12v LifePo4 3mo Update! Wow, I'm Never Going Back!
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- čas přidán 6. 09. 2024
- I recently needed to update some of my 12volt external sealed lead acid batteries in the field due to old age. Due to the fact that most of my battery boxes were filled with water, bugs, or roach poop-I decided to build my own waterproof 12volt DIY LifePo4 boxes. I build two 12 volt LifePo4 boxes and wanted to give an update on battery status after 3 months of busy camera work. So far, I am extremely impressed as these batteries are on track for being in the field for 1 year before needing recharging. This long span won't hurt LifePo4 batteries but technically isn't good for SLA (sealed lead acid) batteries which need to be charged more frequently for the health of the battery.
Link to Items for this LifePo4 Build: www.amazon.com...
Link to DIY LifePo4 Battery Box Build: • 12v LifePo4 Battery fo...
Check out these cool LifePo4 batteries if you don't want to build your own:
6ah-LifePo4 Battery: amzn.to/48ipPCp
10ah-LifePo4 Battery: amzn.to/3Sd5tVJ
12ah-LifePo4 Battery: amzn.to/3TMNC9c
Thanks for watching and God Bless!
Contact: Steve
Email: hhsteve@protonmail.com
Hey guys, the DIY build is great in this video but I'm now using the prebuilt LifePo4 batteries because they've come down in price and you can buy larger capacity Ah's. I've been using these for a while now and they work great! The links are in the description of the video or here: 6ah-LifePo4 Battery: amzn.to/48ipPCp
10ah-LifePo4 Battery: amzn.to/3Sd5tVJ
12ah-LifePo4 Battery: amzn.to/3TMNC9c
great work
Many many thanks!
Great results and follow up ! I wondered if any overhead loss would be a factor but looks like that’s a non issue.
Help me understand what you mean by “overhead loss”. Thanks for watching!
Hey Steve!1 How are you doing?/ I was wondering when are you going to plant your fall food plots this year?? I am pretty close to you in Georgia!!! Give me a shout! Thanks!!1
Hey Barry! I’ll be planting the 2nd week of Sept. I have all my plots sprayed now so they should be ready to go by then. Good luck and keep in touch!
@@TheHandyHunter 10-4!! That's when I am planting!!
Great video. I just bought some parts from your amazon store to one together!!
Awesome! Giod luck!
Wow. Was excited for this vid. Super impressive. This is a game changer
How about forgetting the bms and just using a balancing lead set ?
You could try it. You’d have to be careful with over charging and discharging. BMS’s do fail so it’d be good if it works. Let me know!
@TheHandyHunter well in this case the charger would actually the bms when charging , im.just not sure about the discharge side if damage would be quick or just slow and gradual .
Make sure you charge with a LifePo4 charger. You can prevent discharge damage by keeping an eye on voltage so it doesnt get too low before recharging. It can take months to get to that point but just dont forget.👍
@TheHandyHunter yeah I will use a lifepo4 charger but I won't be able to watch the voltage as the cams will be 2000 miles away
👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
When your test on the Roypow 12v lithium is complete. I hope you will test it with a cellular camera also . Would be nice to know how it would preform. Thanks ...
Great idea. Keep up the innovative work! I made 5 for my Moultrie cellulars. After a month of cold weather still reading 13.35. I used the
12V 6Ah Lithium Iron Battery LiFePO4 Deep Cycle Batteries which measure 4 x 4 x 4. My question is twofold: 1) Should the battery boxes be vented or opened slightly when charging?
2) Is there a battery box that is a smaller better fit? Thank you.
Great to hear! I don’t vent mine when charging and haven’t had any problems. I can’t find a better box that fits perfectly but I’ll keep looking. Thanks for sharing!
Hi big fan been watching you for years. I built a spin cast feeder with the boss buck 12 volt motor and hooked it up like you did to a solar panel and I recently purchased a 12 volt replacement battery that’s lithium instead of the lead acid and when I plugged it in all numbers went black almost like it was getting to much voltage and I couldn’t use any buttons on the programmer I was wondering if you have ran into this or know what it’s doing and if I needed to put some kind of voltage regulator on that feeder thanks in advance
Hey, I’ve used some lithium batteries on my Boss Bucks and haven’t had any issues. I have had my buttons go bad or not work but it wasnt due to the battery. Do you have another 12v battery you can retest with? Also, just double check all the leads from solar and battery to make sure they are correct. Let me know how it goes.
@@TheHandyHunter will do I have a lead acid battery I will try today I measured the voltage on both the lead acid was getting 12.7 volts and the lithium was getting 13.2 volts
I will run down there and try it again today and follow up
@@TheHandyHunter follow up:
I went and checked again today and still didn’t work with the normal set up so when I disconnected the solar panel and hooked the feeder to the lithium battery without the solar panel connected it worked fine! Any idea what would make the solar panel cause it to act like it’s getting too much voltage I hooked it up just like you did in your video
Any one know what battery I need to do this on my spypoint LM2 ? the factory battery pack is 8 AA's so 12V but the pack has 4 contact points.
I would buy a 12ah LifePo4 battery. I run one without solar and it gets me past 6mos on a cell cam. No need to DIY now that the price has come down on these batteries.
That's amazing! Gosh just a few years ago and how batteries used to drain. That's heck of a light load being pulled! Is that ground blind where you stay when your there😁?
Yep, batteries have come a long way!! The ground blind is my campsite…just need to add air conditioning and I’ll be good…lol.
12/14/22, 2:35 pm cst
an update you might be interested in
I purchased a 12v6ah lifepro battery with bms ,put it in a ammo box,
hooked up my browning camera on 30 sec video, high resolution, 5 sec delay, temperature ranged from 0 to 35 above f
put it on a bird feeder and deer feeder
kept monitoring the voltage on the battery every time i changed the card
After 2600 30 sec videos the bay was still showing 13.3 volts, when i hooked the charger up to it , the charger showed 20 percent ( due to the lithium type keeping power up)
the total cost was about 50$,not counting charger and tester
unless i’m missing something this sure beats 3$ x8 batteries
this test is way over what i need during summer and fall when i change my card’s every 3 weeks or so
hope this is of some interest
God Bless!
You are correct! These new LifePo4 premade batteries with built in BMS is the way to go. I’ve been testing one as well and I will no longer be building my own. You can’t beat the cost and the time savings on building a DIY. Thanks for sharing!
The 6ah I’ve been testing cost $22. That’s crazy cheap compared to DIY. The 10ah was around $30. Can’t beat that!
Can you do a video dedicated to the cage on your cart and how you made it?
It would be kind of hard because I didnt film any of the cage building back when I built my cart. I could walk through what part I did first and subsequent steps but wouldn’t have any video showing how I did it. Would it still be helpful?
@@TheHandyHunter Yeah that would be cool, kind of like the walk around you did of your setup but focused more on the cage and back seat. Thinking about making my own and seeing what you did would be cool. I’ve always wondered! 😁
Wow!! Not even a half of volt loss. How is the lithium batteries conversion holding up on the cart?
Holding up great so far! Once I figured out a solution for my winch by using a separate 12v battery I haven’t had any problems. Love how it charges so quickly!
@@TheHandyHunter
Love the content of your videos. Keep up the informative work
Thank you for watching!
I love your videos! Thanks
I noticed you in past used solar chargers for your batteries. It looks like you don’t need them for this setup but is there a reason you decided to get away from solar charging?
I still use solar for sure! I tend to use these non-solar packs back in the woods where I don’t get much sunlight. I just happen to throw this one on the food plant stand because my camera was dead…lol. I’ll move that one back to the deep woods soon and replace with a new solar stand. I have a new small LifePo4 battery pack that I’m using with solar that I really like. I’ll do a video on it soon. Thanks for watching!
@@TheHandyHunter Looking forward to info on the new small LifePo4 battery pack! Hopefully soon!
Working on it! Stay tuned!
I like your idea. Are you in an area that gets cold temperatures? Will those battery cells discharge in temps below 32 degrees? I have having trouble with my browning cams eating batteries when it gets cold
I’m in central Georgia so it doesnt get really cold. LifePo4 and NiMh batteries are supposed to be good in sub zero temps but I’ve never tried them at those temps. I would stay away from straight lithium batteries for cold weather as they don’t perform well. Here’s an idea that won’t cost you much to try. Check out this new LifePo4 6ah battery for $22. It is already built with BMS and ready to go. I would do a test run and see how it goes… 12V 6Ah Lithium Iron Battery LiFePO4 Deep Cycle Batteries, Built-in BMS, 2000+ Cycles a.co/d/2s2rv6A
How expensive are those batteries? You can get a 9ah glass mat power sonic rechargeable battery for $25 and stick it in a box. That's what I do for all of my cameras and with the box cable and battery, I spend under $50 and its something that will last 3-4X the internal batteries
You can find 32650 batteries for $2-4 ea if you shop around. I switched to this setup because I got tired of my SLA's in ammo boxes filling up with water and roaches. Wanted to move to something that is water and bug tight.
do you have any plans to commercially produce these?
No, just dont have the time. Thanks for asking!
I would be happy to make one for you. I actually have 3 new ones I could let go.
How long would they last with mobile trail cam sending and downloading pictures
Really hard to say since I haven’t tested a cell cam yet on this unit. Different cell cams have different power draw so would be hard to guess. You could always find a larger box and double the batteries. Hope that helps.
@@TheHandyHunterYou just have to figure out the Watt hours for a battery in series. A 9ah battery at 12 volts should give you 108 wh while the standard 12 aa batteries alkaline give like 2ah at 1.5v so 12 would be 36 wh which is a 1/3 of the 9ah battery. You could easily get 6 months out of a very active Cell camera with that.
You might be right but you are only looking at the supply side and not the demand side. Hard to know how much a cell cam will demand in the field based on activity and strength of signal. My old Moultrie trail cams would burn through a 12ah SLA battery in a week with solar attached. Don't know why, but they did. It took a power plant to keep them running. The newer cams are much better but the cell cams seem to be the most demanding and variable.
Are there batteries in your cameras?
I do run lithium batteries inside the cameras as an insurance policy in case it gets unplugged. I run lithium because they won’t corrode like alkaline if sitting in there for a year or more. My browning cams will run without internal batteries if you are using external power source but some cameras won’t. Hope that helps.
will i do any damage if i buy the lifepo4 12 volt battery and use it connected to my btc without a pcb board
will the camera switch over to it’s own batteries when the voltage gets low on the po4
won’t the charger shut down when the battery is totally charged?
i thought i could monitor the battery level with a voltage tester
thanks so much for your help
Technically, I think you could and it would probably work ok. It will shorten the life of the batteries not having a pcb to manage but you’d still get long life. The better solution may be to buy a LifePo4 battery with built in BMS for $25-30 like this one…RoyPow 12V 6Ah Lithium Iron Phosphate Battery 3500 Cycles Rechargeable Deep Cycle LiFePO4 Battery Pack with Low-Temperature Cut-Off, 9 Amp Discharge Rate for Power Wheel, Fish Finder a.co/d/iIrgiRw. Throw it in a box and be done. I’m testing one of these now and if it works I may not be building anymore batteries. Hope this helps!
thanks for the quick response!
if you’re going to do some work like this i’ll wait for you’re new video
i appreciate how you close you’re videos- God Bless you too!!
thanks for you’re help so far
i’m getting ready to try a lifepo04 6ah external battery with on my browning camera
the battery has battery management system
to be even more sure of a amp surge, what amp inline fuse should i use and where would i find them, the battery shows 13.37 fully charged
thanks again for all you’re help
@@TheHandyHunter Great Videos! Do you have an update on the test you are running with the temp cut-off LIfeP04 battery? I am planning on trying this system with the cell cams this Fall.