• Raspberry PI 5
• 2x Raspberry PI Camera V3
• 2x Raspberry PI Camera Cable for Zero
• Solar Panel (25Watt, 12V (nominal), 17.8V Max
• Solar Charge Controller (10Amp) (12/24V)
• Two LED lights (IR 8W +Visible 18W)
• 2x MOSFET switches
• 1x AHT21 Temp/Humidity sensor
• 1x USB-C cable (RPI 5 power)
• Transparent dome
• 2x Outdoor project box
• Cable connectors
• 12V 19AH battery

Lower default console resolution [1]

• Edit file “/boot/firmware/cmdline.txt”. Add the following before “rootwait”:

video=HDMI-A-1:1024x768@30

You can try other resolutions, not all of them work

• Reboot

Configure WIFI

• Run “sudo raspi-config”
• “1 system options”→“S1 Wireless LAN”
• Follow instructions

Update apt

sudo apt update

Upgrade your packages

sudo apt full-upgrade

• Reboot “sudo reboot”

Adjust your system with raspi-config

• Configure 1→S9→persistent (storage location persistent)
• Configure 3→I1→yes (enable ssh)
• Configure 4→P4→disable_usb_current_limit
• Configure 5 (locale, language and keyboard)

Find your mac address

ip add

• Write down the mac address and use it in your access point to set a fix ip for this RPI and be able to access it with ssh with a name

Access your pi with ssh

ssh campi5

(or use the ip number that “ip add” shows for wifi)

Connect your first camera to first camera port

• Turn off and disconnect the power supply to your PI
• Connect the flat cable the the camera and PI
• Restart the PI

Test camera

• Run the command:

rpicam-still

• It should show a capture from the camera

Install common tools

sudo apt install emacs mc

Install motionplus

• Install dependencies

sudo apt install autoconf automake autopoint build-essential pkgconf libtool libzip-dev libjpeg-dev git libavformat-dev libavcodec-dev libavutil-dev libswscale-dev libavdevice-dev libopencv-dev libwebp-dev gettext libmicrohttpd-dev libmariadb-dev libcamera-dev libcamera-tools libcamera-v4l2 libasound2-dev libpulse-dev libfftw3-dev libpq-dev libsqlite3-dev debhelper dh-autoreconf
mkdir ~/tmp
cd ~/tmp
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Motion-Project/motion-packaging/master/buildplus.sh
chmod +x buildplus.sh
./buildplus.sh memeruiz memeruiz@gmail.com

• It takes a while to compile
• Install the motionplus package

sudo dpkg -i bookworm_motionplus_0.2.0-git-20250201-2c7c209-1_arm64.deb

• Add motion user to memeruiz group (so motion can access your home directory)

sudo adduser motion memeruiz

• Add etc configuration files

sudo mkdir /etc/motionplus
sudo cp /var/lib/motionplus/motionplus-dist.conf /etc/motionplus/motionplus.conf
sudo cp /var/lib/motionplus/camera1-dist.conf /etc/motionplus/camera1.conf
sudo cp /var/lib/motionplus/camera2-dist.conf /etc/motionplus/camera2.conf

• Edit /etc/motionplus/motionplus.conf with the following:

• Create movie directory and give permissions:

mkdir ~/movies
sudo chmod g+x /home/memeruiz
sudo chmod g+rwx /home/memeruiz/movies

Connect to Internet with SORACOM 4G and Kölbi [2][3][4]

• Install the debian dependencies/tools:

sudo apt-get install udhcpc

• Install kölbi sim card on SORACOM modem
• Connect SORACOM USB modem on a USB3 ports
• Wait until it completely boots (several minutes)
• Download the setup_eg25.sh script from soracom:

curl -O https://soracom-files.s3.amazonaws.com/connect/setup_eg25.sh

• Edit this script and change the DEFAULT_APN to “kolbi3g” and change DEFAULT_USERNAME and DEFAULT_PASSWORD to “no”
• Run the script:

chmod +x setup_eg25.sh
sudo ./setup_eg25.sh

• It should connect to Internet. Check with “ip add”

Disable WIFI default gw [5]

sudo nmcli connection modify VIRAZU1 ipv4.never-default yes

Using two cameras with motionplus

Motionplus doesn't support two raspberry pi cameras with one single process. Also, motionplus doesn't support two cameras using libcam. libcamerify has to be used for each motionplus process.

Two new systemd unit process files must be created

• Disable original motionplus systemd process:

sudo systemctl stop motionplus.service
sudo systemctl disable motionplus.service

• Create two new motionplus systemd unit files:

sudo cp /lib/systemd/system/motionplus.service /etc/systemd/system/motionplus0.service
sudo cp /lib/systemd/system/motionplus.service /etc/systemd/system/motionplus1.service

• In each file replace the “ExecStart=/usr/bin/motionplus”.
• For motionplus0.service:

  ExecStart=/usr/bin/libcamerify /usr/bin/motionplus -c /etc/motionplus/motionplus0.conf
 
* For motionplus1.service:

  ExecStart=/usr/bin/libcamerify /usr/bin/motionplus -c /etc/motionplus/motionplus1.conf

• Copy /etc/motionplus/motionplus.conf to motionplus0.conf and motionplus1.conf
• In each conf file activate a different camera file
• In each camera file use:

v4l2_device /dev/video0

or:

v4l2_device /dev/video8

according to the output from rpicam-hello –list-cameras output

• Start and enable both systemd unit files

i2c for aht10 and aht20

• raspi-config→3 Interface options→I4 I2C→Enable Yes
• Power off
• Connect your I2C device to pins: GPIO2 (I2C1 SDA) and GPIO3 (I2C1 SCL). Use 3.3V power supply for your device. Pull-ups are integrated on the RPI.
• Reboot and test:

i2cdetect -y 1

It should show 0x38 or 0x39 depending on the aht10 configuration (0x38 or 0x39) or aht20 (0x38)

Use the integraded USART interface

• raspi-config→3 Interface options→I6 Serial Port→Login Shell on serial→No
• Serial port hardware enable→Yes
• Reboot
• File “/dev/ttyAMA0” Should now exist
• Connect your USART interface to pins GPIO14 (TXD) and GPIO15 (RXD)

Python code for reading temperature, humidity and solar battery state from AHT10, AHT20 and Renogy WND10

• mount your pi home directory remotely with sshfs:

sshfs campi5:/home/memeruiz ~/mnt/pi

• get the code:

mkdir -p ~/mnt/pi/local/src/repos/www.memelabs.net/
cd ~/mnt/pi/local/src/repos/www.memelabs.net/
git clone git@www.memelabs.net:pi-security-camera-utils
cd pi-security-camera-utils
git submodule init
git submodule update
sudo apt-get install python3-pip python3-smbus
pip3 install renogymodbus --break-system-packages

• Connect your USART interface to pins GPIO14 (TXD) and GPIO15 (RXD) and to the renogy solar charger
• Connect your I2C AHT10 sensor to pins: GPIO2 (I2C1 SDA) and GPIO3 (I2C1 SCL). Use 3.3V power supply for your device. Pull-ups are integrated on the RPI.
• You can also connect your I2C AHT20 sensor to the same I2C1 pins in parallel. In this case Edit file python_utils/i2c_sensors_all.py and at the end of the file uncomment the line:

battery_aht20()

• To test communication:

cd python_utils
./i2c_sensors_all.py

• It should show something like this:

CT:25.8C|H:55.4% || SP: 0.0V|SP: 0.0A|B:12.7V|B:76.0%|LC: 0.1A|LP: 1.0W|Temp:28.0C

[1] https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/configuration.html#kernel-command-line-cmdline-txt

[2] https://techfortalk.co.uk/2024/03/14/setting-up-data-connection-with-soracom-onyx-lte-usb-modem-on-linux/

[3] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/78120541/establishing-data-connection-using-soracom-onyx-lte-usb-modem-in-linux

[4] https://developers.soracom.io/en/start/connect/soracom-onyx-lte/

[5] https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/399659/how-to-avoid-dhclient-default-gateway-on-an-interface