Had a Wasserstein solar panel / floodlight fail. Received a replacement in a few days. Had this on a shelf and decided to try and resurrect it. Found a loose wire in the battery compartment. Wasserstein uses 2 18650 batteries that test about 2400 mAh on my Opus tester. They didn’t skimp on batteries.
The panel has a standard USB connector.
Had a weather resistant box from a previous project so along with a v9 battery shield from Wish (another abandoned project), 4 Molicel P26a 2600 mAh 18650 batteries, and a spare v3, I present my attempt at a solar powered v3 :
The previous project used 2 v3 cameras at 90 degree angles. I did not have the solar panel then. The 2 v3 cameras depleted my RAVPower 32000 mAh USB power bank in about 2 days recording continuously.
If this setup passes muster, I can easily attach another v3.
If you figure out a way to make it fairly reliable (big enough solar panel to keep the batteries charged enough, etc), you could probably make something like this into a kit and sell them online. People of ALL brands of cams would probably pay a decent amount for kits they can just hook up without having to figure out all the details themselves.
I removed the v9 18650 battery board and replaced it with a spare 32000 mAh RAVPower USB power bank.
Previous testing showed the power bank could keep two v3 cameras running with continuous recording and IR lights for about two days without charging.
My goal is to cobble together something I can mount on a flagpole about 100 feet from the house. There is a WiFi mesh node at that corner of the house so connectivity is not an issue at that distance.
The RAVPower USB power bank depleted its charge faster than the Wasserstein solar panel could recharge it as was expected but the v3 stayed powered up for 4 days, with 2 days of rain and clouds.
Now I will go into my Wish junk box and cobble together something using their 100 watt (cough) solar panel. The solar charge controller will charge a 12 volt gel cell like in a UPS. I have an inverter but why step up 12VDC to 120VAC then drop it back to 5VDC with a wall wart plugged into the inverter? Seems to be overkill. Still figuring it out.
My box of Wish solar stuff had a solar charger with 2 USB ports so need for an inverter and wall wart.
The v3 is connected to one of the USB outlets set to continuous recording and time lapse once every 5 minutes for 3 days. The camera is pointed at a USB tester displaying USB voltage.
The camera is about 3” away from the USB tester. This is the v3 with the focusing ring mod that was going into the bluebird house but my bluebird moved in before the mod was completed.
My solar panel and controller are nowhere that quality. The solar panel is rated 100 watts so realistically it might be 20 watts converting from Chinese watts to American watts.
This is more of a ‘run what you brung’ setup for grins.
