DIY Solar Panels

[wolfpack412]

I've been busy creating a bunch of different solar panels. Figured I'd post some pictures for ideas for anyone tired of spending $$$ on Lithiums or for anyone else like me that dreams of never having to visit your cell cam again if you didn't want to.

20W panel on Spartan GoLive with charge controller mounted in its own box and 2 SLAs. This is way over kill and the battery has only been below 13V once and that was when the solar panel had a foot of snow on it.

10W Panel on Spypoint Cell Link and GardePro E5. One 12V7Ah SLA and charge controller. The clear lid seemed like a good idea at the time. I have another with a 12V18Ah battery as well with a regular lid.


I've been putting these on my Spypoint Micros. They are a 6W with 2SLAs. It is direct wired with a diode to stop back charging. The panel is a little flimsy feeling mounted like this. The Rev2 is below.
This is the same box with 2 SLAs and a 5W direct wire with a diode. Well, two are this and one has a small junction box with 10 rechargeable AAs. Close up of that is below.




For the one below I have been running a 6V and a 12V of these. The 6V is used on Spartan GoCams the 12V on Spypoint Micros. It has a built in charge controller. Inside the boxes there are 10 rechargeable AAs.





Last is a miniature version I built with a 2W panel and 10 rechargeable AAs. I've tested in on a Micro. I put it out with 80% charge and with it taking about 5-10 pictures a day and being in moderate sunlight it recharged to 100% in 2 days. That little black thing was a voltage meter I put on it to see how well it worked.

 

[35-acre]

WoW! And there are times that I'm afraid to plug shit into an outlet at my house.

Seems like you really know a thing or two about electrical. I do have some of my cams getting low on battery power at this point in the year. I'll have to drive, hike and change them - it's a love/hate thing I guess. It's a long trip for me (3 hours plus any time I'm out in the field) but it's time out in the woods.

 

[wolfpack412]

WoW! And there are times that I'm afraid to plug shit into an outlet at my house.

Seems like you really know a thing or two about electrical. I do have some of my cams getting low on battery power at this point in the year. I'll have to drive, hike and change them - it's a love/hate thing I guess. It's a long trip for me (3 hours plus any time I'm out in the field) but it's time out in the woods.

I hear you on that point, nothing like being out in the woods. On these cell cams it seems like when you swap batteries you have a 50/50 shot they stop communicating and you have to go mess with them.

When I started out wiring stuff as a teenager I did a lot of shoddy work and the result was gremlins in the wiring. I spent years researching how OEMs and high level DIY guys do their low voltage wiring. I try to make everything so it could go through a flood and come out bone dry. Moisture and electronics don't mix.

 

[yoderjac]

I'm using an RF 900 mhz system without a cell converter. Some of my cameras function as packet relay cams for other camera which can really eat power. This is an older system that is 6-volts rather than 12-volts. I just put a PWM charge controller on them and connect that to the 6-Volt 12 ah SLA batteries. The repeater cameras are the biggest issue. IF the battery goes low on them, picture back up on all the terminal cams that are routed through them. Then, when you replace the battery, all of the stacked up picks transmit and drain the batteries in all the cams quickly.

For terminal cams that get good sun most of the time, normal sized panels work fine. I just balance the delay time between pics to about 5 minutes and, since I don't use any point source attractants, the panels can keep the batteries topped off pretty will even with a few cloudy days between sunny days. For terminal cams with poor sun exposure and for cams used as repeaters, I use large 50-60 watt panels. With this setup I can go years before changing a battery.

SLA batteries sulfonate if left below about 70% charge for any time period. This significantly reduces their lifespan. This approach prevents it. My system sends full resolution pics that are used for QDM decisions rather than tiny thumbnails like the less expensive wireless systems. This approach has been working well for me for years.

The lifespan of my 12 ah SLA batteries was much lower and changes required much more frequently before I got the power balanced properly. This brings me to the problem with some of the private network 900 mhz systems that use a mesh network technique. They pick the routing based on signal power levels. This approach works fine for systems with continuous power from the grid, but they don't account for battery levels. The system I have allows the user to pick the routing. This allows me to know which cameras will be used in each routing so I can estimate the required power and choose panels accordingly. This should not be an issue with a cell based system that doesn't us a private network and each cam transmits through the tower.

I chose to go with a long lifespan system with no recurring cost because I have a trailer with power at the property that can house an old PC to collect all the pics. It was high upfront cost in $ as well as setup time, but once in place, there is very low recurring cost. Amortized over the lifespan of the system, I found this to be a significantly lower overall cost. Cell based systems are much lower up front cost and most won't allow full resolution pictures to be transmitted. The recurring cost is relatively high over time. If you only have a few cams, it is probably a good choice.

Great pics of the solar panel setup. It is also fun to see something you figure out and setup up yourself come to fruition.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[swat1018]

Nice work. If I were you I'd try some Tactacams. I think you'd ditch the Spypoints and Spartans.

 

[wolfpack412]

I'm using an RF 900 mhz system without a cell converter. Some of my cameras function as packet relay cams for other camera which can really eat power. This is an older system that is 6-volts rather than 12-volts. I just put a PWM charge controller on them and connect that to the 6-Volt 12 ah SLA batteries. The repeater cameras are the biggest issue. IF the battery goes low on them, picture back up on all the terminal cams that are routed through them. Then, when you replace the battery, all of the stacked up picks transmit and drain the batteries in all the cams quickly.

For terminal cams that get good sun most of the time, normal sized panels work fine. I just balance the delay time between pics to about 5 minutes and, since I don't use any point source attractants, the panels can keep the batteries topped off pretty will even with a few cloudy days between sunny days. For terminal cams with poor sun exposure and for cams used as repeaters, I use large 50-60 watt panels. With this setup I can go years before changing a battery.

SLA batteries sulfonate if left below about 70% charge for any time period. This significantly reduces their lifespan. This approach prevents it. My system sends full resolution pics that are used for QDM decisions rather than tiny thumbnails like the less expensive wireless systems. This approach has been working well for me for years.

The lifespan of my 12 ah SLA batteries was much lower and changes required much more frequently before I got the power balanced properly. This brings me to the problem with some of the private network 900 mhz systems that use a mesh network technique. They pick the routing based on signal power levels. This approach works fine for systems with continuous power from the grid, but they don't account for battery levels. The system I have allows the user to pick the routing. This allows me to know which cameras will be used in each routing so I can estimate the required power and choose panels accordingly. This should not be an issue with a cell based system that doesn't us a private network and each cam transmits through the tower.

I chose to go with a long lifespan system with no recurring cost because I have a trailer with power at the property that can house an old PC to collect all the pics. It was high upfront cost in $ as well as setup time, but once in place, there is very low recurring cost. Amortized over the lifespan of the system, I found this to be a significantly lower overall cost. Cell based systems are much lower up front cost and most won't allow full resolution pictures to be transmitted. The recurring cost is relatively high over time. If you only have a few cams, it is probably a good choice.

Great pics of the solar panel setup. It is also fun to see something you figure out and setup up yourself come to fruition.

Thanks,

Jack

I'm using an RF 900 mhz system without a cell converter. Some of my cameras function as packet relay cams for other camera which can really eat power. This is an older system that is 6-volts rather than 12-volts. I just put a PWM charge controller on them and connect that to the 6-Volt 12 ah SLA batteries. The repeater cameras are the biggest issue. IF the battery goes low on them, picture back up on all the terminal cams that are routed through them. Then, when you replace the battery, all of the stacked up picks transmit and drain the batteries in all the cams quickly.

For terminal cams that get good sun most of the time, normal sized panels work fine. I just balance the delay time between pics to about 5 minutes and, since I don't use any point source attractants, the panels can keep the batteries topped off pretty will even with a few cloudy days between sunny days. For terminal cams with poor sun exposure and for cams used as repeaters, I use large 50-60 watt panels. With this setup I can go years before changing a battery.

SLA batteries sulfonate if left below about 70% charge for any time period. This significantly reduces their lifespan. This approach prevents it. My system sends full resolution pics that are used for QDM decisions rather than tiny thumbnails like the less expensive wireless systems. This approach has been working well for me for years.

The lifespan of my 12 ah SLA batteries was much lower and changes required much more frequently before I got the power balanced properly. This brings me to the problem with some of the private network 900 mhz systems that use a mesh network technique. They pick the routing based on signal power levels. This approach works fine for systems with continuous power from the grid, but they don't account for battery levels. The system I have allows the user to pick the routing. This allows me to know which cameras will be used in each routing so I can estimate the required power and choose panels accordingly. This should not be an issue with a cell based system that doesn't us a private network and each cam transmits through the tower.

I chose to go with a long lifespan system with no recurring cost because I have a trailer with power at the property that can house an old PC to collect all the pics. It was high upfront cost in $ as well as setup time, but once in place, there is very low recurring cost. Amortized over the lifespan of the system, I found this to be a significantly lower overall cost. Cell based systems are much lower up front cost and most won't allow full resolution pictures to be transmitted. The recurring cost is relatively high over time. If you only have a few cams, it is probably a good choice.

Great pics of the solar panel setup. It is also fun to see something you figure out and setup up yourself come to fruition.

Thanks,

Jack

Back before cell cams were around I had started to build a camera system that could work off wifi but the idea of using a Jetpack for the final transmission to an FTP was a non-starter due to power consumption of them at the time. Now with the IoT stuff I'm doing with work I'm half tempted to create a system like you describe that would push the pictures back to a hub that would push them to AWS S3 or Azure Blob. I found with Spypoint you can get 250 pictures a month for each camera for a yearly fee of $100. With 15 cameras that does just about everything for new I need. I do have a couple Spartans that can stream live and send 30 second HD videos I use on food plots.
Your system sounds pretty cool in that it's stupid contained and off grid (for the most part). Should trademark it and sell it to peppers.

 

[wolfpack412]

Nice work. If I were you I'd try some Tactacams. I think you'd ditch the Spypoints and Spartans.

Thank you! Appreciate it.

The Spartans cost me $8 a month and that gives me unlimited live streaming, 30 second HD videos, and full resolution pictures. They also do Over The Air updates. I've also only had 1 issue in 3 years with 6 cameras.

As for the Spypoints, it's mostly the cost for me. For about $0.50 per camera I get 250 pictures. I put these on trails between bedding and food or two bedding areas so I don't get too many pictures.

I know a lot of folks like the tactacams and the pictures look pretty good but I just can't justify the cost when it comes so close the Spartan without all the features. And they are just way more expensive to run than Spypoints.

 

[yoderjac]

Back before cell cams were around I had started to build a camera system that could work off wifi but the idea of using a Jetpack for the final transmission to an FTP was a non-starter due to power consumption of them at the time. Now with the IoT stuff I'm doing with work I'm half tempted to create a system like you describe that would push the pictures back to a hub that would push them to AWS S3 or Azure Blob. I found with Spypoint you can get 250 pictures a month for each camera for a yearly fee of $100. With 15 cameras that does just about everything for new I need. I do have a couple Spartans that can stream live and send 30 second HD videos I use on food plots.
Your system sounds pretty cool in that it's stupid contained and off grid (for the most part). Should trademark it and sell it to peppers.

It is not my build. I'm using the old Buckeye Cam Orion system. I just customized the solar panels. I got one of their newer X80 for testing as they don't make the orion any more, but my Orions have been running since they first came out. They run 24/7/365. They are old technology at this point, but as long as they keep running, I'm going to continue amortizing the investment. They use commercial 5 mile 900 mhz band Frequency hopping radios that are integrated into them. I think back in the day, I saw the same radios sold by digikey. I'm sure Buckeye has a lot invested in the firmware and protocol.

 

[bigboreblr]

Im jealous...... You got cell service at your spot...

Looks good. A few things.

Batteries that are overcharged evaporate electrolyte, even those AA nicad batteries. Look at float and equalize charges per cell of what your using.

My 12v lead acid battery fix.... Buy 7815 voltage regulators (regulates to 15v), then put a regular power diode after it, reduces it another .6 to .7 volts. I am at 14.3 to 14.4v for a 12v lead acid battery. IF your using a charge controller, then your good to go.

Those solar panels might be a bit too big possibly. I use a 10 watt to keep a trolling motor battery charged for a cabin 12v lighting system. With a 8 year old trolling motor battery I've kept the cell filled up with distilled water on. Think I am tripling the wattage when I put a cell phone repeater up there. If my cabin mates finally agree its needed. Heck they drive 4-8 miles away twice a day to check their phones anyways...... Probably with one too many PBR's in them too.......

Wouldn't go past 5 watt on a cell one, and 2 watts for a regular one is fine. I'd also put the battery box facing north on the tree to keep the batteries cooler in the summer.

I use moultrie basic 800 series cameras. I go 1.5 years on a set of AA's. So no need to solar those guys. Where I hunt the deer leave the area and yard into a thick part of the forest about 10 miles away. So, I only need a camera from april to november up at camp.

You need some camo on that stuff. Good old olive green rattle can......

 

[buckdeer1]

I just use moultri or browning solar panels