Li-Ion Battery-Powered PiZero Screwless Camera Housing by walterw

Last crawled date: 3 years, 1 month ago

This is a remix of gowen's PiZero Vertical Screwless Camera Housings, https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1709013
I wanted to have a battery-powered camera with motion detection for short-timed observations (like if you want to know what that neighbour's cat does in your garden when you're not there).
I already knew and liked gowen's camera housing and realized that a 18650 lithium-ion battery would fit in just perfectly.
Thank you gowen for the original design and for giving me the Solidworks files!
Just a few words of warning: LITHIUM-ION BATTERIES ARE DANGEROUS IF MISTREATED (by undercharging, overcharging, short-circuiting, burning, piercing etc. them). DON'T USE THEM IF YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING.
And, of course, I AM IN NO WAY RESPONSIBLE FOR YOU BURNING DOWN YOUR HOUSE, EXPLODING STUFF, DYING OR ANY OTHER DAMAGE THAT CAN OCCUR WHILE BUILDING OR USING THIS THING! I suggest watching some videos of Lithium Battery fire or explosions on You Tube, just for developing some waryness. And PLAN FOR THE (improbable, but possible) EVENT OF YOUR BATTERY CATCHING FIRE. Think first about how you want to get rid of the battery or fire (water is NOT an option) in case anything happens.
What you need:
1) Each of the following parts: base, top, clamp, batt-minus
2) One of the two batt-plus parts: part-plus-button if your 18650 battery is buttom-top, part-plus-flat for flat-topped batteries
3) Said 18650 battery. You only need 0.5A, therefore the C-value is not that important. I'd suggest to get a good brand (samsung, panasonic, nothing with "fire" or "ultra" in the name). Protected cells are a little on the long side, but by modifying the batt-minus part you might be able to fit one in. Anyways, protected cells are either expensive (15+€ apiece) or fake. And fake means not protected at all.
4) A TP4056 charging AND battery protection circuit (unless the battery has one included). Like this one: https://www.amazon.it/TP4056-Lithium-Battery-Charger-Module/dp/B06XV5PVW6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1536875972&sr=8-2&keywords=TP4056+protection
5) A sliding switch that fits mine. This is the most complicated part to source, i think. Here is the datasheet: http://www.knitter-switch.com/var/pms/model-589/MFS%20201%20N-SW.pdf
6) A Raspberry Pi Zero W
7) I used a LipoShim (https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/lipo-shim) for stepping up the batterie's 3.7V to 5V - and furthermore, the LipoShim shuts power off when the voltage reaches 3V. That is a much safer (for battery longevity) value than the 2.5V of the protection circuit inside the charging module. But any 0.5A stepup module should do.
8) some flexible cables that can support a few amperes. The ones I used were originally connected to a NEMA17 stepper motor
9) A raspberry ZERO Camera Module (mind the cable - it's different for full-size raspberries and zeroes) V1.3 or V2.
10) a Class 10 MicroSD card, 16GB should be enough
11) Soldering Iron and some tools
See below for further instructions.