Four cameras on a woodland boundary. One of them keeps dying after about two days, every time. Fresh alkaline AAs, a 64GB card, and it works perfectly on the kitchen table for as long as I leave it there.
It has turned cold here in the last fortnight and that is roughly when this started. Where do I begin, because I have been swapping batteries for three weeks and getting nowhere?
Rule the card out while you are at it, since a failing or unsupported card causes freezes and restarts that look exactly like power problems. Check 64GB is within what the camera supports, because plenty of older ones are not.
And format it in the camera rather than only on a computer before each deployment. Swapping in a different card for a week is the cheapest way to eliminate it as a cause.
Look at the battery contacts too. Moisture gets into cases in autumn and corroded contacts give intermittent power.
Before you spend more money, check the settings for things that make a working camera look dead: operating hours set to daytime or nighttime only, a time-lapse schedule, a long trigger delay, or setup and test mode left switched on.
I lost a fortnight to operating hours I had set in summer and forgotten. If you are unsure, reset to defaults and build the configuration back up. Then the case seal and gasket, and the firmware, in that order.
@lithium_aa · 6d ago · 3 replies
Alkalines and cold. That is your answer and you have handed me the proof in two details: it works indefinitely on a warm kitchen table and it started when the temperature dropped.
Alkaline AAs lose voltage quickly in the cold, so overnight the voltage sags below what the camera needs and it shuts down. Switch to lithium AAs, which handle cold far better. Full set of new ones, all the same, never mixed with old or with another type, and set the battery type in the menu if the camera has that option.
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@off_after_two_days · 6d ago
It does have a battery type setting and I have never touched it. Would rechargeables work instead?
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@lithium_aa · 6d ago
Set it, that matters. Rechargeables are the other common cause of this exact complaint: NiMH run at slightly lower voltage than alkaline or lithium and some cameras read that as low battery and shut down early. Check the manual, but for winter deployment lithium is the easy answer.
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