Anyone using a 6V solar panel and 6V battery with no controller?
Setting up several GoCams to run off of external 6V batteries and recharge with 6V deer feeder solar panels. I'm reading 10+ Volts coming off the panels when disconnected from battery, and 6.7V when connected to battery. Has anyone been using this simple setup for a while? I'm concerned that even though these are just trickle chargers that they'll overcharge the battery and/or damage the camera.
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There's a big reason why you don't want to do that. If the battery becomes disconnected but there's still power from the panel those 10 volts will fry the camera right away. Without knowing exactly what panel you have you also risk the chance of the panel discharging the battery at night if there's no built in diode. Depending on how it trickle charges you might be damaging or at least reducing the life of your battery.
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Thanks John. I have a Wildgame Innovations 6V panel, which has a built in diode. No chance of the battery becoming disconnected, and if they did it would disconnect the panel too, since the alligator clips from the panel are clipped onto the connector from the battery to the camera, not directly connected to the spade from the battery.
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Although now I see that if the alligator clips stayed connected to the battery/cam cable it would be bad if the battery became disconnected. But my battery connections are super tight and it's hard for me to pull them off by hand, and they're mounted in a ammo box with no wiggle room, so I'm not concerned about that.
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