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

Worked well with my stealth cam fusion pro camera. Its a bit heavy and can be awkward to hang on a tree, but it kept my camera charged all season. The connector cord is plenty long and has a metal armor the stood up to the chewing squirrels. Solar panel is adjustable sideways as well as up and down if you loosen the pivot screw. Recommended.

I live in the mountains of Colorado and have several trail cameras around my property. I got tired of replacing batteries all the time and thought I would try this. It's perfect. We get a lot of sun so it has stayed charged since I got it while taking thousands of photos. Easy to use. Just point the screen to the sun and plug the cord into your camera. I put mine on a concrete block to get it up off of the ground so that grass doesn't cover the screen. All set to take photos of mountain lions and bears!

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 provider My 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!

The overall price and product is nice and compact. I have yet to put it out in the field. Unfortunately, the supplied adapters did not fit tight or allowed enough of the exposed male connector to fit completely up in the new Moultrie Edge 2 to keep the power on. Just the weight of the cord would make it drop from the connection port being too loose. I had to get the dremel and cut off their sliding threaded adapter behind the male plug. Fortunately, Moultrie had a cord retention adapter with the camera you can slip over the barrel and tighten it down holding it firmly up to the camera body. We will see how well it works this season.

Seems to be hit or miss with these. Purchased 2 of these and both made it through the whole hunting season without issues. Topped off the charge when putting them up, but they were 99% or better when I started. Did I get some good ones, yes. Are there probably bad ones in the system, yes. Purchased mine for under $50 so I was very satisfied. 12v batteries in my opinion are the only way to go. Had to remove the outer sleeve to fit my Spypoint, but it never missed a beat after it was attached. Hoping for years of use out of these.

I really like this battery box/charger unit. It does what it should. Only two knocks: The metal shielded cable has way too much metallic shine for a unit that is supposed to be hidden. Camo paint took care of that. The red positive wire connector to the battery - not connected in shipping, meant to be connected before charging - that connector was a slop, loose fit on the battery terminal. There is potential for corrosion and repeated charge/discharge cycles to weaken that connection. Some users have reported inconsistent battery status indications in their monitoring software and applications - hoping that tightening and clamping that connection prevents that. Will follow up after this season's use.

Headed to winter camp and will add the Spypoint link micro to an incredible bedding area Ordered this HME-12VBBSLR powerpack for obvious endurance reasons Its heavy for a small package - grip and transport securely Its a nicely designed case - includes slots for strapping - - will add some camouflage to the top, hinges and printing The power cabling is heavy and solid - shiny - needs camouflaging The solar panel has a short lead allowing for 180 degree turn in either direction - indexed horizontal and vertical rotation Ac brick has sort of modified molex type connector with one exposed socket and one embedded socket - assuming exposed is ground but not sure There is a Bushnell camera adapter of some sort included - that is all Connected the red lead inside the case and plugged power cable into the link micro Seems like a perfect fit of barrel connector and made an electrical connection Switched the camera on for the first time Lights started blinking but then went out Damn barrel connector falls out do to the stout weight of the power cable - easily At this point - no way this is field ready Closer inspection revealed that the barrel connector was not inserting all the way into the link micro The link micro connector is recessed too far for this barrel length Trimmed with carpet knife exactly 4mm off of the plastic off of the barrel connector at the tip end The connection is much much better now - hasn't fallen out since the modification I still have some concern putting this in the field but much more manageable and solved without soldering irons Glad I got it but Meh again with the outcome of PRC products

The 12v power cord that comes with the unit is not the same as shown in pictures with silver wire sheathing. The new units 12v power cable is a heavy black armored cable. Good idea in theory, but the connector ends are also very bulky and don’t fit snugly in game cameras. This coupled with the heavy cord, the battery pack has a tendency to unplug itself due to the weight. I had to zip tie the cords to secure them to the camera. I have used this product in the past and the old models with the silver power cord were much better. Would not buy this version again.

Used this for powering a construction site camera over a 6 month period during Australian Sydney autumn/winter. Worked flawlessly.

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

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!

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!

Seems to function as expected...I wanted to simulate canopy cover while testing my camera setups pre season with this unit....I flipped the solar pannel upside down and I left the plastic protective film on the solar pannel. It was hooked up to my spypoint link micro which was for some reason sending pictures every minute....so that should in theory be a heavy drain on the battery but....it didnt even phase it. I ordered two more of these units.