I would like to power my audiomoth using a rechargeable external battery. I have tried plugging an external battery into the USB port on the audiomoth but it won't draw power from it. Do I need to solder some kind of port onto the +/- on the circuit board? I have little to no experience with this kind of thing so I'd appreciate any advice.
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I've looked into some other possible options for extending the battery life of the audiomoth. Connecting an 8 cell battery holder in parallel with the existing battery pack would provide as much extra charge as a standard power bank if you filled it with eneloop pro rechargable batteries (2500 mAh per AA battery). The issue I anticipate there is that the original battery holder (3 AA batteries, ~4.5V) and the additional battery holder (8 AA batteries, ~12V) would have different voltages. If necessary, you could remove the original battery holder. Maybe even replace it with a second 8 cell battery holder to get an even longer life?
https://shopee.sg/%E2%98%80Plastic-8-X-1.5V-AA-2A-CELL-Battery-Holder-12V-With-Lead-Wire-i.102279399.2232330557
https://shopee.sg/-2019-Eneloop-Pro-AA-4pcs-Rechargeable-Battery-Panasonic-Made-in-Japan-i.16194072.272172741
Ok, so I just need a power source that won't go to sleep?
I've looked into powerbanks with "always on" features, but there are only a few models and they tend to be more expensive for less charge. Voltaic's V15, V50, V75 and V88 all have this feature. They can be used for long deployments of low power draw devices.
https://voltaicsystems.com/always-on-batteries/
https://voltaicsystems.com/v15/
Another forum post mentioned using LiPo batteries, which seems like a good option except that the total mAh of LiPo batteries tends to be much lower than a standard power bank, so attaching one of those wouldn't necessarily give me the deployment duration I need.
https://coolcomponents.co.uk/products/lithium-polymer-battery-2000mah
Hello Laura, we have successfully powered the AudioMoth with a powerbank, by connecting it to the USB port. However, as I believe it has been discussed elsewhere in this forum, the AudioMoth's energy drain is so low that the powerbank goes to sleep (resulting in power loss and - of course - loss of recording settings). We did not really play a lot with that idea, but we have abandonded the powerbank idea at least.
Christos