i am trying to find a way to keep my outdoor cameras powered and am hoping something like arduino will make it doable since i havent found a solution elsewhere yet.
i need to have a solar panel charge one of 2 power banks (have which is being charged and which is used switch every x number of hours) and the power bank not being charged to keep the camera powered. the power banks i have for this don't want to power the camera while the solar panel is connected (hence the 2 power bank setup). i have access to uno r3 and nano but have never used them before. i also have sockets for both usb c and a.
specs for my equipment:
-solar panel: 5v, 2.5w, 500 mA output, usb-c or micro (can charge the power bank)
-alternate solar panel (prefer to use the above one if possible): 5v, 10w,2A
-power bank: 10,000 mAh, 5v 3A input/output, 60 mA minimum to stay active when powering something, usb-c in/out, usb-a out
-camera: 3v, 1w, 200 mA while recording (almost no power usage otherwise, will not keep power bank active on its own), usb-c
requirements for project:
-solar panel provides power during day
-power bank 1 charges
-power bank 2 powers camera (and board when solar panel isnt providing power)
-power banks swap roles at specified intervals (while solar panel is active to avoid power loss, for example at noon every day)
main questions are:
is arduino a decent solution to this problem?
can it be setup to easily have one power bank charge while the other provides power and be able to provide enough for the camera?
if another option would work better and be cheaper, please let me know. im mostly a beginner at putting electronics together but i can solder, program, and follow directions.
That sort of project, including with cameras, has been done many, many times, on many scales.
However, using off the shelf items like power banks is not a wise choice, because they are not designed to be either energy efficient or for solar charging.
I'd like to know more about the camera operation - what determines when it goes into record mode, how often that happens, and for how long. Also, how many minutes per day you expect it to be recording, and whether it will be recording at night. Then on the camera itself, what voltage does it require? If you have the camera running now, how is it set up?
I think switching two batteries just complicates things needlessly. And as @jremington says, a powerbank isn't well suited for this. You could combine an Adafruit solar charging board, one 18650 battery, or two in parallel, and a boost converter module, with the charger powered by solar. You won't have to worry about powering the camera and charging the batteries at the same time, nor will it need a minimum current to stay alive. Take a look at this:
Thanks for the responses, i will look into whats been suggested. was using the power bank mostly as it is what i have on hand. im not deadset on using them and am open to changing the project as long as i get the desired outcome (cameras powered by some kind of rechargable battery that is charged by solar panel and as inexpensive as reasonably possible).
for the camera it is specifically a blink outdoor gen 4. power specs on it are a bit iffy and its designed to run using either 2 energizer lithium AA batteries (these draining in under 2 weeks is what made me start looking at alternative power sources) or usb cable and a power brick.
camera is motion activated and records for 60 sec each time with a 10 sec cooldown between end of recording and when it can trigger again. it will need to record both day and night as its used to monitor my pets outside (large property so cant run power cables to them). expecting between 0 and 50 recordings an hour with some hours having little activity and some recording near constantly (when they happen is random and constantly changing). tests with just the power bank (and 2 led plugs to keep minimum needed power draw) show the 10,000 mAh lasting almost 2 days (45 hours on last test with no solar panel) with slightly higher then average number of recordings (approx 1200 clips). when not recording it almost turns itself off and while it does use just enough power to stay connected and trigger recording but less then 60 mA (cant keep the power bank active). will also be randomly using live view (same power usage as recording but time will vary from 10 sec to 5 min or more).
i know the camera isnt the best (or even a very good one) but it is what i have and what i need to make work. with the required lithium batteries i end up with them offline for hours or days even with brand new batteries, i have not had that with the power bank.
for the charging board, does it allow charging and using the battery at the same time? and looking at the price of batteries, would it make sense/be possible to scavenge the battery out of the power bank im testing with instead of buying a new battery with lower specs?
You have not identified the charge controller you are using, so You cannot know the necessary open circuit voltage for your solar panels. They should match the maximum voltage input to the charge controller. That will be somewhere around 50% greater voltage that the battery being charged.
The Blink Outdoor 4 supposedly has a two-year battery life using ultimate lithium cells. But you get two weeks on those cells. And you get two days on a 10AHr power bank. I'm having trouble making sense of this.
There is also the problem of having a series of cloudy days.
It may be that the most productive effort at this point is figuring out a way to greatly reduce the camera's power consumption.
the listed specs for the blink cameras are almost impossible to actually get, dig deep enough into the limited available info and even they admit it. to get even close to a 1 year run time on a single set of batteries its about 1-2 motion triggers a day or less (probably more like 1-2 a week max or not even have motion detection on), no longer then a 10 sec clip length, several min timeout to retrigger, and almost never live view. basically have it installed as a dummy camera thats never used. not a real life scenario for anyone that has actual need for a security camera. their techs couldnt even diagnose a faulty sync module (required hub for the cameras) and kept blaming the problem on my network, they didnt know that the outdoor 4 doesnt respond to the network in anyway unless it is recording or in live view. most people using them are lucky to get 6-8 months on a single set of batteries under ideal conditions.
the solar panel has sucessfully charged a much larger power bank (2-3x larger) in a reasonable time in full overcast, so im not worried about bad weather.
for charge controller, i guess its whatever is in the power bank. though i guess im replacing it with something like one of those adafruit chargers linked above.
as i said in my first post im pretty new to most of this stuff. i listed the equipment i currently am working with and the specs i have for them, i can try getting other info if wanted but would have to know what to look for. my skill level for electronics has been limited to assembling computer parts and doing basic repairs on damaged equipment (replacing power cords, faulty switches, fixing bad solder connections, and so on). i want to learn and given a starting point and direction to look i can usually get to where i need.
I guess I'm just uncertain about how this all works, particularly using a power bank. The Adafruit board with the boost converter would work with a lithium ion or lithium polymer battery, or two or three in parallel, and the solar panel, to provide 5V to the camera while charging the batteries. But I don't know how well a power bank would work with solar input.
But I still don't understand the camera's power requirements. The 10000 mAH power bank is roughly three times what the ultimate lithium cells provide, yet you said it only lasted a couple days while they lasted two weeks. So that doesn't seem to make sense.
But more fundamentally, if the camera is recording most of the time, I'm not sure the batteries and the solar panel can keep up.
i guess it doesnt make much sense on power usage. i can buy a 8 pack of lithium max and use a single camera (not changing it position) and each pair of batteries will last a very different length of time. sometimes the batteries act dead in under 3 days, sometimes i get nearly a month, usually its about 2 weeks (give or take a few days). i have tried other cameras (i have multiple blink outdoor 4 cameras) in that spot with the lithium max batteries and i have tried equivalent rechargeable batteries. those were done in my real world use. i tried checking but the number of recordings i was getting got erased, but i think it varied from 100 to 400 a day (60 sec long).
the power bank i tested inside pointed right at the middle of my main room with lots of traffic, mostly because i havent set them back up outside (just moved) and because my sister is having the same power issue (very similar battery usage) and gets a LOT more triggers then i do and was trying to make sure any solution also would work for her.
testing the powerbank in the same conditions as batteries would make a lot of sense (and clear up a lot, sorry about that), and once i get the cameras back up outside i probably will. i did try testing the power bank setup on one of my sisters cameras and that led to to find the minimum power draw needed to keep it active, but i havent had a chance to do it again since i picked up the leds that kept it running for my last tests. i still need a way to keep them charged without having to hike through snow (currently 1-2" but will get to 1-2' within a month or so) every few days to pull the power banks and charge them.
for the solar panel keeping up, this specific panel charged my much stronger power bank thats something like 25,000 mAh with 60w output (can charge microsoft surface computer from it) in about 8 hours of mostly overcast/cloudy weather. might have only done like 3/4 charge but still more then the smaller one im currently using. and i do have the stronger panel i listed that i can use instead.
and like i said im fine replacing the power banks or even pulling them open for parts. the battery in them is listed as a high density lithium polymer. so if they would work with the board that would be great. im ok with replacing the solar panel if needed with a different one, would prefer not to but if it wont work i can. the only piece i cant swap out is the cameras, though i might be open to modding them. the other similar priced cameras all require subscription plans to do anything with, blink is the only one i found that doesnt (subscription is optional but opens more features that i dont really need).
It sounds like you have the additional problem that you aren't supposed to charge a lithium battery below freezing. At least that's what I've always heard. So how would you deal with that?
Well, there is one way in which a microcontroller or something similar could contribute to using the power bank. People have found that you don't have to maintain the minimum current constantly. You may be able to draw the 60mA for a few milliseconds at a time, and only do that every 15 minutes or so. You would have to experiment to see what works, but a microcontroller could be programmed to sink a little current through a transistor to make that work. There should be some threads here about doing that. 60mA continuous is 1440 mAH per day out of your power bank, so that needs to be avoided if possible.
I would just say that if there's any way to do this wired, or from inside looking out through windows, that might be worth looking at. I just don't know if there's a workable way to do what you want.
Edit: I should say that LiFePO4 batteries might solve the cold temperature problem. I just don't have any experience with them.
if i swap the power bank for a straight battery then it shouldnt have the 60 mAh requirement to stay working. pretty sure thats built into the board that runs the power bank.
didnt know that about batteries and cold weather. closest ive ever heard was about storing batteries in the freezer to make them hold their charge longer when not in use (no idea how true that is either). since i plan to have the final bit in a water/weather proof enclosure, i could have something in there to give off enough heat to keep it functional (similar to using heated tape on outdoor pipes to keep them from freezing) or even insulate the box. its another variable to manage but if it does the job then thats what matters. ill look into the LiFePO4 batteries and see if that would work. maybe pick up some and test them out.
unfortunatly wiring would actually be dangerous. my dogs will sit there and literally eat any cables they find (its a miricle they havent eaten my computer cords yet). being powered doesnt matter, they ate the invisible dog fence i had that was 5' off the ground. i cant get them to stop and ive tried. there is also a lot of wildlife that would gnaw through it. burying or running along the ground and the dogs would destroy it. running it along the top of the fence and its exposed to weather, birds, squirrels, raccoons, and so on (plus multiple gates no matter the route it takes). and most of the cables would be over 200' which means custom cables and other issues.
and cant have the cameras looking through the windows, tried. the night vision is blinded by the glass, motion detection doesnt trigger, and most of the cameras need to go on the edges of my property for areas i cant see well from the windows.
i did grab one or 2 of those solar charger boards to try (so much cool stuff on that site). ive tried learning all this electronics stuff before but that was a good while back. only resources i had was 1 or 2 of my dads college books from the late 70s or mid 80s and none of these neat boards or premade parts, it was all individual components that he had from random projects. no stores nearby carried anything for diy/hobby building, couldnt find anything in the library for beginners, and bookstores wanted an arm and a leg for their lowest level books (ones that wanted several years of learning to understand).
the items listed on those videos are kinda where i got the idea for this project. in fact the solar panels i have were listed to work with blink and originally said they included a built in battery (there is no built in battery unfortunately but it is a good little panel and had great reviews). the first one (and others like it) have too many duds or early failures listed in the reviews to make me willing to try them. the second and third are the same item (official blink solar setup) but its $100 each and you cant get it without the older camera. the blink one also has worse reviews then the off brands and is much more temperamental.
while it might be simpler to just buy and hope for the best, it also means wading through all the false advertising and bad products that might not even be returnable.
on the other hand, going diy means i can use parts that i know will work and can replace individual components as needed to repair or upgrade. also with the diy option, i can tailor it as needed and even with the changes it is way less then the official solar mount and i can look at other ways to reduce cost once i have a working device. as a bonus i get to gain more knowledge in the process which is always a good thing.
Well if you want to try a powerbank, you might search for "powerbank keepalive" on Youtube etc. Most of the circuits use a 555 timer.
I guess if it were me and I were starting from scratch, I would get an 18650 li-ion cell from TinyCircuits.com ($7 plus shipping), a battery holder from somewhere, the Adafruit solar charger with 5V boost converter, and a 5V or 6V solar panel. The risk would be freezing temperatures. Maybe packing it in lots of insulation would work.
I still think you would benefit from finding a way to cut down on the recording volume. You're not going to have time to review them all anyway.
it is a ton of recordings and you are right, no possible way to look through them all. but cant really reduce them much. entire reason for the cameras is i need to be able check them for what happened at any given time if something happens (how the dog escaped, when was the last time one of the cats went out, who brought in the dead critter, who raided my desk, and so on).
thank you all for the help. i now have at least a basic understanding on how to make this work. got a lot of trial and error in the near future but i have a direction now and hopefully the right parts coming.
