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Solar Powered Raspberry Pi Camera

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Re: Solar Powered Raspberry Pi Camera

#61

Post by kingosticks »

Fnoord wrote: post #39

I guess one purpose of a mobile camera you can implement like that could be perimeter pen testing / red teaming. What did the author use their camera for? Does the Raspberry Pi Camera have an IR? How is the quality? Why didn't the author bother to hide the Pi and the camera better in the case? The pricing is dishonest. It first says "$8 Raspberry Pi that supports the camera module." and then later on it mentions Rasp…

I don't see any reason you couldn't use a Pi Zero but you would need the wireless flavour for what's described. I'd guess that's slightly more than $9.

Re: Solar Powered Raspberry Pi Camera

#62

Post by guerby »

hutzlibu wrote: post #41
sigstoat wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you don't get a cookie for installing less panel. you just get headaches on low-sun days. and your battery won't last as long, as it has to discharge deeper and more often.

"$8 Raspberry Pi that supports the camera module. $29 Raspberry Pi Camera module. $18 any 12V battery capable of delivering 1.5W x 24h = 36Wh, such as this 7Ah Pb battery (80Wh). $8 dummy security camera. $132 100Wp solar panel. $10 12V charge controller. $15 cabling and connectors. Total: $220" Since the solarpanel is more than half of the budget, I would think, you can actually buy a cookie for ordering a cheaper o…

100 Wp is $60-$80 if you look around

Re: Solar Powered Raspberry Pi Camera

#64

Post by tehlike »

teraflop wrote: post #54
tehlike wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Project fi might be interesting too.

Yeah, that would be an option. But IMO the biggest downside would be that they charge for overages instead of throttling. If I'm working on a hobby project that involves uploading data, and something gets into an unexpected state, it's easy to imagine it transferring tens of GB in a matter of hours. In that event, I'd rather have it restricted to dialup speed (which is still enough to transfer 20GB/month) than get hi…

Project fi caps the bill at some number.

Re: Solar Powered Raspberry Pi Camera

#65

Post by algaeontoast »

konstruktors wrote: post #59
pi-rat wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you can manage to find li-ion cheaper, you would need to build a pack of 6+ 18650 cells for comparative capacity. A single Pb is much simpler. Bam, $18, done, a single unit, 80Wh ready to go, super simple to charge too. It's not like the size or weight matters to him, and it seems his panel is big enough to avoid deep cycling it too often.

Exactly. And I haven't found cheap charge controllers that support the voltage range of Li-ion packs (like 12.6V for a 3S pack or 16.8V for a 4S pack).

There are actually quite a few well-developed IC's specifically intended for this application. They act both as buck converters for the output device, BMS for the lithium cell / cells, and a charge controller for the cells.

Andreas Spies has a great video on comparing some modern IC's for this -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaiQDS9jObY

Re: Solar Powered Raspberry Pi Camera

#66

Post by newnewpdro »

Scoundreller wrote: post #22
newnewpdro wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like overkill in the solar panel department is harmful, especially if you're getting cheap chinesium stuff off ebay. Nothing helps functioning in low-light situations, like overcast and cloudy days, better than excess panel area. I have a minimally-sized panel I use for powering a laptop and it's rather annoying to have it underpowered in the slightest deviation from ideal circumstances. That same panel for…

What circuit do you use to power the laptop?

It's an Allpowers 80W portable panel, which includes power circuits for two USB ports and an 18VDC output.

My laptop accepts the 18VDC input directly. It works fine when the sun is high and sky is clear, as long as I'm not doing anything particularly CPU/GPU heavy.

Re: Solar Powered Raspberry Pi Camera

#67

Post by mtw »

konstruktors wrote: post #58
mtw wrote: post #18

I see a house, why not use the Pi's Wifi instead of a modem?

It does use the built-in WiFi to connect to a WiFi network created by the mobile modem I placed at the neighbours house which has a permanent power supply. I considered using a mobile USB modem attached directly to the Pi but that requires extra effort keeping it connected with something like a cron task that pings 8.8.8.8 and restarts the connection if there is no response.

ok, that makes sense. I thought it connects to a 3G/LTE network for internet connection. There are a few Raspberry HAT that offers this -- although that would be extremely costly for a live video feed
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