Saturday, May 28, 2022

up the hill...

From the video description: Funny thing about this video is that you really can't see anything I'm doing to rig this up until the very end. Sorry about that - but I don't feel like re-shooting it. I added a catchy tune for the soundtrack to keep you viewers entertained. This is for a neighbor that I recently did a solar and Starlink install for. We first rigged up his Wyze Cam V3 running it off a 50' extension cord coming from his battery bank and inverter. I have a Wyze Cam V3 that I installed at the end of my driveway, 230 meters from my house. I added a wifi repeater that bumps the signal out that far but no power out there, so I set up a similar system to power mine. I used a 12V / 10 Ah sealed lead acid battery, a 30-watt solar panel, and a cheap PWM charge controller I had on hand. In testing I found that it was a bit overkill (power wise) for the camera, so I have been experimenting with scaling the system smaller. For the system in the video, I used a 12 V / 5 Ah sealed lead acid battery ($15.99), a 10-watt solar panel ($25.99), and another PWM charge controller ($12.31) that I had to buy. The cheap PWM charge controller is nice in that it already has a USB port to plug the camera directly into (plug'n'play). I mounted the charge controller to the battery using silicone calk, electrical tape, and baling wire - and rigged it within a large, inverted coffee can to make it "water proof". In testing the system, I found that the 5 Ah battery worked fine without being drained too much powering the camera overnight and was fully charged again in about 5 hours of full sunlight with the 10 watt solar panel. We get A LOT of sun out here, so this works just fine for me. A larger system will be required to run the camera for extended periods of cloudy days. Comment below if you have any questions. (NOTE: When connecting up any system like this, ALWAYS connect the battery to the charge controller first - then connect the solar panel to the charge controller. There are no fuses in the systems I installed but it is always a good idea to fuse the positive lines for all components. This is NOT a how to do it perfectly right - this is a HOW I DID IT. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK IF YOU FOLLOW MY INSTRUCTIONS.) Battery Solar Panel Charge Controller (You will also need some wire to connect the battery to the charge controller and extra wire if the solar panel is going to be further away from the charge controller.) 99,103,76,0,B

2 comments:

remmij said...

the "hi-tech" can shroud is a nice touch… somebody stole the wheels off the food truck…
kinda has a tfl landscape look to it…
that was a surprise…
NEFFEX

John Wells said...

In order to avoid running the battery too low - instead of connecting the camera to the USB port on the charge controller, you can add a 12v - 5v converter and connect it into the load terminals on the charge controller. The charge controller can be programmed to turn off and on the power to these terminals as whatever voltages you choose. (such as off at 12.2 volts and on at 12.5 volts) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09DGFR24W