ShooterCam 2000... It's Alive!!!!!

[NM_Shooter]

Bwahhahahaha.....

Did a proof of concept test on my time of day camera at lunch. 

Some of you might know that my property is snowed in for 5 months out of the year, sometimes more.  I wanted to know what my cabin site looked like over the winter.  I picked an exposed, windy hill for a site, in the hopes that the snow would not accumulate there, but without a snowmobile I have no access.  I'd also like to see how much runoff goes into our overflow for the pond.  I shopped around and could not find a cheap time-of-day camera.  One that you can program to take a picture at a certain time of day.  I thought I would try and build my own. 

I bought a cheap, fixed focal length digital camera off of ebay for $10, liberated an old electronics demo board from a scrap pile at work, and bought some misc electronics stuff at Radio Shack.  I have this love/hate thing going on with Radio Shack.

I hacked up the camera, and brought out the switch contacts for power and shutter.  I also brought out a pair of wires for the power for the camera. 

The electronics that I put together has a few timers programmed into a PLD.  I count a 32768Hz signal to generate one second pulses, and I count one second pulses to generate a minute pulse, and then count minutes to get to a 24 hour period.  At the start of a "day" the electronics supply battery power to the camera when I hit the first minute of the day.  5 seconds later, I strobe the on/off button of the camera, then 15 seconds later I toggle the shutter switch.  15 seconds later I strobe the on/off switch, then turn battery power off to the camera.

So on to the test....

I assembled the finely crafted camera and placed it on top of my courtyard wall:



Then I gathered the laboratory assistants: Ben (my dog), and Laverne  (Ben's pet chicken) as official witnesses.  I'm pretty sure that they thought there was food involved, but they were incorrect (which is why I'm the boss when my wife is not home).



Here is the first official picture of the ShooterCam2000:



A little fuzzy, but what do you want for a $10 camera?

Now to get some Lithium batts, assemble it into an ammo can, and I am good to go.

-f-

[MountainDon]

   Frank. I hope this all goes well.

Just think, if it runs over the winter you'll be able to assemble all the shots into an animated GIF or a movie file and watch the days goes by.   

[Redoverfarm]

Nice work Frank.  If I could be so lucky about electronics.  Shoot I have problems plugging in a cord at times.  Oh where are my glasses?

[glenn kangiser]

Frank, That is outstanding. 

I took 2 years of electronics in HS but at that time computers and logic circuits were just being played with in class and I didn't get deep into them.  I understand your concepts though.  Great job.

[ScottA]

If one CP member can do this with a $10 camera and some junk parts from rat shack just imagine what the Feds can do.

[cordwood]

 I didn't see where you put the gas in it!?!

[glenn kangiser]

If one CP member can do this with a $10 camera and some junk parts from rat shack just imagine what the Feds can do.

Not even a question.  I have seen some of what they can do.

[NM_Shooter]

Did a little work on the housing for the ShooterCam last night.

I couldn't think of a better enclosure than a government approved metal box.  In a display of my craftsmanship, pay particular attention to the opening for the lens.  Note that pretty much anyone can make a nice circular hole; I opted for the much more difficult triangular jagged opening.  Co-planarity was assured by laying the box flat on concrete and pounding the opening with a hammer.  That shard of glass was carefully positioned and sealed using some silicone sealant. 



Here's the flip side.  Two brackets also carefully constructed using a hacksaw, vise, and pliers.  They are riveted on because I have a riveter and I just don't get enough play with it.  Rivets also goo-puckied up with silicone on the inside.  This whole mess will be strapped to a tree about 12 to 15 feet up in the air (depending how brave I am) and held in place with a ratchet strap.  I have to get it up as high as I can otherwise I am going to get a whole lot of pictures of what a snow bank looks like from the inside.



Now just to clean the window and treat with some rain-x. 

A note about the below picture... The camera body is going to be held in place inside the can with some stick on velcro.  I was a bit worried about the flash going off on dark days, so it is taped over.  The duct tape is not really needed over the electrical tape, but I sort of insist on either having duct tape or bailing wire somewhere in all of my projects:



I'm thinking of putting a piece of PVC pipe with 1' marks painted on so I can see the depth of the snow near the cabin.  I'll take a couple of final pictures of the installation. 

Here's hoping for a picture of Sasquatch.

-f-

[glenn kangiser]

Thanks for the update, Frank.  A very interesting project.  I like Rube Goldbergs.

[NM_Shooter]

Hey!  Who said anything about Rube Goldbergs?   

(Wait 'til you see my windmill powered air compressor)

[glenn kangiser]

. 

That I want to see also.  I put my name in at my next major jobsite a couple days ago for left over green PVC blade material. The free stuff.

[NM_Shooter]

I found a place in town where they are putting in a new water / sewage system.  Out near the perimeter of the site they had a dumpster full of 8" and some 10" pipe that I helped myself to.  I have never been above dumpster diving! 

So I have the blade material, and am trying to find a (cheap) way to hook the blades up to the old compressor piston.  I have a local machine shop / gunsmith who said he would help.  Stay tuned!

-f-

[glenn kangiser]

Sounds great, Frank. I think that is the best plan I have seen for low cost blades with airfoil characteristics and as you found - can't beat the price on materials if you look in the right place... I dumpster dive too, especially on the large jobsites I work on.  Lots of great stuff goes to waste there.

[NM_Shooter]

At my second job as an EE I was still pretty young, and unmarried.  My company was growing and we were moving.  They were tossing out tons of components from the prototype lab.  Lots of tubes of EEProms, OpAmps, uProcessors, you name it.  I told my brother, and he and I jumped in the dumpster after work to fish out parts.

One of the admins saw us, and she came over and asked us what we were doing.  I told her "Peggy, I have a car payment coming due, and I am digging for aluminum cans".

Every day for three years after that, she would come by my office to drop off her diet coke cans.  No kidding.

-f-

[Redoverfarm]

Frank that is the case with most companies.  They would rather see the surplus covered in a dump rather than put to use.  Not far from here there is a resort known as the Greenbrier.  Maybe you have heard a little about it. They had a underground bunker built for the US Congress to continue to maintain buisness during a all out disaster.  Well someone let it leak out a couple years ago and now they give tours.  I got sidetracked.  Anyway they are building mult-Million dollar homes there and they scrap everything that we would pay for first grade that they say are seconds.  You would think they would want someone to get some use out of it but NO they bury it.  I guess that way some celebrity will have the only one like it and not some other poor soul that only makes $20,000 a year in his house.

[peternap]

That's a darn ingenious setup Frank.
You might want to start building game cameras. The homebuilts far outperform the storebought ones in picture quality and durability.

You can buy controller boards from companies like super sniper and yeti, that are very programmable. The cameras go from brand X cheapies to high end digital s.

For an enclosure you might want to look at either a Pelican or an Otter case, with the holes cut and lenses glued in place.

This forum just keeps amazing me with the talented people here.

[NM_Shooter]

Thanks Peter... I'll check out those sites.  The pelican case is a great idea.  I think I have a scrap one hidden in my shed somewhere.

Here is the camera installation notes and pix:

http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=4782.msg70552#msg70552

The weak link in this is the camera.  I wanted to use the fixed lens type, but those seem to be synonymous with crappy picture.  I also didn't want to risk putting a valuable camera out there, so part of it is my own fault.  The better cameras also have lots of motor operated stuff in them for auto focus and lens covers and whatnot. 

I have a couple of ideas for a revision of the camera. 

I want to try building one with a IR detector from a home security system.

I also have a small, low power RF transceiver that works on 800MHz that has a range of 1/4 mile.  I thought about putting a micro switch on my main gate, and hiding the camera in the hills above the gate to take a picture of everyone who goes in the gate. 

I just like to fiddle with stuff.  Usually because of the amount of time it takes to build things, I could have bought it cheaper.  But I learn some things as I go... like welding. 

I may have posted this before... here is a picture of a 12V generator that I made out of an old lawnmower, alternator, and some square tubing: 



I wish I had more time to play.

[Redoverfarm]

Now Frank if you could mount an inverter on the mower you could put Generac out of buisness.  .  What do you actually use it for besides jump starting or maybe charging a dead battery besides a learning experience?

[glenn kangiser]

There is a free program to turn a web cam into a motion sensing cam on the net, Frank, but req's a computer - seems like it would be up your alley though.  All the programs to do it were free.

[NM_Shooter]

Now Frank if you could mount an inverter on the mower you could put Generac out of buisness.  .  What do you actually use it for besides jump starting or maybe charging a dead battery besides a learning experience?

My gun club had a wobble trap... a clay pigeon thrower that has a couple of motors on it for azimuth and elevation.  You start it up and it throws pigeons in random directions.  It runs off of 12VDC, and absolutely eats up car batteries.  We had no line power out there, and needed a portable way to provide a whole lot of 12V power. 

But it would be pretty handy for recharging a 12V battery bank!

Funny how alternators work.  Once you turn them on, they continue to generate electricity even when the field coil power is removed.  So you have to have a power source to get them to come on, but once they are on, you can remove the field power and they still generate.

Magic!

[glenn kangiser]

As I recall, without a battery in the system though they will run wild and generate high voltage - say in a car if you remove the battery the voltage will climb if running and blow  the electronics- I think - if I remember correctly.

I guess they are self exciting after started, eh? 

I made a 3 phase rotary converter by running a 3 phase motor on single phase then hooking up about a half dozen large starter capacitors to the third leg to get it into the proper sync.  The 3 phase motor you are trying to run hooks to that motor generator - it induces the voltage into the third phase - capacitors are adjusted until the timing is right to self start.  I only blew up a couple. I had a booklet from Lindsay Publications telling me how to do it....roughly....