Convert WiFi Camera to Solar and Battery power
After messing around with the cheap Temu camera where I found some vulnerabilities (which you can check out here) I decided to convert it to solar and battery power as I had spare sparts laying around.
I used the TP4056 as it still allows charging via USB C and it fit perfectly inside the back of the camera.
Would I recommend you do this? Probably not as this was an exercise of finding out more than anything else. But, if you want to try it out, these are the parts I used.
Parts List
- 1 x TP4056 with built-in 8205A battery protection IC.
- 1 x pair of Dupont connectors for the battery so I can swap batteries easily.
- 1 x cheap solar panel, less than 7V as that is the max the TP4056 can handle.
- 1 x 3d printed part to stick the TP4056 to, but you can use one of those wooden ice cream sticks as well, it will work just fine.
- 1 x disposable vape battery. You need one of the flat ones if you want it to live inside the camera’s body. I used some capton tape again to keep those tiny flexible terminals in place.
The TP4056 is a great choice as it allows you to still charge the camera via USB C and will output between 500mah and 1000mah depending on how it was manufactured. It does tend to get a bit hot when pushed to its limits of 1000mah charge current.
Here are images of the products:
Wiring the TP4056
Make sure to put a diode (something like a cheap 1N4007) on the solar panel for two reasons:
- Cheap panels like this usually dont have diodes, and you do need one to prevent current from flowing back into the panel.
- It will drop the voltage a bit which is especially useful if the panel is 7 or 7.5V. You don’t want to be at the limits of the TP4056 all the time.
Here is the TP4056 wiring diagram:
And here is what it looks like at the back of the camera. The capton tape is used for strain relief as the solar panl wires are super thin.
You can remove the WiFi antennas as they are purely decorative and then wire the solar panel through one of those holes. The camera uses a cheap flexible WiFi anternna that is glued to the inside of the camera.
I just super glued the 3d printed part to the sides of the camera, and used thin double sided tape to stick the TP4056 to the 3d printed part.
I would not recommend you buy this camera for daily use as it is not secure at all, but it is cheap enough to mess around with.
And here is the camera all wired up.
