Any recommendations for network camera w/ battery operation.

I would like to use a network camera that is battery powered and motioned sensored. I only would want the camera to deliver pictures to an FTP site or email only when motion is detected. I also would like to not have to find a power source where I want to locate the camera, so an extended battery life would be nice. Anyone have any recommendations? The battery powered feature seems to be the difficult option to find.

Thanks,

Sam

"Sam Santiago" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:8fNsf.48152$(E-Mail Removed). net...
I would like to use a network camera that is battery powered and motioned
sensored. I only would want the camera to deliver pictures to an FTP site
or email only when motion is detected. I also would like to not have to
find a power source where I want to locate the camera, so an extended
battery life would be nice. Anyone have any recommendations? The battery
powered feature seems to be the difficult option to find.

Thanks,

Sam

I got a wireless webcam on ebay. Most accept 5v input. Then you need
something like
http://www.expansys.com/product.asp?...rtner=register to power
it. Not sure how long it would last though.

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send newsletters

"Sam Santiago" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>I would like to use a network camera that is battery powered and motioned sensored. I only would want the camera to deliver pictures to an FTP site or email only when motion is detected. I also would like to not have to find a power source where I want to locate the camera, so an extended battery life would be nice. Anyone have any recommendations? The battery powered feature seems to be the difficult option to find.

The Axis 210 does all that and supports 802.3af Power Over Ethernet,
so you don't have to supply power at the camera location. The motion
detection can be a little fiddly, but there's an awful lot of
flexibility in the camera.

IMHO, the power requirements of a network camera are going to rule out
battery power, unless you are talking about golf-cart batteries, and
then swapping/charging them is going to be difficult...

William P.N. Smith <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>IMHO, the power requirements of a network camera are going to rule out
>battery power

In fact, the Axis 210 draws around 5W, or something like 4KWHR/month,
300+ amp hours at 12V, so even golf cart batteries would have to be
charged twice a month (or have engineered a $400-ish solar power
system).

On Thu, 29 Dec 2005 08:37:24 GMT, "Sam Santiago"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
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>I would like to use a network camera that is battery powered and =
>motioned sensored. I only would want the camera to deliver pictures to =
>an FTP site or email only when motion is detected. I also would like to =
>not have to find a power source where I want to locate the camera, so an =
>extended battery life would be nice. Anyone have any recommendations? =
>The battery powered feature seems to be the difficult option to find.

I assume you are talking about a "wireless" network cam. It would
be pretty simple to make a battery pack to power the cam. The
batterys might need to be a large size to power the cam for any
length of time. You would probably need to use an IR motion
detector to turn the cam on when motion is detected, otherwise
you would run the batterys down for no good reason.

"Sam Santiago" <(E-Mail Removed)> hath wroth:

>I would like to use a network camera that is battery powered and motioned sensored. I only would want the camera to deliver pictures to an FTP site or email only when motion is detected. I also would like to not have to find a power source where I want to locate the camera, so an extended battery life would be nice. Anyone have any recommendations? The battery powered feature seems to be the difficult option to find.

You didn't mention whether the pictures were to be returned via
wireless or a wired connection. If wired, you could use PoE (power
over ethernet) to power the device. Toshiba IK-WB02A for about $550
should work. It will run on 24VAC, 12VDC or PoE.

If you're going wireless, then there's a problem with power. 802.11
wireless does not like to be constantly connected and disconnected (or
powered up and down) every time the camera wants to play FTP. The
power consumption is also rather high as camera, 802.11 client, and
processor will each burn about 1 to 4 watts. If the computer section
is a common SBC (single board computer) power dissipation will be much
higher. That will kill a battery pack rather rapidly. If there's IR
illumination, even faster. It can be done, but you'll be replaceing
batteries quite often. Solar charging will help. In addition, if you
want motion detection, you can't really cycle the power on and off to
the camera (to save the batteries) as you're likely to miss something
move.

You could possibly throw together something using an X10 type RF video
link and use an AC powered computah to deal with the motion detection
and uploads. Any of the covert video or spy shop cameras can do that
with NTSC video. The computer would then be a dedicated "video
server" such as:
http://www.axis.com/products/video/video_server/


--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

William P.N. Smith wrote:
> William P.N. Smith <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>>IMHO, the power requirements of a network camera are going to rule out
>>battery power
>
>
> In fact, the Axis 210 draws around 5W, or something like 4KWHR/month,
> 300+ amp hours at 12V, so even golf cart batteries would have to be
> charged twice a month (or have engineered a $400-ish solar power
> system).
Have you noticed how some people are careless regarding the security of
their IP cameras.
Try a google search for:-
intitle:"Live View / - AXIS"
intitle:liveapplet

see how many you get to control.

Rob

On Thu, 29 Dec 2005 21:23:09 +0000 (UTC), Rob
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:


>Have you noticed how some people are careless regarding the security of
>their IP cameras.
>Try a google search for:-
>intitle:"Live View / - AXIS"
>intitle:liveapplet
>
>see how many you get to control.
>
>Rob

I'm not sure what the security issue is as the links would have
to be in publically availabe web pages for the google bot to pick
them up.

Thank you all for your suggestions. I appreciate the help.

William P.N. Smith <(E-Mail Removed)> hath wroth:

>William P.N. Smith <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>>IMHO, the power requirements of a network camera are going to rule out
>>battery power

>In fact, the Axis 210 draws around 5W, or something like 4KWHR/month,
>300+ amp hours at 12V, so even golf cart batteries would have to be
>charged twice a month (or have engineered a $400-ish solar power
>system).

Ummmm...

5watts * 24 hrs/day * 30 days/month = 3000 watt-hrs/month
At $0.15/kw-hr, that would cost over $5.40 /year in electricity to
operate.

A common Type 27 gel battery can deliver about 100A-HR at 12V.
http://www.apexbattery.com/size-27-g...r-battery.html
I'll assume a 100% efficient switching regulator (because I'm lazy)
down to whatever the Axis 210 wants for voltage. Therefore, this
battery is good for:
100 A-hrs * 12V = 1200 watt-hrs
However, you can only safely discharge this battery down to about 75%
of capacity before damaging the battery. That's 300 watt-hrs which
yields:
300 watt-hrs / 5 watts = 60 hrs.
The battery will need to be recharged every 2.5 days. Yech.

I threw together an Excel spreadsheet for calculating solar powered
commercial and ham VHF/UHF repeaters.
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/rf-calc/...peater-206.xls
It can easily be adapted to lower power wireless devices. Comments
and improvements are always welcome.

--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558