Free Stuff

I guess I've been talking about the Wyze cameras enough to get the attention of another camera manufacturer.  I was contacted by the folks at EZVIZ and they are sending me a free camera to test out and review.  80,105,75, .16",B

Option 2

 

So the plan is to build an FPV rover (a project that has been on my mind for years thanks to the Mars rovers).  My recent experience with the Wyze cameras got me to thinking about it again.  My first thought was to use the parts I posted a photo of on Friday to enable wifi control of a toy RC car.  The micro controller and motor driver circuits will come in handy (and together they were only 15 bucks) in the event that I progress to the point of attempting to make a rover that is autonomous which is the ultimate goal.  I found some tutorials online that are pretty thorough, but I am not very confident I can get that to work so if I run into a snag, there is another option that seems to make perfect sense for this stage of development.  I already know the Wyze camera is easy to power by battery and works fine over my boosted wifi out to about 500 meters - but the remote control that comes with this rc toy car is only good to about 100 meters.  After doing a little digging on YouTube, I discovered the transmitter above which comes with a receiver that is easy to replace in the toy car and should give me control out to 600 meters - and no programming skills needed.  We shall see... 97,103,65,0,B

temperature...

Revelation 3:15  I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. 16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. 

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

Outside my comfort zone...

 

hmmm...what are these for?

98,102,65,0,B

just a little smaller...

 

One more test with the Wyze Cam V3 remote setup.  I found that the 20-watt panel I used in the last test had the 12 volt 5 amp hour battery fully charged within 2 hours as soon as the sun was up so I checked out how a 10 watt panel works today.  Fully charged in 4 hours (which sounds about right) so that works for me.  Going to install the new gear for my neighbor's camera tomorrow - and put away that extension cord.  99,102,57,0,B  

State of the water supply...

 

Been a pretty lean year so far rain-wise.  Less than a half inch since the beginning of 2022.  Checked my tanks this morning and I have 7,900 gallons on tap.  Tank prices have really gone through the roof since then.  When I bought mine 14 years ago, a 3,000 gallon tank from this company was $975 including shipping.  87,91,56,0,B