ORIGINAL: ***PHIL***
ORIGINAL: ***PHIL***
I just installed my solar panel last Tuesday (28)on my 1.3 stealth i will see how long the batteries will last.
But just the fact to use ni-mh it will help.
I went this week end to see the camera and it was showing low batt. It work only 6days with ni-mh and the solar panel. May be the ni-mh wasn't charge enough??? and took only 3 pics.
So how was your's configured (number of shots and sleep time)? Oh, I guess it doesn't matter since it only took 3 pics. I had the same results essentially, it ran only 6 days (66 pics, mostly at night). I could have got that much out of Alkalines (in fact I got 188 in 7 days), or just NiMh's. Its like the solar panel isn't doing much of anything except keeping the clock alive when the batteries die. The "charge" switch is questionable. The charge and on/off switch are a bit cheap, maybe that's presenting a problem? Who knows. Maybe I should send it back.
As for the LOW BATT indicator, ignore it. It doesn't come on when the batteries are low, and when it does come on, it behaves flaky.
I'm pretty close to getting a deep cycle marine lead acid 12V battery ($20 at Academy) and cutting off the $100 solar panel and hooking it up to the battery.