Small Solar Panel

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CB_24

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#258709 16-Oct-2019 18:05

Any recommendations on a small-ish solar panel that would have a USB output on it?

Looking at powering a small wifi camera for outdoors that theres no nearby power source, thinking solar could be the best option. According to the vendor website "The power consumption is between 2-4 watts, depending on whether Night Vision is turned on".

Thanks

timmmay

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#2338374 16-Oct-2019 19:01

Consider using a small 12V SLA battery charged by the solar panel so the device it works at night, unless the camera has a battery. You can get 12V to USB car converters on ebay for almost nothing.

CB_24

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#2339855 17-Oct-2019 15:40

Anything you'd recommend?

Rather buy a complete set rather than needing to construct something.

boosacnoodle

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#2340872 19-Oct-2019 23:31

Jaycar sells these, but not sure of the quality.

raytaylor

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#2340919 20-Oct-2019 02:11

A 4 watt constant / 96 watts per day load would require an 80 watt solar panel and a 12v100Ah battery.

My utmost cheapest design for you would be:

Solar Controller https://www.jaycar.co.nz/12v-24v-15a-mppt-solar-charge-controller/p/MP3739

Solar panel https://www.jaycar.co.nz/12v-80w-monocrystalline-solar-panel/p/ZM9057

Battery https://www.jaycar.co.nz/12v-100ah-deep-cycle-sla-battery/p/SB1695

I would prefer you to be using a 120 watt solar panel and 12v-120ah or larger battery but i suspect you may be surprised how big of a system you actually need. If your thinking of a 7amp UPS / Alarm battery and a 20 watt solar panel, it will only take half a rainy day for the battery to go flat.

4 watts uses 8 amps per day and for prolonged battery life you never want to let it discharge more than 50% otherwise you will damage it. So 8 amps per day x 10 cloudy days in a row = 80 amps x 2 = 160ah would be the ideal battery size. Even in sunny hawkes bay we can go 12 days in a row of mostly overcast cloud. Thats where the solar panel running at 20% of its normal rating can help charge up the battery a little bit, and if you manage to get an hour of direct sun, the 80 watt panel will give you an extra 14 hours of run time.

Running a 24v 1A power supply into a long Cat5 cable with 4 wires for + and 4 wires for - and a 12/24v to 5v switchmode (linear wont work) transformer at the camera might be looking quite cheap.

Ray Taylor

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rogercruse

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#2340965 20-Oct-2019 10:00

Won't this provide a good solution?

https://shop.ring.com/products/stick-up-security-camera-solar