Solar power conversion?

Has anyone converted an older game camera to solar power? I have an older Bushnell that works great, but it eats up the D cells. I was wondering if it was possible to convert it to solar. Any suggestions or instructions would be appreciated. Pictures are even better.

Go look at chasingame.com. You'll likely find that you can do it easily but will have to use a feeder battery of some sort and the correct cable. Many good members and dealers there to help out.

T

The answer is yes most likely...and it is pretty simple. I have never had a game camera run on internal batteries.

What model Bushnell?

4 D cells? = 6 volt
PM me and I will help you out. 6 volt solar panel and a 6 volt rechareable feeder battery.

My cameras have an external power plug. I don't have any on solar now by I ran a Moultrie with a Moultrie solar panel in the past. The directions had you leaving batteries in it but most of the power was supplied by the solar panel.

Thanks for the help guys. I can't remember the model off the top of my head. But I know one of the sister models they made had an external port.

I Mac-Gyver all my cameras. If they don't already have a external battery jack. Take 'em apart and connect wires to the internal positive/negatives. Run them to a 6 volt feeder battery, hooked to a solar charger. Make tight, solid connections and be gentle with the waterproof gaskets & the cameras should run indefinately. At least in a perfect world!

Not yet

i did the same thing. works great.

We run most power gates in the Hill Country on 5 watt solar screens, if really heavy use a 10 watt screen on a deep cycle inland marine battery..If you guys have some gate operator installers and dealers in your area, they may have some older screens that they took down that will work well on a 6VDC system.
As they age they tend to loose power..so if they show about 30miliVolts, new they may down to 18 as they age..and that will still power 6vdc batteries for years..DD

My old D-40 moultrie ate my batteries so badly that the 12v gel cell battery and solar panel couldn't keep up. The battery would still go dead. It took 6 dcell batteries and they would only last 2 weeks. About 400 pics. If yours takes about the same amount of pics on a set of batteries it might not keep up. With the external 12v it would last about a month.

There was something else going on with that camera...