I’ve got two Battery Cam Pro cameras, both of the being powered by the Wye solar panels. One of the cameras is mounted up high close to the roofline of my house and the panel gets full sun all day, all year, and it keeps the camera at 100%.
My other Battery Cam Pro is mounted on a fence and because of the shade from surrounding trees, I have to move the solar panel seasonally to keep it out of the shade. It gets 6 hours of full sun in the spring/summer, but in the fall/winter the sun moves behind the neighbor’s trees and house and the solar panel can’t keep the camera charged.
I want to be able to buy a 2nd solar panel and mount it on the other end of the fence where it’ll get pretty much full sun in the fall/winter months.
Is it possible to put two solar panels on a single camera using a USB-C splitter? Has anyone done that and if so, what splitter cable did you find that splits power? The splitters I’m finding split power to one leg and data to another (the use case for these splitters is to charge a cell phone on one leg of the splitter while listening to audio on the other leg).
It is doable but you’ll have to find the right wires or make your own. If you wire the panels in series (positive to negative_ you will fry the camera as the voltage will double. You will have to wire them in parallel (positive to positive and negative to negative). This way the voltage will remain the same but the Amperage will double, which is good for the camera. Another problem with two panels wired together is that if one panel is in a shade or partial shade it will draw down the other panel as well. So you will not get the desired output. So, make sure that both panels are close to each other.
You’re far more into solar than me from what I’ve seen, but yeah I think I had heard that panels in a single array are always supposed to be near each other and pointed the same direction or they can backfeed to each other and cause problems. I guess if you’re doing custom cabling anyway, a couple diodes rated for the wattage in question could solve that. Though I almost wonder if these small portable solar panels already have a diode built in, since otherwise they could discharge the battery in whatever they’re intended to charge? There must be some sort of circuitry involved.
When I bought the property and started planning to build the cottage I wanted to go full solar so I did my homework. Twenty years ago solar was very expensive so I went with grid power…
It’s not the backfeed that is the issue, most panels have a diode built in so they don’t discharge the battery. The problem with one panel being in a shade and the other in the sun is that the one in a shade will drag down the output of the one in the sun. Just like WiFi slowest device dragging everything down.
Uh, no. As long as both panels have isolation diodes, in a parallel arrangement (what’s we’re talking about here), one won’t affect the other. Now what you describe in a series arrangement would be the case.
Agreed, in parallel, as long as both have a diode, shouldn’t be any concerns, at least none that I can think of from a standard electrical engineering standpoint. Just need to find the proper Y adapter and cables.
Even in series your voltage would just drop by half, which obviously would be a problem (well actually the main problem here is when both are in the sun it would roast the camera). Though if they have internal diodes, a series configuration wouldn’t work anyway, unless you reversed the diode in one of them.
That’s not correct. As long as there is a diode preventing the second panel from attempting to draw from the first and at least one panel is in the light, you’ll get the same voltage (approximately) whether one panel or two are in the light. Once both panels fall below the voltage that will charge the camera, it will just stop charging.
That is correct, I failed to mention that it only applies to panels connected in series.
Here are wiring diagrams for the OP in case he needs them.
Thanks for the discussion, guys. I ended up solving my problem. I found a bigger 10 watt solar panel on Amazon for under $20 that is meant for battery cameras. The Wyze solar panel is only 2.5 watts. The larger 10-watt panel has gone from 27% to 57% in just 4 hours this afternoon and that’s without direct sun shining on it. It’s a bright clear day, but the new location for the new panel still isn’t in full sun, but it’s in the brightest spot that it can be in given the 10’ cable. I expect by noon tomorrow the camera will be back up to 100% and probably stay that way.
You can probably go 20 to 30 feet on the cable if you need to also.
Probably because they are polycrystalline cell panels that perform better under low light conditions vs monocrystalline. Ninety percent of smaller panels under 100W are polycrystalline.
Probably but bear in mind this is DC current we are talking and voltage drop might be an issue. If you go this route try to find thicker wire or make your own.
It’s 10:45 AM and the camera started out the morning at 57%. It’s at 75% now . The panel starts getting full sun about 9:30 and will have it until about 4:30 PM. If it doesn’t reach 100% by today I’m sure it will by mid-morning tomorrow. At this point my biggest concern is that this panel came with a micro USB to USB C adapter instead of having a wired-in USB C cable. I’m thinking I might try a section of heat-shrink tubing to help seal it from water.
Yeah both AC and DC are subject to voltage drop, but people here have reported cable lengths over 30 feet working fine, and some with 35 feet having odd problems, so 30 ish seems to be the limit (obviously depending on the gauge of the cable). Nice thing in this case is that even if the voltage is borderline, the battery makes up for it, so as long as it is enough to charge the battery, shouldn’t result in any odd camera behavior. If the battery starts charging slowly or not at all, the voltage drop is too much.
If the adapter has “boots” on it that cover the cable inserted into it, a light coating of dielectric grease before heat shrinking it will help too. Just don’t get any down into the actual metal USB connectors. With all my cams I greased them a bit then wrapped them in white electrical tape.
Thanks!
The camera reached 100% before sunset last night. The best thing about getting a larger, higher capacity solar panel is that I can now enable a few energy-using features that I had disabled before. I’ll experiment with how much I can get away with. 