[aprssig] APRS Buoy Project

[Rich Garcia]

I have several deer camera's here on the farm and I got to agree, Lantern
battery's are HORRIBLE! I have got to modify one for a rechargeable battery
with a solar pannel because I refuse to put it out anymore. Duracell lantern
batteries are the only ones that are SOMEWHAT worthwhile and are difficult
to find, the common Wallmart or Lowes RayOVac batteries may give me 2 weeks
on my digital camera while a Duracell will give me 1 month.

I have a few IR Camera's with large IR LED bays that take photos and video
(higher current drain)and with Duracell "D" cells I have been seeing 6 or so
months during the dead of winter and the high's of summer and I average
about 300 or so photos a month.

I don't know why lanterns are so poor but by all means I would go with D's
instead.

-----Original Message-----
From: aprssig-bounces at lists.tapr.org
[mailto:aprssig-bounces at lists.tapr.org]On Behalf Of Ben Jackson
Sent: Saturday, July 19, 2008 12:49 AM
To: bruninga at usna.edu; TAPR APRS Mailing List
Subject: Re: [aprssig] APRS Buoy Project


On Fri, Jul 18, 2008 at 08:11:06PM -0400, Robert Bruninga wrote:
>
> This model only needs to float a few weeks for tracking ocean
> currents and then be recovered.  SO it only needs two lantern
> batteries, a MicroTrak8000 FA tracker and Byonics GPS.

When I did research for an APRS buoy I compared a lot of possible
batteries and lantern batteries came out near the bottom for price/
performance and also power density (based on duracell datasheets).
Plain old D cells were the winner.  The other problem with lantern
batteries is that there are some really crummy ones out there
with half the AH of the good ones.

Of course I wanted to keep a buoy going for years with a powerful
transmitter, so it's not such a big deal for your immediate application.

--
Ben Jackson AD7GD
<ben at ben.com>
http://www.ben.com/

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