12V Solar battery pack

This waterproof solar battery pack is designed to work with the DOC AI Cam and Trap. It can also be used to power any other device that takes 12V.

You can use the battery pack, either stand alone or with a solar panel. We have options for solar panels or you can use your own.

The battery pack will have two variations for different battery chemistry:

• Lithium ion (higher capacity)
• Lithium Iron Phosphate (lower capacity, but safer) (coming)

For New Zealand customers we can supply low cost, lithium ion batteries recycled from Lime scooters. These batteries are in good condition. They are tested and inspected as part of the recycling process. Customers outside of New Zealand will need to buy the empty battery pack and fill it with their own 18650 cells.

The battery pack will balance cells that are unevenly charged and has protection for reverse polarity (in case you accidentally put the cells in the wrong way). It also has over current, thermal, and short circuit protection.

If the battery pack is fully drained, then it is designed to not turn on again until the charge has reached approximately 50%. 

The solar charging circuit is designed to operate in full sunshine and low light. The size of the solar panel you chose will depend on the environment and mode that you want to operate the camera.

The power requirements in the various modes are described below. For example if you are operating the camera in low power mode at night only you need 7Wh. If you can put the camera in bright sunshine, then a 5W panel should be fine.

We are still testing the camera in shaded areas. However, you can see that a 20W panel operating at an average of 4 hours at 10% would be enough to generate the required 7Wh.

The battery pack can be used without a solar panel. A camera will last up to 2.5 weeksin low power mode (more details below).

You can monitor the state of charge of the battery pack via your thermal camera.

There is an option to buy a separate power supply if you want to charge the battery packs before you take them out.

The capacity of the pack means that two of them can be taken as hand luggage on NZ airlines. If you want to take more you can reduce the cells down to 9 to bring it below 100 Wh. You can bring 20 of these. See the NZ Aviation information about power banks.

Accessories

• Power supply
• Solar cable: for your own solar panel - needs to be connected to your solar panel (included if not buying solar panel)
• Solar plug: for your own solar panel - needs to be soldered to the panel (optional instead of solar cable)
• Power cable for the DOC AI Cam or trap (included)
• Power cable with bare wires (if you want to power another device)
• Solar panel

Specifications

Camera power requirements

The numbers below are an approximation and will vary for the night time based on the length of the night, the number of recordings made, and a number of other factors.

Battery life in different modes

You can run the battery pack without the solar. You also don't have to have all 15 cells in the battery pack. It can be any multiple of 3, with a minimum of 6. The fewer cells you have, the more likely it is that the pack will run out of power if you have poor solar charging conditions. The table below shows you an estimate of how many days the battery pack will last, in different modes, with different numbers of cells without charging. This assumes the battery pack is charged to 90% and the cell capacity is 2500mAh. This will vary proportionally if you use cells with a different capacity.

So, for example if you're running the camera in low power at night a battery pack with 6 cells will last a week and about 2.5 weeks with the full 15 cells.