Hi there,

I have an armored 3 core cable running to the furthest corner of the plot, probably around 150m. At the end of the cable is a light. Halfway through the line there are connections (underground i suppose) that splits off to the other corner and a few other lights. At the start of this cable there is a day/night switch that switches all these lights on at night.

I want to add a small Wifi camera at the very corner of the plot, but that means it will only run at night time  

My plan is to add a small "ups" at the very end, but I want some sort of DIY solution.

The camera's power info:
- Adapter Input: 100-240V, AC, 50/60 Hz, 0.3 A
- Adapter Output: 9.0 V / 0.6 A

I was thinking of putting small 12v 7AH battery with some sort of charger, and then a small inverter, possibly a bigger battery in the future (so I can add a wifi hotspot there as well in the future)

But looking at all the stuff i need for DIY it feels like a standard UPS will be more sensible.

Does anyone have any cool ideas or alternative solutions? Even if it is more expensive than a standard UPS, I enjoy tinkering.

It will be a massive pain in the rear to change the day/night switch, so I am stuck with only a few hours of power at night in that corner of the plot.

 

Edited April 30, 20215 yr by stoic

After your 12V battery with charger, just put in a small DC-DC voltage converter (something like Voltage Regulator [email protected] Vin 10.5-38 V - Micro Robotics) and power the camera straight off the 9V output.  No need for an inverter or the camera's power supply adapter.

 

Edited April 30, 20215 yr by Calvin

Hi 

I use some wifi cameras on my property. You say you want the camera on the corner of the plot. I am not sure if it is the 150m spot. That distance seems pretty far for a wifi camera and the first thing I would suggest that you find out or test the camera if it will be in range for your wifi. As far as I know 150m would be out of range for most cameras even at line of sight.

Edited April 30, 20215 yr by Peter Topp

43 minutes ago, Peter Topp said:

Hi 

I use some wifi cameras on my property. You say you want the camera on the corner of the plot. I am not sure if it is the 150m spot. That distance seems pretty far for a wifi camera and the first thing I would suggest that you find out or test the camera if it will be in range for your wifi. As far as I know 150m would be out of range for most cameras even at line of sight.

That's true for most consumer grade devices, and more often than not, it's the antenna that is the problem. I love watching Andrew McNeil's channel on Youtube, he fixes many poor antennas for a few bob.

On the power question I'm not sure a 7Ah will be sufficient as that only gives you 42 Wh (at 50% DoD). Assuming your camera uses about 5W (it could be less) that equates to about 8 hours. You might want to consider one of the DC UPS things (ratel, UltraLan etc) or otherwise a small solar panel and charge controller for the 7Ah. 

Or one of these 6.4A Power Supply Unit

Have a look at solar cameras similar the the one below. They come in wifi and 4g lte models with night vision and ptz functions 

At our estate we had a somewhat similar concept. An underground cable running to each of the 6 streetlamps. At the beginning was a day/night sensor.

We added a few Wifi Cameras on the lamp poles. We simply installed a day/night sensor at each light rather than the one we had in the beginning. The cameras are connected before the day/night at each pole.

We furthermore added a modified sinewave inverter (one of those Mecer 1440W) at the beginning. The benefit is now that not only do the cameras work during load-shedding but also the streetlamps.

 

 

Edited May 6, 20215 yr by Mier