Anyone ever try to modify a solar landscape light to use an IR Led?

Murphy625

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Anyone ever try to modify one of those solar landscape lights to use an IR LED?

Wondering if they're powerful enough to make any difference to security camera.
 

sebastiantombs

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I don't want to discourage you, but those solar lights have very low power capabilities, typically under a watt or so I'd guess. That just isn't enough IR to help a camera, assuming you converted the LEDs to 850nm LEDs. Add in that the battery stands little chance of running all night and it isn't going to be very viable. On the other hand if you powered it with 12vdc, the IR portion anyway, it might be an interesting way of lighting for a camera.
 

Murphy625

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I don't want to discourage you, but those solar lights have very low power capabilities, typically under a watt or so I'd guess. That just isn't enough IR to help a camera, assuming you converted the LEDs to 850nm LEDs. Add in that the battery stands little chance of running all night and it isn't going to be very viable. On the other hand if you powered it with 12vdc, the IR portion anyway, it might be an interesting way of lighting for a camera.
I was wondering about that.. wasn't sure how much IR power was needed to give those cameras what they need.
 

sebastiantombs

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Most of the auxiliary IRs are 5 or 7 watts or higher. This time of year, say 14 hours of run time comes out to around 70 to 98 watt hours. That translates to a battery with at least 6 to 8 amp hour capacity, for a 12 volt battery, and a charger that will produce that in the remaining 10 hours. Solar sounds nice, but it ain't there yet.
 

Murphy625

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I was actually thinking about something on a motion detector.. active only when it senses motion, but I agree, I'm going to have to figure out the power requirements. Should I assume that your 5 to 7 watts (or higher) statement applies to the common dahua type IP cameras? That would give me some numbers to work with. Three 18650 batteries rated for 3000 mAh would give me about 36 Watt/hrs of energy. That should be plenty to run a 10 watt IR LED if its on a motion sensor.. 3 x 18650's is about the size of a pack of cigarettes.

I wonder if cree makes a high power IR LED... Going to have to buy one and play with it.
 

Fastb

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LEDs have different voltage drops. The landscape light might not provide a compatible voltage. So it might not be as easy as unsoldering one LED and swapping in a replacement.
 

sebastiantombs

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Again getting the watt hour is one thing, recharging them off a six solar inch solar panel in under ten hours is a whole other problem, motion detector of not. I have a post light that draws about 100ma from LiPO batteries. I replaced the one it came with with two 3000mah Sammys and it doesn't stay lit all night, during the winter, because the solar panels, and there are four with about a 100 sqin total surface area, can't recharge them fast enough.

The other problem is that when a camera sees light come on, it takes a few seconds to adjust its gain to compensate. That makes PIR lights of questionable value IMHO.
 

sebastiantombs

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One more comment, assuming you use a commercially available IR illuminator it'll need twelve volts, not 3.7. That means at least a 3S or 4S pack with the accompanying size and a balanced charger requirement. If you just convert with discreet IR LEDs you could get away with 3.7 volts.
 

Murphy625

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Oh man, this is getting complicated fast.

My home runs on solar power, normally we're grid tied, but when the grid goes down, we switch over to the off-grid system by flipping a couple breakers. I use a couple of Sunny Island 6048 inverters which are tied to lithium ion battery banks I salvaged from Chevy Volts. We have just under 50kWh's of storage capacity. I'm quite familiar with BMS operations and you are correct.. a 3s power bank would require a BMS.. and now the whole darn thing gets expensive.

Hmm. What I need is an off-the-shelf battery bank.. Then comes the issue of being in Michigan.. Can't charge a lithium battery when its frozen.

Crap. Maybe I'm coming at this wrong and need to figure out another path.

Perhaps I could just get an off-the-shelf solar flood light from Home Depot. Figure out what the voltage and current feeding the LEDS is, then rip them out and replace with IR Leds with similar specs.

You'd think with all the IR Security camera's out there that someone would already be making a solar powered motion detecting IR Flood light. I was kind of hoping to go with the garden lights because I'd rather have 10 IR Sources of minimal power over one bright source that might wash out details.
 

Murphy625

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Well well.. look what we have here.. its a start..
 

sebastiantombs

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One more time, when a PIR-IR comes on the camera is basically blinded and takes some time, as in seconds, to adjust to the sudden increase in brightness. PIR activated lighting isn't a very good solution, just as a PIR activated, battery powered, camera, isn't a good solution.

Careful placement of auxiliary IR lighting can easily mitigate washout from too much IR.
 

K175un3

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Hello Murphy625, how are you for wind or water power where you are?

It's just an idea.
 

Murphy625

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One more time, when a PIR-IR comes on the camera is basically blinded and takes some time, as in seconds, to adjust to the sudden increase in brightness. PIR activated lighting isn't a very good solution, just as a PIR activated, battery powered, camera, isn't a good solution.

Careful placement of auxiliary IR lighting can easily mitigate washout from too much IR.
I get that.. I think its something that will have to be experimented with to get the best results.
 

Murphy625

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Hello Murphy625, how are you for wind or water power where you are?

It's just an idea.
There's no water source that could generate power, but during the winter months when solar is being choked by short days, we do tend to get a lot of wind. At this very moment, (Sample size 1) we have 21 mph winds gusting to 28 mph. That's more than good enough for a wind turbine. We don't get these kinds of winds all year, just in the winter, but that's fine with me because we have a lot more solar than we need 9 months of the year.

Problem is that no one makes a reasonably priced small wind turbine that IS NOT a total piece of garbage. The popular 400 and 600 watt units on amazon, ebay, and various other places are just hobby garbage that will never even make enough power to pay for themselves before they break. Turning to the German market, I did find a few manufactures that make good turbines, but they start out at $10,000 for just 1kW. For $10,000, I would rather put in more solar.

If someone made a good 500 or 600 watt unit for under $2,000, I would buy it in a second. Thought about building my own but its just too much work for the return. Still much easier to just add more solar. The solar system works so well I'm thinking of getting rid of the natural gas and going electric with everything.. just use the NG for backup.
 

K175un3

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I was thinking that you may be able to repurpose some tech Murphy625.

You could use an alternator, prop, vane, batteries and a control system. Then if low voltage lighting is used it could well work.

But as with all things, it comes down to cost.

Also, where do people sell their older wind power generation gear as well? As sometimes newer isn't necessarily better.
 

Murphy625

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I was thinking that you may be able to repurpose some tech Murphy625.

You could use an alternator, prop, vane, batteries and a control system. Then if low voltage lighting is used it could well work.

But as with all things, it comes down to cost.

Also, where do people sell their older wind power generation gear as well? As sometimes newer isn't necessarily better.
I'm going to have to brainstorm the IR lighting issue and come up with something.

No idea where people sell used turbines. I found a 30kw turbine on Facebook once and I spent a week mulling it over and someone snatched it out from under me. The guy wanted $8,000 for it and it came complete with all the inverters, tower, turbine, blades, etc. It was a semi truck load of equipment. The thing even had variable pitch blades! It would have cost me the $8k + $3K for delivery, then another $3k to $4k to install it. It had a 30 foot rotor diameter and I would have had to pour a concrete base about 15 to 20 feet deep and 10 feet in diameter for it. That would have been a huge project and I wasn't ready for that.
This turbine was exactly the type one would want. The nacelle was exactly what a turbine should be.. It was a standard (off the shelf) 3 phase motor driven by a gear box and mounted to a frame. All the electronics were commercial grade and located down at ground level. I probably would have had to install some more hardware to change the 3ph-480 to standard split phase...

A missed opportunity.. A 30kW turbine operating for 24 hours in 20mph winds would have made enough energy for my entire home for two solid weeks, and then some.
 

K175un3

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That would have been a big project, but also nice due to the fact that you could have offset your bills and possibly retrofitted it over time as needs be.

May I ask if you could sell power where you are in the world? As in the UK it is possible.
 

CCTVCam

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You're making this very complex and expensive,

Why don't you simply get an off the shelf IR Flood and sensor and attach it to your normal household grid? It sounds as if you have plenty of solar stored so such a small power draw isn't going to make any difference and if you really don't want it drawing power during a SHTF situation (probably the most likely time you actually need CCTV), then you can always wire it inline with a switch and simply turn it off.

IF you really think you're going to be short of power, then add another small panel to your solar array! You already have the batteries, inverter etc so it should be relatively cheap venture. However, from the sounds of your capacity, I doubt household load is going to be a problem. BTW, unless you like stealth, colour is far better for identifying people but it's use at night will depend on your camera and your lighting / re-reinforcement lighting ie floods and the ambient lighting. If you're in woods somewhere, then it maybe that the ambient is very low leaving IR the better option. Same for stealth.
 

Murphy625

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That would have been a big project, but also nice due to the fact that you could have offset your bills and possibly retrofitted it over time as needs be.

May I ask if you could sell power where you are in the world? As in the UK it is possible.
Our current solar system takes care of all of our power requirements. In fact, since we installed it, not only has it completely eliminated our electric bill, but it makes so much power we leave lights and computers running and still have a huge surplus.

In the USA here (Michigan), we have what is called Net Metering. It varies from state to state, but in my state, if you feed a watt into the grid, the power company has to give it back to you.. Like a bank account, only in watts instead of dollars. The electric company will never cut me a check, but they have to give me the power back for free when I want it. (this arrangement doesn't benefit or harm either party)

In some states, when you feed power to the grid, the power company MUST purchase it from you at what is called "Wholesale Rates". This is usually around 3 to 4 cents per kilowatt. You are charged normal rates (10 to 18 cents/kilowatt) when you draw power back. If you feed them an excess, they must cut you a check. (this arrangement sucks)
 

Murphy625

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You're making this very complex and expensive,

Why don't you simply get an off the shelf IR Flood and sensor and attach it to your normal household grid? It sounds as if you have plenty of solar stored so such a small power draw isn't going to make any difference and if you really don't want it drawing power during a SHTF situation (probably the most likely time you actually need CCTV), then you can always wire it inline with a switch and simply turn it off.

IF you really think you're going to be short of power, then add another small panel to your solar array! You already have the batteries, inverter etc so it should be relatively cheap venture. However, from the sounds of your capacity, I doubt household load is going to be a problem. BTW, unless you like stealth, colour is far better for identifying people but it's use at night will depend on your camera and your lighting / re-reinforcement lighting ie floods and the ambient lighting. If you're in woods somewhere, then it maybe that the ambient is very low leaving IR the better option. Same for stealth.
There are a couple of perspectives here that I am thinking about.

While we have excess power, that is only true in the 8 or 9 months around summer. November, December, and January absolutely suck for solar generation and we run a deficit and have to pull juice back from the power company. Its free because of all the power I gave them during the summer, but that may not always be the case as political winds change here in Michigan.

My property is big enough to land an airplane on it. Lighting up area's around the home is a no-brainer, just as you said, they make a lot of off-the-shelf options and I could let them run 24/7 for all I care.. My power is free. Walk down to the end of the driveway about 1000 feet and there is no power available there.. same goes for the other direction a 1000+ feet in the back yard.

It would be easy to set up a camera with a good zoom to monitor those areas for movement, but seeing that movement in total darkness would be darn near impossible without some external / auxiliary lighting. As it is right now, I use a Pulsar thermal scope with a wifi connection mounted to a tripod. I can feed that wifi stream to a phone or tablet easily enough. Thing is, I'm not real enthusiastic about leaving a $4000 thermal scope on a flimsy tripod outside.. While it is water proof, it's not really designed for that purpose.

I'm not even really concerned with the front driveway so much, I'm a lot more interested in what's going on near the food plot where I hunt. I can see it with binoculars, and I can see it with the thermal scope easily enough.. but I'd like to use an IP camera and let the computer do the work.

I know a lot of folks in these forums are all about security and busting bad guys, but out here in the countryside, our version of a bad guy is a coyote hunting our livestock or pets. Different kind of bad guy. We do get the occasional hunter who trespasses. That wouldn't bother me so much if they didn't leave their candy wrappers and garbage behind or make sure they don't shoot towards my home.

Once I get accustomed to the newer camera technologies, I think I might go buy one of those Dahua PTZ cams with the 30x zoom and mount it on the Ham Radio tower about 40 feet up.
 
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