HME Trail Camera 12V/Solar Auxiliary Power Pack Durable Weather-Resistant Housing Easy Installation & Versatile Compatibility, Black

I have two of these and generally they are good products and work well. But the cable between the solar panel and box is not armored like the cable running to the camera. It's a weak point and red squirrel seem to love it. It's all soldered together so fixing it's going to be a real pain. Just something you should know before buying.

This is a must buy if you run cellular trail cameras. I’ve had this running a Spartan GoLive for a month now and it hasn’t skipped a beat. I could have bought multiple of these with all the money I’ve wasted on AA batteries. Even during extended periods of cloudy days, it still shows a full charge. Will definitely be buying more!

This HME solar charging battery pack, mechanically, is a great design. It uses a standard 12V, 7 Ah sealed lead acid battery which can be replaced for about $20 from your local sporting goods store.The power cable is shielded by either a braided wire shield or a spiral ¼” i.d. flexible steel conduit. The spiral steel conduit is squirrel proof. A squirrel can chew through the braided wire shield. You get one or the other, no choice. The plug fits my Browning and Moultrie trail cameras perfectly. I have three active cameras all the time.I purchased 8 of these HME solar charging battery packs between 2020 and 2024.The first one came from Academy Sports in Texas, the other 7 came from Amazon. My most recent purchase was November 16 from Amazon and received about 5-6 days later. I purchased TWO because they were $47 and change, the lowest price I ever saw on these. Now they are at $50.88.All that is good stuff, Now I will talk about the BAD stuff!1. Out of 8 HME solar battery packs only TWO are working! 2. I still have one of the two I just received that is still in the box so I don’t know if it works or not.3. FIVE of these HME solar charging battery packs have FAILED in this four-year span.4. The FAILURE MODE in the FIVE that do not work is the same in all five units. The solar panel and/or the associated voltage regulation circuitry in the charging module does not put out adequate voltage to charge the battery. The solar panel and voltage regulator SHOULD put out 13.8 – 14 VDC as measured with the charging wires disconnected from the battery while the solar panel is facing full sun. This newest one is outputting only 3.45 volts in full sun! This is the same failure mode seen in all five units that have failed to charge. THIS unit failed in less than 6 weeks of being in service! That is not acceptable!Because this latest purchase was in November 2024, it is now outside the 30-day return window. I had to call HME Support to get a return.HME Supports is WORST in class!HME is located in Texas but the tech support appears to be in some Asia Pacific region. My first call was answered by a guy whose English is better than my Chinese but his English is not good enough! After asking him to speak slower, he collected my email address and sent a message to me. He said to reply to that message with a photo of the item and proof of purchase. I provided these two items and a brief description of the problem and sent the message. It all seemed to be too easy! Less than one minute later I got this reply back in my email:“Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender (BLOCKED)”By then the agent was on another call. So I called back. This time I got a woman also of Asian descent. I could not talk to her because her audio was broken up in just fractions of words and syllables, stuttering, chopped up audio. A terrible VOIP connection! She could hear me okay and said she would contact the first agent and have him contact me again. NOPE! NOTHING!I called the THIRD time and got yet another Chinese sounding guy. He was even more difficult to understand! I explained the first email that was sent to me blocked my reply so I could not send the requested information to HME. We tried another email I have from a completely different provider. He sent the message; I received it and sent the photo and receipt back to his email. BAM! - BLOCKED again!Now I am left hanging in HME hyperspace with a defective product that they do not want to take care of and Amazon does not want it either!To sum up:The Good: This HME solar battery pack is a very durable design mechanically. That is what I like about it.• The battery in it is a single 12V, 7Ah sealed lead acid type that costs $20 to replace if necessary. That is far better than most solar trail cam battery packs that use multiple AA rechargeable batteries with current (Ah) limited by that of a single AA battery, (usually 2300 mAh (2.3 Ah in real speak).The BAD:• My experience shows the solar panel and associated charging circuity has a 71.4% Failure Rate (5 out of 7 units). It is easy to replace the battery but the solar panel and circuitry cannot be replaced! When these components fail the whole unit is just a box with a battery in it that does not charge (basically, a BRICK).The UGLY:• HME customer service! So far, in my experience in the past three days is ZERO!• They speak poor English, difficult to converse with them.• Their network system BLOCKED my emails; two messages from one email provider and one message from a completely different email providerMy ratings:• Three stars for the mechanical packaging and design of the case and battery used.• ZERO stars for functionality• ZERO stars for Tech Support• Let’s face it, it is really only ONE star!

Nice system and hopefully will work well with trail cameras. Unfortunately, the cable end will not fit my brad of camera. Perhaps the manufacturer could include other sized adapters for more universal applications.

I bought this because I was tired of replacing batteries (expensive and time consuming) in my Moultrie Game Cam. Once you charge it, set up is easy, and it keeps the battery level at 99% consistently. I haven't replaced the AA batteries in the cam for almost a year now. Definitely worth the money!

This item turned out to be a piece of junk! Worked great at 1st but now all that I have is a solar panel that charges up the battery but doesn't power up my trail cam. The circuit board has probably packed it in. Nothing is sending power to the trail cam now.HME customer service is not getting back to me. CHAT doesn't even work.Could have bought a lot of AA batteries for the price of this junk!

I’ve had this battery for 3 weeks and so far it meets expectations. It powers a GuardePro E6 trail camera. Connection is simple- there were no instructions. Simply connect the red positive wire to the battery terminal, charge the battery with the included AC adapter and then plug it into the bottom on the camera. Everytime I check, the battery is at 100%.The battery case seems weatherproof and temperatures down into the teens don’t seem to hurt it.Hopefully this solar powered battery has a long useful life.

The unit is very portable and the battery last longer that I thought. The material and quality is very impressive.

I like how the case is built it works well with my spypoint Micro Link camera,the adapter does not work on my Bushnell Cameras. The 10' cord is to shiny an shod be painted a flat green. Overall I like it

Headed to winter camp and will add the Spypoint link micro to an incredible bedding areaOrdered this HME-12VBBSLR powerpack for obvious endurance reasonsIts heavy for a small package - grip and transport securelyIts a nicely designed case - includes slots for strapping - - will add some camouflage to the top, hinges and printingThe power cabling is heavy and solid - shiny - needs camouflagingThe solar panel has a short lead allowing for 180 degree turn in either direction - indexed horizontal and vertical rotationAc brick has sort of modified molex type connector with one exposed socket and one embedded socket - assuming exposed is ground but not sureThere is a Bushnell camera adapter of some sort included - that is allConnected the red lead inside the case and plugged power cable into the link microSeems like a perfect fit of barrel connector and made an electrical connectionSwitched the camera on for the first timeLights started blinking but then went outDamn barrel connector falls out do to the stout weight of the power cable - easilyAt this point - no way this is field readyCloser inspection revealed that the barrel connector was not inserting all the way into the link microThe link micro connector is recessed too far for this barrel lengthTrimmed with carpet knife exactly 4mm off of the plastic off of the barrel connector at the tip endThe connection is much much better now - hasn't fallen out since the modificationI still have some concern putting this in the field but much more manageable and solved without soldering ironsGlad I got it but Meh again with the outcome of PRC products

Cool little contraption. Well built so far. Will add more if needed. Only complaint is that the solar panel should be remote with a longer wire..... But whatever!

I bought this battery box as I am going to use it for a security camera where power isn't readily available. The power jack is a standard 12 volt connector and connects securely to 12 volt security cameras. I've only seen just the stock photos of this battery box so I am including some different shots in my review. I noticed that there are 2 boots on my box for the positive battery lead, no big deal, the box works fine. I connected my voltmeter and it read 13.4volts- that's good! I even took a photo of the instructions, which say to charge the battery for 20 hours initially. The charge port is to the right of the power cord and has a rubber plug covering it.I ordered this on December 31, 2018 and didn't receive it until January 14, but that could have been because of the Christmas backlog at Canada Post. As long as I got it, that's all that matters. It arrived in great shape, so I'm happy.If you are using this to power a trail or game camera, please be advised as some of them are 6 volt(mine is), and connecting them to this battery box would fry them. There is a way around this-get a 12 volt to 6 volt converter and wire the 12 volt leads to the battery, then wire a power cord to the 6 volt leads of the converter.Edit: If anyone is wondering what size the power jack is: 2.1mm centre positive, 5.5mm diameter