Alright, so for part of my graduate research, I'd like to get some footage of some animals out in habitat. Ideally, I'd like to have 3 cameras set out in one general location, but the issue is that this will not be used near buildings and will not have access to power outlets.

I'm trying to figure out how to power the unit using a deep-cycle marine battery. For the vast majority of the 4-channel DVR setups I can find on the internet, there is no mention of the power consumption of these units. Any suggestions there?

Is there anything anyone can suggest in general for powering something using deep-cycle marine batteries? Stuff to watch out for?

I'd like to have a setup that can be left for a couple of days, at least, between charges.

So, say I got a DVR that has a 19VAC power connection. What marine battery would you suggest and what sort of power inverter would you suggest, if necessary?

3/31/2011 4:41:56 PM

They make motion activated cameras for exactly this purpose. I would assume they would make video cameras also.

Example:
http://www.pixcontroller.com/DVREye/DVREye-main.htm


[Edited on March 31, 2011 at 5:17 PM. Reason : Link]

3/31/2011 4:48:24 PM

You're looking for a "game camera"

Even the nice ones that have internal batteries are only rated for around 10 hours (overnight - so you can rig a solar panel to them to charge back up.) And they're going to record to an internal SD card good for only a couple days.

Maybe someone has a different idea, but you can get a game cam for like $80 and they work for like 2 months.

3/31/2011 5:02:00 PM