car or deep cycle marine battery???

[joedobbs1950]

Does anybody know if you can use a car or deep cycle marine battery on these cameras that accept external batteries, I thought 12 volts is 12 volts and 6 volts is 6 volts, no matter how big the battery, its still 6 or 12 volts, I would think the larger batteries would outlast any of the smaller amp batteries.
Thanks
Joe

[inspector]

I would just use a sealed lead acid battery. They are a heck of a lot lighter to carry.
This is what trailcams typically use and the cost is about the same or less in some case.
I know things like depth finders on boats use the battery in the boat which is similar to a camera
but why risk frying your cam?
Also, I can never get around a car battery without getting acid holes in my clothes.
As far as battery life, just go by the amp hours listed on it. You can get a 10 amp hour sealed battery that will last nearly 2 months in the summer. This is what I use on my Stealth cams. It might weigh 5 lbs.

[joedobbs1950]

A guy over on Chasingame put a big 6V tractor battery on a Moultrie camera and said its been taking pictures almost a year on the same battery with no solar charger. Sounds like you can use any size battery on game cameras as long as you don`t go over the camera volts.

[James Vee]

I've got one of my stealth cams running on a rechargeable 6V PowerWheels battery. Funny, but successful.

[Saycheese]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (joedobbs1950 @ Apr 2 2006, 12:10 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>

I thought 12 volts is 12 volts and 6 volts is 6 volts, no matter how big the battery, its still 6 or 12 volts[/b]

Yep.....tough to argue with that logic.

SC

[spectr17]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div>

I thought 12 volts is 12 volts and 6 volts is 6 volts, no matter how big the battery,[/b]

That&#39;s true right up to the part about a battery is a battery no matter how big. Lug a marine battery several hundred yards and then get back to us.

[Predator 1]

If you want a battery that big I&#39;d use a sealed lead acid. As long as the voltage matches the cam you should be OK.

However, be carfull with the higher amp SLA&#39;s. They put out a lot of juice. I fried 2 D380&#39;s by using a 10 amp/hr SLA going directly to the internal contacts.

Since then I&#39;ve gone to all NiMh. I bought 10 amp/hr D cells from batteryspace, and these run my D380&#39;s in fast refresh for over a month! In regular refresh they&#39;d last a few months (probably more), but I&#39;ve never had the patience to leave them out that long.

I did several tests with these batteries over the winter with great results!

Pred

[AGINGBEAR]

If you would have gone in through the external power jack, you would have been ok. There is a voltage regulator between that jack and the electronics.

[Matt in MO]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Predator 1 @ Jun 1 2006, 07:47 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>

However, be carfull with the higher amp SLA&#39;s. They put out a lot of juice. I fried 2 D380&#39;s by using a 10 amp/hr SLA going directly to the internal contacts.[/b]

Hey Pred, what do you think happened? did you you short it out in there?

[Predator 1]

Like agingbear said, there&#39;s a voltage regulator if you use the external port.

When Wired to the internal contacts there is no voltage regulator. when a SLA is fully charged it&#39;s at about 6.5 volts which is too much wired directly to the internals. That&#39;s why I went to NiMh, at 1.2 volts each for a total of 4.8 volts. It&#39;s much easier on the cam.

You might ask why it took me two times to realize the SLA wasn&#39;t right for the internal method. Well, the first time, I thought I connected the battery wrong (pos to neg ect) and that&#39;s why the camera almost melted. It happend again the very next time I tried it and PaPabob set me straight.

maybe he&#39;ll jump in here too. He&#39;s much better at explaining it than me.

Pred

[Predator 1]

I should also add that, the whole reason I wanted to go the internal contact route, is that with this method both the internal, and the external batteries will run at the the same time, thus giving 2500 extra mAmp/Hrs.

By using the external port, sometimes the internal batteries don&#39;t get used at all. So they&#39;re just sitting there and not adding any power to the cam. From what I&#39;ve heard this happens with some 380&#39;s and not with others, it&#39;s hit or miss.

So to by pass the problem, solder to the internal contacts and both power sources will be used together. My mistake was mixing batteries. I had NiMh inside the cam at 4.8 volts total, and a SLA (10 Amp/hr) for external running at 6.5 volts.

To make a long story short (Shorter) the SLA wanted to make the NiMh the same voltage, and basically my internal&#39;s got so hot that it melted the inside of the cam.

Pred

[Matt in MO]

I would use external, but some D380&#39;s drain a lot more power thru the external for some reason. I haven&#39;t tested the three D380&#39;s I&#39;ve started on this year. I understood others have used the internal contacts with four D alkalines which will run 6.5 volts new and others with five C nimh.

So was the problem 6.5 volts or was the problem 6.5 volts (high amphr) fighting the 4.8 volt nimh?

What I want to do it run a 4.5ahr SLA direct to internal without any AA&#39;s installed.

[Predator 1]

I think the main problem was the mixing of batteries, but the 6.5 volts from the SLA didn&#39;t help matters.

I run both NiMh C&#39;s and D&#39;s

The D&#39;s are 10,000 mAmp/Hr and the C&#39;s are 5,000 mAmp/hr so with 4 internal AA&#39;s at 2500 mAmp/hr.

So the set-up with the D&#39;s runs 12,500 mAmp (12.5 amp/hr) and the C&#39;s run 7,500 mAmp (7.5 amp/hr).

I used to use 4.5 amp/hr SLA, but found that with the NiMh I was able to get twice as much power/batterylife without occypuying any more space in my case.

Pred

[AGINGBEAR]

The NIMH batteries had a higher rating then the 4.5 amp hour SLA battery did. But, the big difference comes in the cold weather. The NIMH batteries will drop way down while the SLA battery will not be affected by the cold temperatures. Everything is a trade off. You just have to take it all into consideration and pick your weapon. I use the SLA because of them not being affected by temperature. I keep them charged with a small solar panel and I always go through the external power connector for protection. But, then I pay the price of larger camera case and much more weight to carry in.

[Predator 1]

I was very sceptical about how the NiMh would perform in the cold. I had great performance from SLA&#39;s in cold temps in the past and that&#39;s why I originall wanted to use them with this set-up.

I did a test last winter with my 380, 2500 mamp internal NiMh with, 10,000 mAmp D&#39;s external. I had it set up in my yard, on fast refresh. This was done in the coldest month we had last year, with tempuratures getting down to -30 celcius and averaged around -15 celcius if I remember right.

I would walk by it every day, and the set-up worked for a solid month in those temps, on fast refresh yet! I was really impressed at how the NiMh performed in the cold.

I made a post a while ago with all the info. I&#39;ll try to find it and make it active again. FYI