Yes I use autostart with camera scripts because, when I have the camera in an enclosure and can't see the rear screen, I can just press the power on button and be sure the script will run.
Okay - that makes sense now. The script also uses autostart as part of its periodic camera reset function to make the script restart after each hard restart is initiated.
Should I not do that.. at least for the sake of testing?
It should be okay - it just makes the logs look funny because the script starts up differently when autostarted. I'll spend a couple of minutes to make sure that is not causing other issues.
I ran a camera overnight with bklight settings and it drew 2.5 Watt hours, not taking pictures.
I'll post a little test script you can try that will let you compare backlight only, with LCD off - in both shooting and standby modes. I would be really curious to know the different draws.
And I'll see if I can figure out why the LCD off mode is not working for you. I have a test script for LCD off that we have used, It's also time to check the porting thread for your camera - I'm getting a sense of deja vu.
Do you think I would be better packing a Raspberry Pi or an Arduino in the enclosure too? We were getting 0.2 W/h draw with that.
Are you thinking about actually turning the camera off during night hours with an Arduino that runs in a very low power mode? That's probably the best approach regardless of how CHDK tried to conserve camera power. There is another thread on this forum doing just that if you are interested.
Not sure you'll get the same savings with a Pi unless you have a way to sleep it in a low power mode and just wake up occassionally.
