I need to watch ads closer. I see one for $58.
I use VPN but donāt post much. I do on Amazon.
Whenever Iām keeping an eye out for something I toss a deal alert on slickdeals. I have a few perpetual ones for stuff I need regularly too.
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I need to reactivate my account. Thx.
Decent UPS. I was looking at some basic oneās for around $48. But I like having a much smaller backup. Especially for the outside camera at the garage getting power inside the garage. The battery bank is small. If I could find a ups about the size of 2-3 cell phones stacked on each other that would be perfect.
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Thatās logical and a key point.
That would work for me,
I have piles of 8-10K USB power banks from vendors and when my company changed our logo. Could daisy chain them all and duct tape them together.
Make sure to use lots of layers of duct tape for good heat insulation.
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I like that hovering over the image gives your chatGPT input 
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Just noting that Iām patenting the āpower bank centipedeā.
Just donāt plug the input of the first one into the output of the last one or you will accidentally discover the secret to unlimited free energy and the oil companies will have you assassinated.
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Now all I need is a replicator. 
So far Iāve only used it for ārealistic picture of impossibly proportioned womanā. Didnāt know it had uses beyond that.
I think all men start learning AI that way.
Iāve completed my testing of the Voltaic > Wyze camera testing. The test setup was:
UL approved extension cord > Samsung wall wart (normal, fast, and super fast capabilities) > Drok USB tester (charging indicator) > Voltaic v75 battery bank > Drok USB tester (discharge indicator) > Wyze OG-T camera.
Note: please donāt laugh at my āPristine Test Labā (living room floor). The Test Lab manager (wife) is asleep and has given me full run of the Lab until 5am 
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Following are 3 screen shots with my observations.
In this shot you can see the charging tester on the left, the discharge tester on the right. All looks proper.
In this shot the Voltaic is no longer charging. All looks proper.
Note:if you see a foot in the lower right hand corner that is me testing my ground circuitā:grin:
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Now the big question - - What is the cycle time between these two conditions? Glad you asked.
The following shot shows the cycle time according to the Drok USB testers and time.
Caveats
The 4 LEDās do not reflect what the Drok testers are seeing. They are showing a fully charged battery. Iām guessing this is so a typical user would look and say āI have a fully charged unitā. The user does not need to know the unit is cycling.
The Voltaic unit does not have fast charging. This may become an issue as I determine how long the unit can operate with the solar panel. To date Iāve seen 3+ days. I had to stop that test to do this test.
Conclusion
Iām happy with what I am seeing. The unit does not sit on 100% charging. It cycles between charge/not charge approx every 40-60 minutes.
Iām going to go back to long term testing with the solar panel so I may not be as active in this thread. I will give updates weekly on how the solar system is working.
Itās nearing 5am. The Test Lab manager may be coming in. I better clean up the labš¤£.
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Great testing! Thanks for sharing
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Fantastic testing. Thorough and detailed. I should think of adding a solar cam outside myself.
Ok, So I did a lot more testing to keep my cameras uninterrupted during a power outage. I tested a number of traditional 120v AC UPS systems. I have some pretty good consumer grade ones I use for my network equipment. APC, CyberPower, and Tripp Lite, The thing is, with all consumer grade UPS, there is still going to be āTransfer Timeā. On average for the lower cost ones, they are running between 10-12 milliseconds. For the better ones, they are running about 6-8 milliseconds. This is according to their spec sheets. If you get a āLine Interactive UPā, you can get the transfer rate down to about 2-6 milliseconds. The only way youāre going to get zero-0 transfer time is to buy a double conversion type of UPS.
I tried my V3 cameras on ALL of my UPSās. APC, CyberPower, and Tripp-Lite. My āReally Goodā APC, which is line interactive and according to specs is between 2-4ms, my camera was hit and miss. I killed incoming AC power 5 times. 2 times the camera stayed active, 3 times the camera rebooted. My other UPSās the camera always rebooted.
Now, this isnāt a big problem for me because I donāt do continuous recording. And a 1 minute blip in recording is no big deal. But even if I needed/wanted 2-4ms transfer time on the power, it IS NOT WORTH spending $130-$200 for a UPS system, for a $25-$35 camera. And itās definitely not worth spending $1000 or more for a double conversion UPS. Soā¦ with my other testing, what are my options?
For me, I will stay with the original Portable Charger Power bank I mentioned in the opening post of this thread. (Scroll to the top for the link). Yes, the camera does reboot when going from commercial power to battery power, and/or back, but the pros outweigh the cons. As I mentioned, itās TRUE Pass-Through charging with overcharging protection. Once the battery is 100% charged, the camera runs entirely off of the incoming power. The battery is Ice Cold with no additional charge. And Iāve stored this battery bank for 3 months at a time and it still maintained itās 100% charge. And there is no residual or trickle charge going to the battery. I know this because it charges/operates similarly to my shop air compressor. (Hmmm). Let me explain. My air compressor when filling, shuts OFF at 135psi. It turns ON when the air drops to 95psi. However, if it starts to charge at 95psi and I manually shut it off when it reaches 100psi, the compressor WILL NOT START compressing air again when I turn the power switch on. It sees the 100psi and waits until itās a 95psi or lower. I noticed with this power bank the same thing. It will charge to 100% and shut off and thatās it. If I MANUALLY unplug it at 98% or 99% and then plug the charger back in, it WILL NOT START CHARGING AGAIN. It starts charging when the power bank battery is below 98%. I have manually tested this numerous times. With an inline dc current meter, when it reaches 100% (or 98-99% if I manually unplug it for a second), there is zero-0 current flow when I plug the charger back in.
The only way (Without paying $1000+) to get zero-0 transfer time for a camera, is to do what I suggested in another post in this thread.
- Use a small SLA sealed lead acid battery. (For me, it would be a 6v because you can get one for $10-$13.) But a 12v one isnāt that much more.
- Connect a 6v/12v trickle charger/maintainer. Battery can handle that for ever and it only costs $15 for a 3amp version.
- Connect in parallel to the battery and the trickle charger (Or solar panel if using a 12v battery) a 6-30v Buck Converter. (Converts it to USB-A 5v). Costs $7.
Now, you will always have 5v output. The trickle charger will keep the battery topped off faster than the USB output can draw. Probably even solar will replenish easily during the day. A 2-5ah battery will let the 5v usb camera work a long time. Close to about 10 hours without any input power. Of course, if this is a battery backup to commercial power, you should never have a problem. If this is in a remote area with only SOLAR power, you might need a larger battery. Maybe a 7-10 amp 12v.
Anyway, for me, Iām sticking with the Pxwaxpy portable charger battery bank. I can live with the reboot (less than a minute) in the rare instances where I have a power outage. Anyway; Iām about done with all this testing. Time to move on to another project.
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Were you using the wall wart power supply or do those UPSes have a DC output?
10msec should be fine for just about anything as just about everything has an AC to DC conversion which will have a filtering capacitor that also stores enough to make up for the interruption.
My guess is it is the simulated sine wave that may be throwing things off, the switch confuses the voltage regulator in the wall wart or camera. Iām thinking a higher quality USB adapter might be enough to eliminate that behavior.
Not sure what youāre differentiating with the 10-12msec and 3-4 msec. All UPSes that arenāt āonlineā are āline interactiveā. Meaning they feed through wall power and switch quickly in the event of an outage. The higher quality units just do it faster. Iāve used the cheap low quality APC units with lots of different devices and never had one reboot, so Iām suspecting the cheap wyze wall warts (or possibly the fact that youāre using a USB output from the UPS with no wall wart) as being the issue.
Thanks for posting your findings.
Cost-wise I think I will try your plan for my use case. I am not using solar. I will keep an eye out for a smali on sale APC UPS. I believe your option will work good for me in the mean time. I only capture events, so this should work for me.
If I had a solar setup, I think I would try @ronl4625 method, but I donāt have any plans for solar at the moment.
I currently have two cams, a v3 and a v4 on their individual APC UPS units. These two cams cover my front yard. I plan to use your method for one of my backyard cams. My backyard is fenced-in so most of my cam activity happens out front. Nothing scary, but helpful for monitoring.
I really donāt use my cams as security cams. I just use them to keep track of things or monitor progress of any work being performed. They are quite handy as monitors. On my last overseas trip to Israel, I watched my lawn crew work in the yard. It was so convenient to check on activities.
Thanks again for your help and all of the information you provided.
p.s. - I do use APC for my network environment and use a Tripp-lite for my entertainment center. I never noticed the switch over but then I canāt count fast enough to measure 10 ms or less.
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