ZoneMinder Forums

Hi guys.

I want to run two cameras on a machine that runs off a car battery.

The proposed outdoor enclosure has in it:
1) one fanless mini itx board
2) one gig of ram
3) one car battery
4) blue cheery video input card

Is there a way to tell the cameras to use low low low power unless there is a motion detection activation. The cameras are swann bullet cameras.

Cheers,

Dan

the only thing you could do is lower the power to the ir leds (if fitted) normal cameras dont have different power states

So does that mean if its day time the LEDS dont use any / much power?

d

Depends on the camera. Some will turn off, others will not during the day. You have to check with the camera manufactures.

How long are you wanting to run the system for before a recharge ?, i have a simiar system in mind, in my case i'd need about 12 hours of power from the battery, 4 cams, all outside ones, and a way to dial using a mobile phone.

This information might be useful to you.

HOW DOES ONE CONVERT BATTERY USAGE REQUIREMENTS INTO HOURS OF OPERATION?

To calculate Hours of Operation, the Nominal Capacity of the Battery (in Milliamps) is divided by the Total Current Consumption Rate of the items being powered by the battery. Example: An 800mA battery (.8Amp) is being used to power a black and white board camera that consumes 150mA per hour.

Divide 800mA by 150mA to yield 5.33 hours of operational power use.

Note: Peak battery performance diminishes as it reaches the end of the estimated operational cycle. To ensure uninterrupted power performance, replace the battery 15-30 minutes prior to the end of cycle.

(Taken from http://www.spyandsecuritystore.com/surcamques.html)

hushpuppy wrote: To calculate Hours of Operation, the Nominal Capacity of the Battery (in Milliamps) is divided by the Total Current Consumption Rate of the items being powered by the battery. Example: An 800mA battery (.8Amp) is being used to power a black and white board camera that consumes 150mA per hour.

Divide 800mA by 150mA to yield 5.33 hours of operational power use.

Battery amp-hour ratings are usually given for a battery's 20-hour discharge rate (called the C/20 rate). So if you have a 20AH battery, you'll be able to put a 1-amp constant load on it and it will power that load for 20 hours, but if you put a 20-amp load on the battery it will last significantly less than 1 hour.

In other words, the relationship between current draw and a battery's charge life is not linear.

Don't use any usb webcam or analog webcam.
Go for the IP Cam.

If you use IP Cam with a capture setting of 1 FPS ,you'll be able to run zoneminder even on a 386 pc (a colleague of mine did it).
In your case don't use the 386 ,but go for an epia mini-itx motherboard.

These are very low power motherboard all in one.

Use munin monitor tool to check energy consumption on cpu. But better would be to use an external wattage meter device that cat run on 12V-DC.

Maybe just plain and simply go for a laptop ! Those have battery included.

Your idea of getting this into car,truck,lorry is very nice. Indeed there might be a demand for this kind of setups ...

Anyway energy consumption will be the biggest problem. (IP Cam consumes a lot).

Problem with ZM is that with modect mode it captures or streams whole the time !

You might solve this by triggering on or off the powersupply of the cam with an external motion detector.

Kind regards,

K.

Note that a car battery is unsuitable for a continuous constant-current application like this - what you need is a so-called 'leisure' battery.

Car batteries are designed for high-output short bursts and don't take kindly to continuous/deep discharge.

Mathew