Replies: 6 comments 19 replies
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I have been thinking about this too for a while. I was thinking of a small solar panel, a charge-controller and SLA battery. I haven't been any further than THINKING about it 'though, so would be interested in your progress. |
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Whilst I don't use it for BirdPiNet, I do have a Zero2W running from a 12V lead/acid car battery connected to solar panels running 24/7 for 18 months now without issue. (Use it for ADSB monitoring and needs to be on top of a hill!). |
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Thank you, DCS17! |
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I just used a solar kit from Amazon which had a charge controller with it. There may be cheaper/better ways of doing it. But this was the simplest for me! ps |
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If there is a source of power within 100 metres, have you considered using power over ethernet to power the Pi 4? |
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Unfortunately, for my application I have longer distances without power sources nearby. |
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Use a car battery, a DC/DC step down converter and a Witty Pi 3 Mini power along with your Zero. Then you can even extend your lifetime by make suitable schedules, eg. only early mornings etc. |
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Thank you, unosonic. The Witty Pi might be a nice option for some applications, but we need a 24 hour monitoring to catch especially the rare birds, and the night activities as well. |
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I've been messing about making up a cable for the Raspberry Pi 4 and using one of these to step the voltage down from my 12v battery that is hooked up to solar panels via a charge-controller. I've put a USB-C on the end of it which powers the Pi quite nicely. Am going to do some testing but we've had a wet weekend forecast, so I don't know how effective it will be as yet. More testing required but the overall idea is that a SLA battery, charge controller, solar panel and custom lead with step-down buck converter might just be the shot. |
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Well, this afternoon, I cut the Pi over to the solar power. It's a bit of a test, it's been a bit cloudy and the system I'm testing it on is a smaller 18Ah battery. However, one must start somewhere. Keeping an eye on it. Hopefully it will last the night. If it does, I will make some notes on voltage drain etc. It's currently pulling about 200mA (about 3W). |
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Well, I'm pleased to report that it made it overnight in overcast weather. I'm going to leave it and see how it goes over the next few days or so but so-far it's quite pleasing. I think the battery dropped to about 46% but I think that figure might be a little lower than it actually was. The MPPT controller is also datalogging charge/discharge amps, watts and volts, so I will analyse the graphs after a few days. |
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Thank you for this update. Did you disable any process or LED on the Pi? Does it run any applcation? |
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I have not made any reduction modifications, in-fact, it runs a nightly backup to my NAS drive as well as some telemetry monitoring, so it's actually running a tiny bit more than normal. |
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I am taking a break from the forums. Good luck with your battery exploits. My system is still up and running with the specs I provided earlier. |
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I'm back. Update: It is still running on batteries but I had to change it over to the 75Ah battery instead of the 18Ah because a couple of times, it turned off because of low-voltage :( . The 75Ah battery seems to be able to cope with everything so-far. It's hotting up here and the fan runs a little more and there a a lot more birds in Spring cum Summer for it to cope with, but so far, a 75Ah battery is working well. |
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What about something like a Bluetti EB3A? You can hook up solar panels to that as well. Maybe even run multiple Birdnet-Pi's with extention cables. |
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well, if money isn't a problem, you'll find a lot solutions for power supply... I wouldn't recommend a powerstation (with DC/AC converter and other features not needed) for just powering a 5V Pi... |
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Sure, depends on the project and money. Anyway, those newer power stations have dedicated usb-outputs (so no unnecessary conversion), and the other outputs are just turned off when not needed = not consuming power. Only loss is general system power. The display can be turned off as well. |
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And - for the amount of mAh you get - it's actually not that expensive. Especially not if you count in the included solar capability. :) So again, depends on needs and project. |
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I know, I have one my own (Ecoflow River Max /w 120W and 140W soalr panels). They're easy to use, that's nice. But for a permanent solar installaton I'd use a dedicated minimal system, eg. battery, solar panel, charge-controller (perhaps with 5V USB included). Outside temperature range is also important, not all batteries like low temp dis/charging. It all depends ;) |
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Maybe it's obvious to all, but no-one has said it. A Pi 02W will use a LOT less power (therefore any battery will last much longer) than a Pi 4. |
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Hi, I am new in this community, and I like to start a n batterie discussion again. I want to run several Pi´s for bird monitoring in a forest area, if they are available again. I tested a 4B and a 0W2, and also if I disbale all the non necessary services, with a 20 000 mAh USB batterie the run time is not much more than two days. Does anybody have experiences with long time outdoor recording and a suitable power supply, possibly running about one week?
Thank you in advance, Hans Guenter
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