Basically I have this Enviro Weather Bundle and I live in Canada and want to put this outside year round with a solar panel. Obviously batteries don’t like the cold of winter, so has anyone set this up in a cold climate? if so what batteries did you use? Did you have to insulate the batteries in the Stevenson box?
I live in Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada. I have plans for something similar here. My sensors will be in the Stevenson Shield, but Pico and Battery will be in seperate weather tight enclosure. My battery is still going to get cold, but will be better protected from moisture etc. That’s my plan anyway, I just have to find my round 2it ;)
No solar power on mine, I’m going to run AC mains power right to the box. The battery is a backup in case of an AC mains power failure.
You have to think carefully about your solar panel setup. You typically need a combination of panel, solar-charger electronics and battery that work together, even at low temperatures. Discharging is probably not the main problem (besides drops in capacity), but charging at low temperature is critical so the electronics has to take care of that.
So my recommendation is to get advice from a specialized shop that sells solar-power solutions.
If you really want to build it yourself, I recommend some of the more recent solar-chargers from Adafruit in combination with a carefully selected battery type. If you google around, there are more technologies than LiIon or LiFePo4. Insulation and heating is also an option, but the latter really complicates the setup.
@alphanumeric we’re almost neighbours, I’m in New Brunswick! I totally get the round2it,I’ve been collecting the parts for this project for the last 6 months.
I have a solar powered Birdfeeder web camera and in the winter (with our 7 hours of daylight) the battery lasts about a week before I have to take the birdfeeder inside to recharge. Solar panels don’t work great when covered in snow or bird poop lol
@bablokb
so I have an Adafruit Solar Panel Medium 6V 2W Solar panel ( Medium 6V 2W Solar panel [2.0 Watt] : ID 200 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits ) plugged into this DC Jack adapter cable ( 3.8 / 1.3mm or 3.5 / 1.1mm to 5.5 / 2.1mm DC Jack Adapter Cable : ID 2788 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits ) and that is plugged into Universal USB/DC/Solar Lithium Ion/Polymer charger - bq24074 ( Adafruit Universal USB / DC / Solar Lithium Ion/Polymer charger [bq24074] : ID 4755 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits ) which allows a Thermistor to be added to adjust the charging based on temperature…However it stops charging at 0C,and here it’s below 0c for 6 months of the year.
I may have to figure out a quick way to do battery swaps without having to disassemble everything outside in the middle of a snowstorm to get at the battery.
Good equipment! Regarding battery swaps, have a look at Adafruit LM66200 Ideal Dual Diodes Breakout : ID 5830 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits
@Fred_B – I am on the other side of the country from you, [southern, coastal] BC. And yeah, winter does wonders for our solar powered lights. Or lack thereof. If we could only use rain power…. hmmm… I wonder.
that LM66200 would certainly help with not losing power during the swap, I was more concerned about physically swapping batteries during bad weather.
picture this: I have the enviro weather board,BQ24074 solar battery charger board, and battery inside the Stevenson Shield which is screwed shut with waterproof wire glands installed into the bottom for the RJ45 cables from the station and the solar panel cable to passthrough. The Stevenson Shield, weather station and solar panel are screwed to a fence on the other side of the property….and the battery is dead and it’s -20c and snowing.
To do an in place battery swap, I would have to unscrew the Stevenson Shield from the fence, and then unscrew the bottom of the Stevenson Shield to get inside it and then fiddle around with the tiny battery connector with frozen fingers.
to take the whole Stevenson Shield inside to do a battery swap, I still have to take it all apart to get inside it to disconnect the weather station and solar panel, leaving the 3 wires exposed to the elements while I’m inside swapping batteries.
either way I would have to completely disassemble it and risk dropping screws into the snow or snow blowing inside it. I need a way to swap/recharge batteries without having to open the Stevenson Shield that’s why I was initially going with solar before I learned batteries won’t charge in below 0c temperatures. I know there are industrial batteries rated for -20c and -40c Link 1 and Link2 but A) their websites don’t list prices aka they are expensive and B) I don’t think they would sell me just 2 their minimum order is probably 100 or 200 batteries.
Maybe put a wireless charging coil on the inside top of the Stevenson Shield and then place a weatherproof container containing the battery and another coil on top of it? but most wireless chargers only have a range in the millimeters and struggle to get through thick phone cases. Just thinking out loud..
I believe you can use Hyper Lithium AA Batteries – they should handle the cold weather. – Believe Amazon has some.
But the part about swapping them out w/o freezing… yeah that one requires more thought… hmmm.
Do the batteries have to be inside the Stevenson? Why not keep them outside?
