CPU ideas for strictly solar offgrid use (Low Power)

[jzobel]

Have 4 PTZ cameras at an offgrid cabin run entirely by solar. Looking to run Blue Iris so I can scrap Dahua DMSS P2P control which sucks and is clunky. I dont need to record or any AI stuff. This is strictly for live viewing wildlife, and using phone for blue iris login and control is so seamless. The issue is power consumption of CPU has to be kept to absolute minimum. Heard some talk about Intel Nuc or i5-i7 "T" units. But seems like endless options. Just looking for some advice if anyone has done this before or has an idea of what i could get away with considering my demand. Every watt counts when its running 24/7.

Thanks

 

[kaltertod]

How big of a solar setup are you planning on implementing? How many Batteries and what size inverter? That will determine what kind of equipment that you can run. I would say that you probably could run a smaller ryzen setup with say something like a 5600g or a 5700g and stay on a relatively small power budget as long as you did not go crazy with the cameras.

 

[jzobel]

Well. The solar setup size would be determined by the CPU load. I can easily handle 20watt 24/7. But above 35-40 watt gets sizeable very quick. I guess I’m just not sure what these things would spit out with 20-25% cpu load. Most data that I can find just mentions idle power. But running as a server would be higher. I was running a STARLINK at 75watts 24/7 and that was a lot of power to use. Hoping at this new site I can reduce that since it’s just a modem. But DMSS just plain sucks compared to BI

 

[kaltertod]

My remote 5600g setup full system load is in the neighborhood of 150-175 watts full load, this is using a Nvidia 1650 for ai processing. I would look at a setup like that. Run nvme ssd/sata ssd for storage to keep the power low. Solar panels wise that depends on the sun exposure but 2 100watt panels in tandem with 4 deep cycle 12volt rv batteries and a 1000watt inverter should suffice. YMMV a bit depending on what you want to do. I would say that building +20% of expected load would give you any headroom for upgrades that you might want to do in the future.

 

[jzobel]

This is good info. Thanks. You must live in florida. Here in central NY. I needed 1200watts of solar panels to keep a 125watt load going. And that was with a timer to shut things down from midnight to 4am. We just get too much greyness. This is helpful though in the sense I don’t think I can make it work through the winter months without a major setup. Was hoping for 50-60watt max draws.

 

[looney2ns]

My BI I7-7700 optiplex with 18 cameras, averages 36 watts.
One ssd, and one 4tb WD purple HD.
I suspect an I5-8500 would do even better.

 

[bp2008]

For an off-grid cabin I would absolutely go with a low-end NUC or an equivalent small fanless system using AMD (see Minisforum or similar brands). Follow the Optimizing Blue Iris's CPU Usage guide. You can either use sub streams or use "Limit decoding unless required" but I don't recommend using both at the same time on the same camera. Either one of those should get your CPU usage into the low single digits.

Recording won't actually increase your power consumption very much, so feel free to do that too.

Back when NUCs were fairly new I used one at an off grid cabin. It was too weak of a system to run Blue Iris at the time, but I ran different camera software and it was < 10 watts. These days the speed and efficiency of the newer NUC hardware, and the efficiency of Blue Iris, have all improved a lot.

 

[jzobel]

Damn. Haha. Now this is back in contention. I have seen info of NUCs under minimal load using 15 watts all the way up to 150watts! If I can keep this under 35. I’d be golden. I can go into bios and turn some stuff off too like wifi. Worth a look at.

 

[CCTVCam]

My BI I7-7700 optiplex with 18 cameras, averages 36 watts.
One ssd, and one 4tb WD purple HD.
I suspect an I5-8500 would do even better.

Are you sure it's as low as that?

My Intel i5-10400 uses 40-50w as measured by a power measuring socket and that's at around 5-9% cpu. I only have a cpu fan running and a single case fan which is on PWM and only ramps up if the CPU ramps up. Normally it's not turning. I have one SSD and single 4tb WD Purple HD. That's with 2 cameras and no console active, and no internet connection active (so no additional background processes). Add in the console and the range increases by around 10W.

BTW I highly recommend to everyone buying a power measuring socket, very useful for testing things. This one is from Amazon:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B085S7Q1T4?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

This is at the higher end of the range of power draw:



I'm probably going to say that mine is 10w more than Looneys assuming he's measured his using something similar. Maybe the i7 is more efficient or maybe it's just the later processors draw more.

Also, to the OP, you can add on around 20w for 2 cameras for the cameras actual power draw from the socket including the poe switch which also needs to be powered.

Another point with solar, don't forget the energy requirement is 24/7. If using battery storage (which you need obviously because the sun doesn't shine at night), then you also need to factor that 24/7 requirement in. I think I'm correct in saying that that if you need 80w 24/7, then you're looking at much larger panels than you at 1st glance require. I'm no solar expert so please take advice from an expert, this is just my off the cuff non fact based opinion. But based on 8hrs sun a day that's a potential 240W requirement (80 x 3 (3x8hrs in a day)). Add in the fact that not all days will generate or be sunny and the panel will produce far less, and I'd guess you're probably going to have to at least double the size, maybe even more because a shaded panel can quickly fall to a fraction of it's rating and cloudy or rainy days can knock outputs massively. In addition, with every panel increase you also need the storage increase. As said, I'm no expert so please consult one. But my guess is you're potentially looking at a much larger mopre expensive system than you may think.

 

[looney2ns]

Are you sure it's as low as that?

My Intel i5-10400 uses 40-50w as measured by a power measuring socket and that's at around 5-9% cpu. I only have a cpu fan running and a single case fan which is on PWM and only ramps up if the CPU ramps up. Normally it's not turning. I have one SSD and single 4tb WD Purple HD. That's with 2 cameras and no console active, and no internet connection active (so no additional background processes). Add in the console and the range increases by around 10W.

BTW I highly recommend to everyone buying a power measuring socket, very useful for testing things. This one is from Amazon:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B085S7Q1T4?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

This is at the higher end of the range of power draw:

View attachment 163764

I'm probably going to say that mine is 10w more than Looneys assuming he's measured his using something similar. Maybe the i7 is more efficient or maybe it's just the later processors draw more.

Also, to the OP, you can add on around 20w for 2 cameras for the cameras actual power draw from the socket including the poe switch which also needs to be powered.

Another point with solar, don't forget the energy requirement is 24/7. If using battery storage (which you need obviously because the sun doesn't shine at night), then you also need to factor that 24/7 requirement in. I think I'm correct in saying that that if you need 80w 24/7, then you're looking at much larger panels than you at 1st glance require. I'm no solar expert so please take advice from an expert, this is just my off the cuff non fact based opinion. But based on 8hrs sun a day that's a potential 240W requirement (80 x 3 (3x8hrs in a day)). Add in the fact that not all days will generate or be sunny and the panel will produce far less, and I'd guess you're probably going to have to at least double the size, maybe even more because a shaded panel can quickly fall to a fraction of it's rating and cloudy or rainy days can knock outputs massively. In addition, with every panel increase you also need the storage increase. As said, I'm no expert so please consult one. But my guess is you're potentially looking at a much. lagrer system than you may think.

Yes I'm sure.

 

[Ri22o]

You can either use sub streams or use "Limit decoding unless required" but I don't recommend using both at the same time on the same camera.

Why is that? This is how all of my cameras are set up.

 

[CCTVCam]

Yes I'm sure.

Looks like the i7 is actually more efficient then at lower loads despite the higher tdp. Might have to look into an upgrade. Must admit, I bought the i5 due to cost at the time. But I hate i3 and i5 processors. Never seem to last as long nor work as well as i7's.

 

[bp2008]

You can either use sub streams or use "Limit decoding unless required" but I don't recommend using both at the same time on the same camera.

Why is that? This is how all of my cameras are set up.

Because most of the possible CPU savings are already achieved by using just one of those features, so when you use both simultaneously you get all of the downsides but very little of the benefit. That isn't to say there is no benefit. It is just very little.

 

[dmcIPCAM]

Are you sure it's as low as that?

Dang! You guys got me curious....

Xeon E3-1246 v3 with 32 GB ECC RAM, 1 SSD, 1 WD Purple TB, GTX 750Ti
11 Cameras, 2 Doorbells (IPC-T5442T-ZEB x 8, IPC-Color4K-T180 x 1, VTO2311R-WP x 2, IPC-K42A x 2)

Blue Iris NOT runnning: 37.3 watts



Blue Iris and CodeProject.AI running: 46.2 watts




(Apologies for the crappy photos)

 

[CCTVCam]

I should have added I'm running CPAI.