Battery advice

Looking for battery advice for homemade security camera project. I'm looking to power a video camera (~7.4V) for months at a time while I'm away and even the extended camcorder batteries don't last that long or are way too expensive. Most of the time the camcorder will be off but still draws a small amount of power, but the camera turns on and records when motion is detected. I will be hardwiring Lithium ion batteries in series and parallel to power the camcorder to power it for a long time but need help finding the right batteries. I have plenty of room in my setup so I can use any size batteries, but I need advice on what might be the best batteries to use for the cost.

My best guess is I'll need a total of ~8000-10,000 mAh's so I was going to make a bank of lithium ions. Cost is definitely a factor but I need batteries that will work as advertised and depending on the capacity...probably a lot of them (I'll be powering three different camcorders and need a pack for each one). I was thinking of using two 3.7V batteries connected in parallel with connected to two other batteries in parallel to power the camera (4 18650 batteries per camcorder). I've been considering buying Laptop battery packs on Ebay to take apart as an alternative but that worries me as I won't know what I'll be purchasing and still out $50 when I could've bought good batteries to start.

I don't need to use 18650 batteries but I thought I would be a low cost high capacity way to power my camcorders and considering two 3.7V batteries in series gives me the voltage the camcorder needs. Any advice appreciated! Thanks in Advance

ICR and IMRs come hot off the charger at 4.20v, so 8.40v in series. 4P2S would give you that 8.4v (7.2v-7.4v nominal) and if you were to use 8 Pannie NCR-Bs, you'd have ~13,600mAh, in theory, I believe?

You can adjust from there and you'd need to find some cradles.

There might be pre-assembled packs, that would work out for you, but I can't offer much in the way of names.

Chris

My question is why? I understand what you are trying to accomplish, but at minimum you are looking at close to $200 just in batteries. I would look at changing your cameras. If this is around the house or somewhere else near power, look at getting a home security camera system. You can get a mid-grade complete setup for about the price of your batteries. If you are going this out in the sticks, check out the sporting goods stores for game cameras. They offer them with video options, and a game camera with an external battery brick can last months (add a cheap solar charger and they last forever, almost).

If you really want to stick with your current idea, would it be possible to add solar chargers as opposed to extra batteries?

Eagle

In the spirit of agreeing with Eagles1181, I've had excellent luck with the Panasonic web cams (although I've never tried the all weather ones). They use power over Ethernet (POE) and they come with the power injector, so you just have to deal with the one cable.

Eagles1181 said:

My question is why? I understand what you are trying to accomplish, but at minimum you are looking at close to $200 just in batteries. I would look at changing your cameras. If this is around the house or somewhere else near power, look at getting a home security camera system. You can get a mid-grade complete setup for about the price of your batteries. If you are going this out in the sticks, check out the sporting goods stores for game cameras. They offer them with video options, and a game camera with an external battery brick can last months (add a cheap solar charger and they last forever, almost).

If you really want to stick with your current idea, would it be possible to add solar chargers as opposed to extra batteries?

Eagle

Click to expand...

2nd on the solar option.