Solar Panel Recommendation

[DanKegel]

The area is fairly open but will be shaded some.
Bill

You need to size it so the little bit of direct sun it gets is enough. If it gets only indirect light, you'll need to supersize it

[PNjunction]

Everything will be installed in a waterproof case. This will be left in the woods to capture photographs of animals as they wander by.

Think twice about the use of li-ion in that application that is unattended. Reason being is that you don't want ANY problems with li-ion battery systems, especially diy, setting fire to the woods should something go wrong. LiFeP04, albeit still li-ion, is safer by far, but still ....

In fact, RC model sail-plane / glider ops who love li-ion for other duties, still use NiMh for the very reason that if in case of a crash in a far away field, their battery systems don't easily set fire to the field in case of catastrophe or other unforeseen problem.

Here, I'd recommend you stick to perhaps a small AGM battery / solar setup instead to stay responsible to the environment. This would be by far easier than the diy li-ion battery hack.

Do you have a camera that will accept a 5v usb input to power it? If so, a simple Anker folding solar panel, and one of their external power banks would make this a simple setup...

[ko4nrbs]

Think twice about the use of li-ion in that application that is unattended. Reason being is that you don't want ANY problems with li-ion battery systems, especially diy, setting fire to the woods should something go wrong. LiFeP04, albeit still li-ion, is safer by far, but still ....

In fact, RC model sail-plane / glider ops who love li-ion for other duties, still use NiMh for the very reason that if in case of a crash in a far away field, their battery systems don't easily set fire to the field in case of catastrophe or other unforeseen problem.

Here, I'd recommend you stick to perhaps a small AGM battery / solar setup instead to stay responsible to the environment. This would be by far easier than the diy li-ion battery hack.

Do you have a camera that will accept a 5v usb input to power it? If so, a simple Anker folding solar panel, and one of their external power banks would make this a simple setup...

I may just continue my use of NiMH batteries and try Solar Charging them.
How does this look for a charger for use with a 12 volt Solar panel?

http://www.batteryspace.com/smartdcchargermodulefornimhbatterypack24v-72v05a.aspx

Bill

[Mike90250]

Generally, you cannot/should not use only a panel and your device. You should have a 12v battery and solar charge controller too. If you are partway through a charge cycle and a shadow or cloud shuts the PV panel down, or even partial cloudyness, the NiMh charger may simply pull more power than the panel can produce, crashing the DC voltage. This WILL cause a reset or reboot of the charger if/when the sun returns, and with the charger loaded with you NiMh battery at boot time, it may or may not start properly.

[PNjunction]

Mike is right - solar with the typical nimh charger does not take into account shadows, clouds etc, and what happens is that the "delta v" end of charge detection is repeatedly applied over and over, and eventually this EOC signal is missed and the batteries overcharge. Normally a secondary backup is high voltage or even temperature, but clouds can also allow for battery cooling, which now fools the backup!

You'd cry if you just wiped out all your expensive Panasonic / Eneloop "pro" AA cells.

Once again, the ONLY solar charger that does it properly directly from the panel is the Powerfilm AA nimh charger.

Otherwise, you are looking at a small agm / controller combo again.