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Roaming Raspberry Pi and Camera

Former Member

I have built my Raspberry Pi and camera into a wheeled robot. The camera is mounted in the head which in turn is on a panning servo. There is an Arduino packed in there too. The whole thing is running off a bank of AA batteries. You can find videos here; http://www.civrays.com/myrobot/videos it's there version 2 robot that has the Pi and camera module. I used several Element14 parts to complete this project.

 

My question is; Has anyone else run a Pi and camera module off of AA batteries? I'm wondering if this is really practical and how long they would last. I have them arranged in two banks of 5 giving 7.5volts (with a 3A UBEC to provide steady 5volt to the Pi).

 

I know that with 1 set of five batteries I can power up the Pi and take a short video, but running the motors causes too much drain and reboots the Pi. I haven't tried yet with both banks connected. I also have the option of running the Pi off one set and the motors off the other.

 

I'm just really interested in hearing if anyone else has done anything similar.

  • Hi Steve,

     

    Great topic for discussion, I'm sure there are loads of users that are in a similar dilemma. I personally always like to power my motors separately from the main MCU. There is a discussion on power consumption with the Raspberry Pi and camera board itself. http://www.element14.com/community/thread/27561/l/raspberry-pi-power-usage--testing it seems as if your wanting to stream over Wifi you could be pushing up to 1.2A or there abouts.

  • I have created a robot vehicle based around a Raspberry Pi Model A (chosen because it has a lower power requirement), wifi dongle, a pair of DC motors and a Raspberry Pi camera module.

     

    I have this all powered using 4 x AA batteries. Using NiMH batteries this comes to a nominal voltage of 4.8V which is just above the minimum voltage for the Raspberry Pi. I bought the highest capacity AA batteries that were reasonably priced and the robot has run for several hours (with the Pi powered up), with just a couple of hours of actual use with the robot driving around. I didn't keep pushing it until the batteries died so don't have any timings of actual usage, but it lasted for as long as I needed it to.