Off-the-grid setup #40
Replies: 6 comments 11 replies
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Hi @arne1921KF, @MueJosh, @Nachtzuster
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Has anyone ever tried to go the simple route and build a just sound-logger? No on site processing, just a simple device that will record sound for aprox. 24 hours. Detection then run on a desktop or cloud machine that just goes through the .WAVs collected by mentioned device the day before. Maybe this ESP audio dev board + a battery would be sufficient? (currently around $15,- on aliexpress) One could drop it off in the woods somewhere, retrieve it the next day... |
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You should definitely check this out! microPAM An off the shelf alternative is the audiomoth |
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So, after some hiccups with the battery, I am in the process to get my setup in a working condition. I returned the first battery mentioned above and replaced it with this one - a 12 V LiFePO4 with 6000 mAh. I guesstimated that it should bring the BirdNet-Pi through the night, but it did not. My current go at it:
My thinking is that the last part should, in theory, start the DC outlet again after six hours. I hope this starts the Pi, which then should run until ten pm. The battery, in theory, should last about 10h, and should get enough current during the day to stop the battery from draining, i.e. trickle charge throughout the day. Not to keep you waiting, here's my setup: As you can see, I dismantled the charging controller to save some space. The Pi itself is in a neat housing with a (sadly undocumented) HAT, which apparently provides a CAN bus interface. It also features a lithium battery, and I am rather sure there's a RTC on that board, but since I am new to hardware fiddling, I can't for the life of me figure out how to use it. However, I left it connected since it has a wide-range DC input on the back side of the case: I can run my Pi on 9 to 24 V. Which is exactly what I need - I could probably even connect the solar panel directly to it, since maximum output current is given as 18 V for this particular 20Wp panel, according to the specs on the label on it's back. I set the charging controller to LiFePo4, and to use 14.4 V charging current, since the battery supports 14 to 16 V (it has it's own BMC, by the way, so in theory I could connect it directly to the panel). I also set the controller to 10 V output on the DC outlet, since I hope this a) saves some battery and b) reduces the overall amount of heat in the setup. As mentioned above, the 6000 mAh did not bring me through the night, so this is rather try and error. I think you need a bigger Also, I'd be delighted if you'd share your expertise to get maximum uptime (i.e., how you safe battery) and safe and proper shutting down(restarting of the BirdNET-Pi. |
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Update: can't get it to get a reliable service. I set up a cron job to reboot in the morning and to halt in the evening, set the charging controller to 16h of service. Didn't work out as intended. Any suggestions? |
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As indicated below, I am at a loss. The Pi is possibly draining the 6 Ah LiFePo4 faster than the 20Wp 12v PV panel can charge it. When the battery hits a threshold voltage, it shuts down (by internal BMS) or is shut down (by the charging controller). This means the charging controller also shuts down. Which in turn means I have to disconnect the panel, the outlet and the battery (in that order) and reconnect them (inversely ordered) to get the bloody thing working again. If the battery isn't drained to much, that is: even during best weather conditions, I encountered glitches which brought the charging controller to something like a boot loop. It turned off and on continuously. When it turns on, the outlet is active, hence the Pi tries to start and the controller starts loading the battery. Then the controller shuts down, nearly immediately, disconnecting battery and Pi. I have encountered this regardless of the value of the threshold set via the charging controller. What @craigusus outlines below could possibly help: shutting the Pi down gracefully before the charging controller shuts down might just keep the system online to load the battery, and reboot the Pi once full capacity is reached. However, I think I would need a simple yet complete tutorial to be able to do that. I would wager at some point we'll have that. Until then, reader beware: don't make the same mistake as I did. Basically, choose a larger battery, and maybe a bigger PV panel. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ |
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As you mentioned above, the Pi is draining your battery faster than the panel can charge it. Also, your charge controller will be using power from the battery to run, so that won't be helping the issue. This could be why it is going into a 'boot loop'.
Also, looking up the case you have (it took me a while), I have no idea what the board/HAT you have already, so that could also be consuming power. I would remove that. To be perfectly honest (I fully understand the cost implications) I would never buy a 2nd hand Pi as you never know what it was used for in its past. i.e. Bitcoin mining - running at 100% CPU, at high temperatures, 24/7/365 etc. I think what you need for your setup is some sort of UPS HAT i.e. waveshare ups hat with the script adaption to tell the Pi to shut down (all UPS I have seen STILL do not have this feature!) when the UPS battery drops below a set voltage. Be wary of the 8.4V input to the UPS. You will also have to remove the Pi from your current case and HAT. |
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Hi all, I'm new to the gang and just wanted to show off my 'off-grid' setup. My current hardware setup:
After all the work-from-home malarky, stemming from COVID-19, I installed some DIY Solar Panels to power 2x 12V 100Ah batteries so that I could power my work laptop & screens etc on the days I work from home. I have 4x 100w panels in total. I have mounted the enclosure underneath the panels, giving it a fair amount of weather protection (wind protection to be determined).
From looking at my battery % over the past few nights, keeping the Pi running and charging my phone and watch overnight. It's only using about 2-3%. And even on an overcast day here in the UK (so 363 days of the year!) it will have topped that 2-3% up in a few hours. ToDo/ThinkAbout:
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So I got paid, and the following day my 50W panel arrived 😉 This has a Pi 4 1GB running off the USB port of the controller and a cheap USB webcam as the microphone. According to the controller, it is receiving 0.2W and using 0W (somehow). I plan on putting the panel on the shed roof facing in the opposite direction (south) once the 2 trees you can see in the last picture are removed. Currently, they are housing a family of Common Wood-Pigeon's and it's illegal to tamper with the nests here, even though they are classed as vermin. I'll see what the voltage is in a day or 2.
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I've been busy for weeks, but coming back to off-grid planning I have to ask: how does your setup fare so far for true off-grid purposes? |
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Hi, unfortunately not great. (I have been away this week, so everything was shut down). I have now purchased a new 12V to 5V 15A and a new hinged enclosure so I don't have to keep unscrewing the current one. But I have not installed them yet as Amazon delivered them late today. And I have a new controller for the shed. So I'm hoping to have better results this week! |
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FINALLY! No more of these... I know it's only been a day but I thought I'd let you know the state of the shed batteries with the new charger. Current usage 0.4A is what the Pi 4 is pulling: Today's consumption 60Wh: I'll monitor for the next few days and keep you posted. |
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@craigusus, any news? Here: still experimenting with my 20Wp, my 6Ah LiFePO4 plus a 20Ah standard Li-Ion power bank. Using a wide-range (9-24V) DC input (with a HAT) supporting the Pi during the day. Charging the power bank via USB from the solar charging controller. Using the 6Ah LiFePO4 hooked up to the charging controller as buffer. Shutting down the Pi at sundown via a CRON job to reduce power draw. Shutting down the charging controller (via the internal timer, which sadly has no clock but just number of hours running) just before that to switch to USB-C power via the (now de-charging) power bank. Trying to reboot via CRON job at dawn. Experimenting with the timing of all of this does not get me anywhere. I suppose the 20Wp panel is just to weak to keep this running for longer than one night. How would you do troubleshooting with that setup? Any (software) suggestions for logging the state of the Pi easily, so I could try to optimise the setup? (Consider me a noob... the more verbose and on point your response, the better. ;-) ) |
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Great Setup, Craig 😃
I testet your Mic setup to get away a little bit cheaper than with my all -time favourite
Boya BY-LM40 USB-Lavalier-Mikrophone, but I found out Boya is stil better – so maybe you would give it a try…
Kind Regards, Carsten
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Addendum:
Agtek System: Today 384, Species detected today 15
Boya System: Today 829, Species detected today 19
Identical Hardware orangepi02w, same local Mic Position etc.
Cheers, Carsten
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Hi there,
since MueJosh asked over in the issue thread alread, and @Nachtzuster is interested as well:
I'm currently trying to get my BirdNetPi off-grid. I have some hiccups, so nothing is finished, but I think I can start my thread here. This might even leverage my commitment to the project to a higher level.
So far, I have the following setup up & running:
It's running bullseye. I switched to @Nachtzuster's branch based on a recommendation on the original repository. I am ever so thankful that Nachtzuster and y'all are engaging and friendly, and actively contributing to keep BirdNET-Pi alive.
First thing to mention: at first, I had a terrible buzzing sound on the mic whenever using any plug-in power supply. With a power bank, this vanished. I was able to get rid of it by simply connecting GND to a radiator. (Caveat: This works in several European countries. Before you try, please find out if your radiator has a potential equalisation connection.)
Second thing to mention:
I clicked my Pi on the secondary market, and it came with a HAT and no documentation whatsoever. All the seller contributed was that it had been used in a PV installation, and had thus an additional 6 to 24 V DC connection. I wondered if I could directly connect it to a solar panel, but I could not find out. The HAT is labeled as a Rocktech RPI_300_EXT_V1_0, and while I could find the company behind it, I could not find out anything about the board. I think it is a CAN bus I/O-board, and since I couldn't find out more, I am not going to try connecting the PV module directly at this moment.
But this got me thinking: well, let's get this thing to where the birds sing.
I started hawking for a couple of days, and got this:
Right now, I can't test: the battery seems defective, my voltmeter shows 26 mV current. The case popped open by accident (it is neither welded nor glued shut), I got access to one of the four cells inside and did measure about 10 V current, so I guess the BMS is trying to protect the battery from getting deeply discharged. For me, it looks like it is already, so I will probably send it back.
To answer your question, @MueJosh: I took the next best bargain and clicked myself the panel including the PWM charging controller. After reading some of the advice on the web, I hope that that plus the BMS would be good enough for me. My reasoning is that, in my small setup with a 18V maxium, with (hopefully) trickle charging, MPPT will not be needed.
Since the battery I got seems broken, I went slightly up-market and just ordered a battery from Eremit. They include a BMS which allows direct connection to a solar panel, without any additional charging controller. I got that as a tip from someone who has running systems of SBCs with solar panels to record birds, bats, and insects. They also gave me the tip to go for the vendor Offgridtech for solar panels, and get a power management HAT to be able schedule recording times, to save battery. The latter I'm currently not willing to do, as it would be another 30 €. I'll have a look how far the battery will go, and come back to the idea of scheduling later.
As soon as by off-grid BirdNET-Pi is up and running, weather-restistant housing is going to be the next step.
I'll try to keep you posted on my project. Feel free to ask if you want any details I forgot to mention.
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