The battery is a 24 Ah/88,8 Wh power bank that can charge and discharge at the same. It also has its own solar panel, though that has proven to be of little use historically.
I put it outside two days ago in the evening. Yesterday was rainy. Today was sunny. There is some, but very little, direct sunlight where it sits at the moment, and it faces east. Not ideal conditions, but certainly real-world scenario. Two nights, one rainy day and one sunny day later, the power bank reports between 25% and 50% remaining.
Let’s say best case is 50% remaining. That’s 44 Wh over a little less than 48 hours, which translates to a continuous power draw of around 1 W. This is in line with the specifications.
The solar panel certainly has too little charging capacity, at least for this area (southern Norway). I will need to work on that, but the solar panel really can’t be much bigger than it is without being very clunky…
We haven’t had any reliability issues as far as we can tell. I would definitely like to explore solar power as a next step, but haven’t had the time to do so.
I’ve done a longer test at an actual mounting location, with the panel facing south. Solar charging provided an additional 8 Wh over three and a half days. This is from a panel that is rated for 4.5 W max.
We need on average 24 Wh pr day. A quick calculation says we need a panel with at least 50 W rating. And this is still the summer season. For the winter season, I imagine we can double that… (the shortest day is 6 hrs).
Hi everyone, I’m new to this device. My home in Canada (indeed, the entire street) is not conducive to using the Telraam S2 indoors (single story and too far from the street, and in not a clear line of sight), so I am working on an outdoor solution, which will be a waterproof junction box inside a dummy birdhouse for camouflage. It will be on a pole on on a tree. However, as this is Canada I am concerned about extreme temperatures, Winter obviously, but also Summer (it can be in the mid-30s C here with high humidity). I am trying to get a sense of temperature tolerances for this device but am not getting any answers from Telraam. Any advice for me?
Hi Michael, Telraam can handle the very cold conditions. The conditions for warm humid conditions are less known. Also because the indoor device you have is made for inside use. It can get very hot behind just window but not so humid. So feel free to experiment with it but be aware that what you have is made for indoor use.
I appreciate the response, but it would still be good to have a sense of safe temperature range (even if approximate). Will it be OK at -5C? -10C? The unit will be in a waterproof box inside a mock birdhouse, so it will not be in direct sunlight (mostly). I also had the idea of putting silica pouches inside the waterproof junction box to absorb excess humidity and keep the electronics as dry as possible. these will be changed when saturated. I am also curious as to why Telraam claims their own dedicated outdoor unit has wider temperature tolerances when the hardware seems more or less the same as the S2.
I appreciate the advice of using a ventilation plug. I think we will be OK because the junction box I am using is not totally sealed, there is some ventilation through the sleeve at the bottom where the usb cable enters. Also, it is housed inside a mock birdhouse and there will be silica pouches inside the junction box to absorb moisture. Apparently the outdoor Telraam unit has a recommended temperature range of -10C to +40C. I will assume that using similar materials (eg. IP67 box) means the temperature tolerance for an S2 outdoors will be at least similar. Any advice here would be welcome though.
