I ordered my 3563 from opticsplant back in june but they still have not fillled the order.
Is the external power connector on the K series cell camera the same as the J series? I want to buy one of those HME solar 12v boxes but not sure what adapter i would need or chip to convert it to 9v.
JLemon
5 year old buck +
You would need a 9v regulator like this. I got them off Amazon. You will also need to remove the 12v regulator from the board and solder in the 9v.
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john volkman
5 year old buck +
nobody has received any of the 3563 yet, they wont be available until late run august at the earliest, the adapter cords will be in early august - mid august at the latest. The new shipments of 3358 at that time will have both cords included so they work on any model cuddelink camera. K and J have the same input.
WillowRidge
Yearling... With promise
Ok fellas, I’ve got 9 units (1 K series dual flash cell, and the rest G series powerhouses). I went through and updated firmware to 7.06 on all of them so they are completely up to date. I’ve gone through and set them up accordingly. What’s everyone’s recommended next step before deployment? Should I go through and set them in the link and test them before? Or just test individually? They all passed the motion test.
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crenshawco
5 year old buck +
I would spend some time mapping out your property and where you plan on placing cameras. I would start out by trying to have no more than 400 yards between any two cameras. I haven't had much luck going past that number in the wooded areas I hunt. Once you devise somewhat of a plan, I'd go out in the field and start deploying just like they do in this video.
Be prepared to have to make adjustments to your original mapping and planning. There may be cases where you have to use a camera as a remote or move it closer than you originally intended.
Be prepared to have to make adjustments to your original mapping and planning. There may be cases where you have to use a camera as a remote or move it closer than you originally intended.
Bpressley
5 year old buck +
Your best bet would be to test all of them at home first, just to save yourself any trouble IF there are any problems.
I use a GPS mapping app to get an idea of where and how far apart I'm going to set my cams. I mark each waypoint with the camera model, location ID, date deployed, and channel number. There is also some trial and error involved if you have hilly terrain and or open areas such as fields or clear cuts. The more open and flat the terrain, the farther you can link. The opposite is true for steep, hilly terrain. I also try to set my home unit in the middle of the area I want to cover. Kind of like the center hub of a wheel and the cameras are setup around it. This helps keep the number of links to 1 or 2, maybe 3 at most. Last year I had no real plans or strategy while placing these cams and I had a couple cams that had 4 or 5 links. I'm suspecting this led to increased battery consumption on those cams and made them weak links because I had to go out of my way and change batteries on those cams. I want this system to work for me, not the other way around. When it is set up properly it is awesome and definitely worth the investment.
I also want to add that this year I broke up my cams into several smaller groups. I don't have anymore than 6 cams in a group, my smallest is 3. I feel like it's easier to run this way. Plus these can get very heavy in a pack if you can even fit them all in there. When you have G cams, D booster packs, and J cams with D battery adapters several cams can weigh alot. It's probably not an issue if you can ride to your spots but hiking around the mountain with 60-70 lbs of equipment can get old real quick, especially when it's summer and 90° with 100% humidity.
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WillowRidge
Yearling... With promise
Probably more information than what you wanted.
Similar to what I’ve seen JLemon post, I ordered some 12v 9ah and 6v 12ah SLA rechargeable batteries and built my own external packs. I used the 6v for the G and Home/cell. I put 2 6v batteries in an ammo box and joined them in parallel with a jumper wire (2 6v 12ah in parallel should be 6v 24ah approx). I ordered some connectors that fit in the external ports of the cams and soldered them on, and it seems to work fine. For the J’s I did the same thing using 12v batteries and added a voltage regulator inline that allowed me to adjust the voltage down to 9v. I set to between 9-9.1. My initial tests were with no internal batteries, just to make sure they worked with the externals. For one of the J’s on a food plot I also attached a 12v solar panel to the 12v batteries to see if that allows them to last any longer.
I don’t have any data on how long these will last. At this point I changed both the G and cell/home 6v packs this past weekend because I was on my land. These SLA’s were at 6.5 when I put them out. Both battery packs were around 6.1v when I swapped them, so it appeared they were being used. New/Recharged SLA batteries have 6.3-6.5v from what I’ve seen. There were no low battery warnings, I just figured I would change them since I was there and I don’t want those 2 cams to die. They had 35 days on them, and approx 3100 pics through the home and 8400 on the G/powerhouse.
I did make a last minute decision to also add AA’s to all cams when I put them out. I’m not sure which batteries are doing what at this point. I’m just waiting to see what happens. All reports are still showing battery ‘OK’. They have never reported external batteries on the report. I have 38 days as of today on all battery reports. Not reporting externals I assume has something to do with the voltage level I have them set to. At least 1 J would barely last 3 weeks last year on just AA’s, so they are at least better than last year so far.
In reading some of the above posts after I had put the cams out, I’m wondering if I should have adjusted the voltage a little higher for the J’s, maybe to 9.6v. For the G and cell/home, I’m wondering if I should have also used 9.6v instead of 6v for the externals. At the time I was guessing at what I needed. They are all adjustable, so I can change if needed.
It was a bit of an investment to get enough SLA batteries, but I’ve always used them in other cams and can usually get 3-5+ years of recharges out of them. If that holds true then I should see it be more cost effective than buying AA’s or D’s like I did all last year. Probably about $50 per pack with 2 SLA’s in each one. I saw a guy selling them on a website for $80 and they only had 1 battery in them.
JLemon
5 year old buck +
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roosterstraw
5 year old buck +
So now I am having a new problem with one of my G cameras. I updated it on the 13th and it has not been taking many pictures since the update, I don't know if coincidence or not. I have another camera in that location which got 774 pictures compared to the G camera's 33 pictures. I have never had any problems out of this camera before. Any one have any idea's?
john volkman
5 year old buck +
a guess( since that is all your can do without the camera in hand ) is that a setting changed once you updated your firmware. I always suggest running thru settings when firmware is updated and also run a test on everything , typically this takes a couple minutes or less.
roosterstraw
5 year old buck +
Okay, I’ll double check everything next time I go out.
