I am severely disappointed in this product so far… Does anyone else’s solar panel & BCP function with continuous recording on?! If so, what’s your setup look like?
The whole idea was to be able to have a camera continuously record that we can’t run power to, on the exterior of our business’ building. Here is what it looks like (wall is west facing):
Yes, I realize it was cloudy on the particular day that I took this picture. But TODAY, for instance, there was a solid 6+ hours of full sun after noon and the battery died at some point after 2pm. This is after troubleshooting and trying a 2nd battery AND solar panel while having issues with it not charging over the past week (I bought 2 sets of this camera & panel over the last Black Friday sale).
I had considered the fact that maybe the USB wasn’t plugged into the camera and/or solar panel all the way, but I MADE SURE it was plugged in all the way when I switched out to the 2nd solar panel. And I mean, I AM still a little concerned because this is what the camera-to-panel plug looks like when I slide the sleeve out of the way:
I pushed them into each other as much as I could and it does NOT go in any more than that.
I check the camera throughout the day and never see a charging icon, and also never see the battery % go up. I guess the last possibility is maybe the camera body itself is deflective? I can’t imagine this setup is so bad that you can’t have continuous recording on and expect the solar panel to keep up… if that’s the case, I do not want this camera at ALL.
Just throwing this out, optimal panel installation should be facing due south and between 40-45 degrees. There a online based calculators that will give you all that info based on a your geo location.
This has been asked “ad-naseum”… BCP’s are NOT for continuous recording. No battery connected camera can record continuously for very long on solar/battery power unless you have a very elaborate solar panel / battery bank. It’s not capable with any battery camera for any amount of time over a few hours without the aforementioned elaborate setup.
The camera and solar panel work just fine with motion/PIR sensing and can generally keep up the charge, as long as there is good sunlight most of the day. I use 1 on a bird feeder that gets many many events through the day and the sun seems to keep it charged.
But again, if you want continuous recordings that you can review… you have to use a powered camera.
Ugh…well thanks guys. I wish they made that clear that their panel was not enough to keep up with continuous recording.
We had a fence vandalized at the opposite end of the parking lot that we had to put up, because of the people parking there & in our lot. The camera just happened to die 2 hours before it happened!! And using only the motion sensing notifications isn’t viable because if we extend the monitored area on the camera up to where the fence is, it’s just going to record events all the time because of the people/cars on the other side.
Solar panel(s) → usb battery bank with pass through charging → camera. Obviously the USB bank will need to be protected from the elements.
You will need enough solar power to have excess power during the day in order to recharge the battery bank, and even then you may need to manually charge it from time to time (unless you have lots of excess on the panels). A long (15 feet or less ideally, but if thick, can exceed that some) USB cable left somewhere accessible can help do this if the camera isn’t easily reachable, just put it in a weatherproof box or something to protect it.
But of course the easiest is hardwiring it, though obviously not always practical.
If you can run ethernet cable to the camera, they make POE to USB power converters which can be a lot easier than having an outlet run too.
With this setup, even if the internal battery can’t charge while the camera is in use, the battery bank will give lots of power to run it. Obviously the larger the bank and the more solar you have, the longer you can go (up to potentially never needing to charge it unless you have a stretch of cloudy days).
If there are times when you don’t need recording, you could schedule an automation to turn “off” the camera which would help conserve battery and even allow it to recharge if it is light out.
