₦airaland Forum

bkuranga:
I need your insights please.

Can I safely power a 12V CCTV camera directly from a 12V battery (charged by solar)?

I have a CCTV camera that normally runs on an adapter rated for 12V DC, 2A (input: 100–240V AC). I want to bypass the adapter and power the camera directly from a 12V battery (such as a sealed lead-acid or LiFePO4), which is charged by a solar system[b].

[b]My questions:

1. Is it safe to connect the battery directly to the camera’s power input?
2. When fully charged, the battery can output around 12.6V to 13V—is this safe for the camera?
3. During solar charging, voltage can reach up to 14.5V—would this damage the camera if it's connected?
4. How do I ensure correct polarity when wiring?
5. Is it safe to charge the battery and power the camera at the same time?

Any advice, experience, or wiring tips would be really appreciated!

Mrreed , Dam5reey1 , dollarnaira , HeavenlyBang and others.

SolomonGrundy:
Good morning my people, it seems lightning has damaged my DC breaker, I woke up this morning to notice that my battery is not being charged by the panels, so I decided to put off the DC breaker switch and then put it back on. Noticed there was a bit of spark.

As it sparked, I saw the input wattage from solar panel go up a bit. After the spark the wattage disappeared. Attached is the DC breaker switch. Would I have to replace the breaker switch? I'm thinking of unscrewing the spd box to ascertain the level of damage.

Obnoxious2001:
Is not as if they don't know, is just that they will still do something shabby and call it protection, so they end up pocketing the money....

This is how they complete the workmanship >: .

Don't ask me how I know

mctfopt:
That's not a DC breaker.

Buy appropriate breaker.

AndroBlaze:
Hmmmnn, I had similar issues trying to connect the wifi module of the growatt inverter. Try these two fixes:

1. Ensure no special characters or spaces in your wifi network name and password.

2. Ensure your wifi is outputting on 2.4ghz frequency.

It was number one that caused my own issue.

BTW, nice to know Junctek now does remote monitoring.

Obnoxious2001:
This is not totally true.

If your pv is sufficient to run your load, it works as per design.

mctfopt:
Try a DC to DC converter to ensure safe stable voltage.

https://a.aliexpress.com/_EGSlk4K

Obnoxious2001:
Funniest thing about this is doing maintenance on it will be very tedious.

But till then

bkuranga:
I haven't been lucky enough to find one.
Can you help with a link?

ajabani4allah:
Is there anyone using the below coulomb meter. Doe it give accurate reading and is the remote monitoring working?

Obnoxious2001:
This is not totally true.

If your pv is sufficient to run your load, it works as per design.

Mavor:
Had this exact same problem as well on Saturday with my Growatt. Initially connected the WiFi module to the 5GHz router. Only worked after I had connected to the 2nd WiFi 2.4GHz router.

HeavenlyBang:
I bought the li-ion battery pack on Jumia as a replacement for the lead acid in my rechargeable fan btw.

Battery came in at 11.6v, which should be about 65% SoC in a 3S 18650 setup. Pins don't match so I just ripped off the pin on the battery and connected directed to the fan's pins. Works fine.

Discharge/charge behavior remains to be seen. And that's what concerns me most. After all, lead acid is effectively at 0% SoC at 11.5v while a 3S li-ion is still at like 50% at that voltage. Hopefully the fan's LVD doesn't Bleep me over. Will update.

dollarnaira:
It should drain to 10.5v or lower.
Btw 11 to 12.6v speed is still fair if you are not the very sweaty type.

If you went further to run the fan directly to the battery, speed would be good.

HeavenlyBang:
I bought the li-ion battery pack on Jumia as a replacement for the lead acid in my rechargeable fan btw.

Battery came in at 11.6v, which should be about 65% SoC in a 3S 18650 setup. Pins don't match so I just ripped off the pin on the battery and connected directed to the fan's pins. Works fine.

Discharge/charge behavior remains to be seen. And that's what concerns me most. After all, lead acid is effectively at 0% SoC at 11.5v while a 3S li-ion is still at like 50% at that voltage. Hopefully the fan's LVD doesn't Bleep me over. Will update.

CuteMaro:
Got same. Mine is performing just great. I wonder if it's possible to get 2 for a parallel connection in order to increase run time.

HeavenlyBang:
Never mind, I foolishly ran the test with the fan still connected to AC.

Battery is actually at 12.3v, which is perfectly fine for li-ion. Looks like the fan knows exactly when to cut off charging.

You should be apple to parallel them quite easily.

HeavenlyBang:
I bought the li-ion battery pack on Jumia as a replacement for the lead acid in my rechargeable fan btw.

Battery came in at 11.6v, which should be about 65% SoC in a 3S 18650 setup. Pins don't match so I just ripped off the pin on the battery and connected directed to the fan's pins. Works fine.

Discharge/charge behavior remains to be seen. And that's what concerns me most. After all, lead acid is effectively at 0% SoC at 11.5v while a 3S li-ion is still at like 50% at that voltage. Hopefully the fan's LVD doesn't Bleep me over. Will update.

Machiny:
let's say one has 4000w panel and load of 600w.

CuteMaro:
Great. I always wondered if battery was overcharged as I don't have multimeter. Thank God for your test I now have peace of mind knowing it doesn't overcharge.

The only crude test I did was to check for increased temperature in either battery or wire.

BigDickProblems:
Could you kindly show the picture ads from Jumia. Thanks.

AndroBlaze:
I bought the version they had of this many years back. Still looks the same.

The shunt was strong but everything else was a let down. The app didn't work for a day and the voltage reading was wrong. The only item I have bought in this solar journey that I gained absolutely no value from.

I hope they've improved as I bought this at least 4 years back or so and no one's review in AliExpress was as bad as mine so I probably just received a faulty unit.

BigDickProblems:
Thanks Bro.

Have you tested the run time and discharge on highest speed or something like that?

I am very curious to know what the results are.

I have this lontor table fan (pics attached) that doesn’t last beyond 2hours on full speed after a full charge with all the hype.