Solar Powered Bioacoustic Recorder
The ELOC-S Recorder is still in the early stages of development becoming a bioacoustic wildlife recorder with the aim of being affordable.
A complete ELOC-S Recorder set ready for the field should not cost more that 70USD. Including case, solar panel and batteries.
The hardware is capable of running an AI and able to communicate over long range Wi-Fi which will be used (hopefully in the near future) to recognize and locate elephants.
This will be the birth of the ELOC-S Detector.
Open Source Software + Open Source Hardware + DIY Motivation
= Low Cost Open Source device
Good bye disposable batteries
Unlike the ELOC-S. Most existing recorders dispose more than 40 batteries EVERY year per device!
The possibility to recharge the batteries also with the help of a solar panel was a important feature to avoid the waste of disposable batteries.
After a three month test of five prototypes in Tangkahan (Sumatra). 20 ELOCs are now being tested in the jungle of Jambi (also Sumatra) to record elephant rumbles.
> Known Issues and limitation
ELOC-S ver. 2.7:
- For now it is limited to the following sample rates: 8kHz, 16kHz and 32kHz
- Charging while recording can interfere with recordings
(Should be fixed with the next Hardware update) - Recording only lasts 21 days with one battery pack (at 16KHz sample rate, 18Ah battery pack and without solar panel)
(We are estimating to get minimum 2 months out of it with the next big software update. After that the ELOC-S will then record forever if it gets only 30 minutes sunshine every day) - Uses low quality Solar Panels which do not provide enough power
(These panels are off the shelf and have only 12% efficiency. Next version: Custom panels) - Compatible with LiFePo4 batteries only
(Also on the To Do List to be able to to use different batteries. But not a high priority yet 🙂 - Due to some software issues. The dynamic range of the microphone is reduced of around 30%
(When and how that will be fixed. No idea)