Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Solar Powered Raspberry Pi Camera

kaspars.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 67 posts

Re: Solar Powered Raspberry Pi Camera

#11

Post by magicalhippo »

winter_blue wrote: post #6
magicalhippo wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, idle draw on my Pi4 4GB is 0.6A with one HDMI display connected and one wireless keyboard USB transceiver.

It might be easier for the reader, if we all used watts (W) when referring to power usage. Amperes (A) are useless without knowing the voltage (V). In the case of the Pi, since it runs on 5 V USB power, it was easy to calculate the wattage. But for devices of unknown voltage, amperes tell you nothing about power consumption. (For reference: a Pi at 1.2 A is using 6 W, and a Pi at 0.6 A is using 3 W.)

Good point. This was indeed at 5V.

Re: Solar Powered Raspberry Pi Camera

#13

Post by blackflame7000 »

dznodes wrote: post #12

This is a great start but $220 seems expensive for this type of project. Isn't there a less expensive setup possible?

A lot of the cost comes from the solar panel. I wonder if it might be possible to use a smaller panel with a battery storage device.

Re: Solar Powered Raspberry Pi Camera

#14

Post by option_greek »

nevi-me wrote: post #9

Reading this has reminded me of something I wanted to explore in the past. Most of my applications/requirements for a Pi include GSM, but I've found GSM modules to be very expensive, often being more expensive than the Pi itself. The author mentions a mobile USB modem, and it's just dawned on me that older 3G/HSDPA dongles are often very cheap. Does anyone have experience using them, especially what power implication…

GSM isn't that costly: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32827342779.html

Re: Solar Powered Raspberry Pi Camera

#15

Post by Scoundreller »

anfractuosity wrote: post #10

Nice, wouldn't mind trying something like that myself. I'm not sure if we get enough sun though ;) I put a PiZeroW in our garden as a wildlife camera in an IP68 case with a waterproof USB connector for power, but alas sometimes it possibly overheats or becomes unresponsive and requires switching it off/on again. (It hit around 90C once, I have since added a little heat sink, but not sure how much that helps in a clos…

Immerse it in mineral oil?

(Not the camera of course!)

Or some kind of external watchdog timer circuit that resets the power if it doesn’t get any input for 5 minutes?

Re: Solar Powered Raspberry Pi Camera

#16

Post by anfractuosity »

Scoundreller wrote: post #15
anfractuosity wrote: post #10

Nice, wouldn't mind trying something like that myself. I'm not sure if we get enough sun though ;) I put a PiZeroW in our garden as a wildlife camera in an IP68 case with a waterproof USB connector for power, but alas sometimes it possibly overheats or becomes unresponsive and requires switching it off/on again. (It hit around 90C once, I have since added a little heat sink, but not sure how much that helps in a clos…

Immerse it in mineral oil? (Not the camera of course!) Or some kind of external watchdog timer circuit that resets the power if it doesn’t get any input for 5 minutes?

I hadn't thought of using mineral oil before.

I did actually try the hardware watchdog on the pi for a little bit, I might have to have another look at that again.

Re: Solar Powered Raspberry Pi Camera

#19

Post by Scoundreller »

blackflame7000 wrote: post #13
dznodes wrote: post #12

This is a great start but $220 seems expensive for this type of project. Isn't there a less expensive setup possible?

A lot of the cost comes from the solar panel. I wonder if it might be possible to use a smaller panel with a battery storage device.

And they seemed to use a more expensive thin and flexible panel.

It does make mounting easier and wind load less of an issue.

Re: Solar Powered Raspberry Pi Camera

#20

Post by Scoundreller »

philipkglass wrote: post #8
winter_blue wrote: post #5

The solar panel at $132, accounted for 60% of the total cost (of $220). For a 100W panel, $132 is actually a good price, since it comes out to $1.32 per watt. Regardless, as nanomonkey mentioned, a lower-panel panel (perhaps a 50W one) would likely have sufficed. But even a 50W panel, at $1.32 per watt, would have cost $66. I'm hoping for the day where we can print solar panels as cheaply as we print paper.

Panels are ~30 cents per watt, wholesale. But that's for the larger panels generating 250+ watts that are commonly used for solar farms and distributed generation. 50 and 100 watt panels are manufactured in much smaller quantities and will cost more.

And this was a thin RV panel. Easier to mount on a pole than the “I care about $/watt, not weight” panels.
Post reply on HN