I have a rural property and need camera support. They will be mounted on poles in the air. I'm certainly not trying to hide them, rather exploiting them as deterrents. I have professional cameras with lots of connection options so trying to figure this stuff out. Cams have POE network connection, composite vid, audio input jack, I/O ability, power as either the POE, 12VDC, or 24VAC. Consumption is 22W if heaters will have to run, 12.5W if heaters are left off. Honestly pretty power hungry IMO.
What I am looking to do is set/bury a 'con box' and run up the pole with my wiring. I will need to power the cam, set a small solar panel for charging, select a battery tech either Li or Pb, figure out a charge controller solution, and somehow pipe the signal from the camera back to home base via a point 2 point wireless solution. Ubiquiti comes recommended. To be honest, what I am trying to do is integrate and simplify this! The components are adding up and I would think someone has already crossed this bridge!
Getting physical wire to these sites is not practical and I have experience with solar so not too worried about that. Trying to beam the signal without spending a grand on each site is my issue.
I recently had to do this myself, here was my solution.
I already had on hand some 120ah 12v batteries from a ups refresh i had done recently, while not great they serve my purpose fine.
I used the 120ah battery connected to a 12v solar charger (originally had a cheep china made but then was gifted a victron mppt)
camera is a EZVIZ night vision cn3
link to house is via two Ubiquity Nanostation m5's in bridge mode and another router that is located in the power house where i have a inverter and another two Nanostatio m5 bridge to the office.
it originally started off as just panel, camera,battery & charger but now is fully integrated into Homeassitant in both power and camera display and backend recording via Agentdvr or Shinobi
While yes the parts add up I found this better than the failed cameras i was replacing which were super locked into the cloud, no parts for the dc-dc module (all markings gone) no support for firmware updates now (despite being a 2022 camera) , battery pack was one large pouch and two 18650's in the mount. while a neat all in one at first glance i found they had many issues that show after about 6 months of use, first was battery duration, then after that i noticed it would take 3 times longer to be online than normal and only a tftp reflash would bring it back to being online in under two minutes. no issues with the sdcard used though but the rest left a lot to be desired.
With the newer setup i can swap parts to my heart and content even keep stock. while the mppt controller is the largest cost so i have cheap ones on hand but the rest all cost less than the "quality wireless AC long distance CCTV with solar and battery" and i know the setup works as i am copying what my brother setup a few years ago and has worked flawless since, even when his battery saw EOL it was a case of flick the switch in HAssitant to cancel alarm and swap with locally sourced 12v7ah battery, No strange pouch cells to worry about, no odd voltage dc-dc converters and the cloud side of ezviz is easy to cut off and re-route internally with the Hivision sdk app.
anyway, my 2 cents
darkspr1te
I appreciate the response! I am trying to make some decisions here to try to future-proof the system. One issue I face is just that solar stuff does not seem to financially scale down this far so it looks like I will prob spend the same for a 200W setup or a 1000W. For instance, I can snag commercial panels for days and even have them on hand.
I am sort of leaning towards an AC inverter and running all systems off 120V. Why? POE is extremely common, injectors are everywhere, and if I need to plug in new gear, it's out there. I am not just looking at the cameras, I'm looking at wireless radios. What sucks is all this gear actually runs on DC anyway so I would be doing nonsense conversions.
I just tested one of my small inverters, 1000W and it pulls 5W in standby.
I am now curious how the Ubuiquitis are powered? I'm trying not to have much up the pole and keep all power supplies in the underground base station for service.
Hey there! I’ve been down this road myself, setting up cameras in a rural area. For power, solar with a Li battery is your best bet since they’re more efficient and have a longer lifespan than Pb. A good charge controller is crucial to manage the power, and make sure your solar panel is appropriately sized for your camera’s power needs.
For the point-to-point wireless solution, Ubiquiti is solid, but if you're looking to save, check out TP-Link's options—they're pretty reliable and won’t break the bank. Last year, I faced some issues with my home setup and had to call in professionals.
CCTV camera installers in Sydney helped me sort it out efficiently. A friend recommended them, saying their electricians are always available, no matter the time or day. To find out more information here about CCTV camera installers, you might want to give them a look. It’s worth getting some expert advice to streamline everything!