Hi!
Love the show!
This is a problem I've been pondering about for some time now. I want to use a Raspberry Pi (probably the A version) to take photos every day for a whole year to create a time lapse video or something. That in itself is the easy part. The problem is that it needs to be:
- Weather-proof so it can be placed in an interesting spot outside.
- Temperature-proof so it can withstand temperatures from -30°C to +35°C (-22 to +95 °F). There will be snow during winter and periods of direct sun during summer.
- Power conservative. There will not be available external power most of the time so it needs to be able to operate 2-3 months by itself. There may be 12V DC available for some weekends over the year, however, rechargeable batteries tend to not like cold weather…
I'm thinking to have some sort of RTC that power up the Pi say 11:50 each day, the Pi take some pictures at 12:00, and then shut down to conserve power. There should be no need to open the box the Pi, camera and stuff for the whole year, so in case of external power, it should just accept it when available.
Note: During winter, there is not much sun (around 4 hours) so a solar panel won't help much when needed most.
The main challenge seems to me to be to get power enough to last a whole year in very varying weather conditions. If it can be done without connecting to 12V power those times that is available in the area (our cabin in the Norwegian mountains), it would be the best.
Best regards,
Are