Notes on the Lipo Rider just messing around at home.

I bought this lipo rider for arduino ages ago and decided to try an make a remote monitoring node with a video camera and a solar panel attached.

I am using the most common and convenient cell, the 18650 Lithium Ion cell.

The specs are here: 18650 Battery Specifications: Datasheet and Ratings – SM Tech

The board comes from seedstudio here:LiPo Rider Pro – Seeed Studio and there is a wiki here: Lipo Rider Pro | Seeed Studio Wiki

Above wiki is for the pro, I have the version 1.0

Lipo Rider V1.3 | Seeed Studio Wiki

The battery and panel connectors are JST PH 2.mm pitch connectors

Application

I use an eachine camera that I bought from Bangood some years back that can be sourced here:Eachine — Enjoy the Fun of Play This comes in numerous options, I used the PAL version, since in my country, this is the standard. To save some bucks I cut off the connectors and soldered the camera and the transmitter (VTX03) Eachine — Enjoy the Fun of Play together, as can be seen in the picture below.

Wiring

The white audio wire is a feed from the microphone, but since we are not transmitting audio, this is redundant for the purpose of this unit. The aim is to ultimately have a remote vantage point setup to transmit video with sustainable power 24/7/365.

I used a single 18650 cell that I salvaged from someone’s old vape. I also dismantled a vape and used the charger circuit and the lipo from that, since the weight was much lighter with the view to use my FPV goggles and stick this all onto my park flyer so that I can fly FPV someday.