This is a Wyze v3 powered by a RAVPower 32000 mAh power bank. The camera is set to record from sunset to sunrise, when most nocturnal animals are active. Depending on how active the area is, I can usually get 2 nights from the power bank.
The box is mounted to,a fence post. I popped the cap off the post, drilled and tapped a 1/4 x 20 hole in the cap, threaded a bolt in from the bottom so there is a stud sticking out of the cap. I drilled a 1/4â hole in the bottom of the box, and secured it with a nut.
When battery swap is due, I just unclip the latches, open the lid and swap with a charged power bank.
The v3 is about 30 feet from a WiFi node, and gets between 2 and 3 bars signal strength.
I glued the metal disc to the lid so the camera doesnât move.
The feed through bushings were left over from a previous project.
I do have 3 Wasserstein solar panels meant for the WOC gathering dust. Might trim the plug down so it will connect to the power bank. I know it has pass through charging.
I was thinking that it shouldnât matter too much if it has pass through charging or not though since youâre only really using the cameras at night anyway. So it doesnât matter if the cameras turn off during the daytime when the battery is being charged by solar. So I was thinking this was perfect for you to add a solar panel to charge it even if it doesnât support pass through. But if it does do pass through, thatâs even better!
Been down the solar path recently. Had to put down my solar testing due to a preemptive project.
My goal was to take a spare v4, put it in a bird Feeder and solar charge a 50,000mAh power bank with a 4 panel solar array. Following are the gotchas.
The first thing I noticed, and the big failure, was the pass through on the power bank was allowing the solar panel chattering, as the sunlight was lost, to propagate through to the camera. This caused the v4 to reboot every 10 seconds or so. Not good for the camera or my network.
So I found a powerbank that guaranteed always on. This was a 20,000mAh unit made by Voltaic. It worked perfectly. As long as it had juice it powered the v4.
Now the next hurdle. How to recharge the Voltaic power bank. Just plug into the solar array and watch it recharge forever. Not. The voltaic unit will only charge at 5 watts (may have been 10). It does not support fast charging. Meanwhile the solar array does support fast charging. The longest run I had was a week.
That was not the solution I was looking for.
As an aside I tried turning off the camera for 12 hours a day. It did not seem to help. When a v4 is turned off it does not appear to go into a low power mode (like the battery cams do). Of course this causes the non-pass through mode to not work as the v4 is not really powered off.
This was a birthday present to my better half back in October. About 3 weeks ago I had to put this project aside. Swapped the v4 for a WBCP, bought the wyze bird Feeder solar panel and plugged it in. About a week ago we started getting birds. Yea, off the hot seatđ
I would suggest try it with what you have on hand. When you bring it up watch the camera closely. If you see good charging during good sunlight thatâs good. But watch closely as sunlight fades. Is your camera constantly rebooting? If so stop testing as I doubt the camera was tested rebooting a hundred times a day. If it is not rebooting then put it into a long term test. How many days will it run.
Good luck and I hope you donât follow me down the rabbit holeđ
