Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Can I power my camera with SOLAR power?


..as it turns out, you can! 


Configurations, as the one shown above, are emerging.  

Solar configurations are particularly useful when conventional power isn't readily available. However, it has it's drawbacks:
  1.  more components mean more failures
  2. generally batteries are part of the configuration, requiring maintenance
  3. not too effective in lo-sunlite regions, or sites
  4. the camera and power systems may be tied to each other so if one fails, they can't be used with other camera or power sources
An alternative to consider, in WIRED network settings, is POWER-OVER-ETHERNET. This is a low-voltage power supply over the CAT-V cable-  a more stable, robust solution for remote power applications. The current standard offers up to 15w (about 1A @ 12VDC for you other EE's out there).. There is a POE+ standard that looks to offer 25-50w.