Homebrew Trail Camera Workshop

[BobR]

  There will be another homebrew camera building workshop soon in Walla Walla. This will be at Steve's Archery and Fishing Shop on Isaacs Street. This will be an outdoor event held in the parking lot at Steve's. Steve's place has a large coverd porch area that can be used in case the weather is bad. I have been asked to list a parts list that can be ordered from Yeticam.com. Also there is a list of cameras that I reccommend. The date will probably be either saturday May 2 or May 9. The date depends on when some of the guys that plan to attend have their cameras and parts. The date will be announced soon. Anyone can attend , and anyone who wants to buy parts and a camera can bring it along. If any of you guys who were in Spokane want to attend, you are welcome. There will be more there this time that know how to build cameras. More on this later.
Locals can contact Steve for more information.

 Parts and camera list

http://yeticam.com/


Control board set up for Sony W80 -  Horizontal with front mounted controls $39.50
Black 1040 Pelican Case - $16.00
Power Switch - $2.00
Control Board Power Cable - $1.00
.65" Fresnel Lens -$2.50
1040 Pelican Case Seal - $3.00
Three Wire Servo Assembly - $6.00
Shipping $6.00

Total Yeticam bill- $76.00

High Resolution Sony Cameras ( available on Ebay)

Sony DSC-W80 - 7.2 mega pixel
Sony DSC-W90 - 8.1 mega pixel
Sony DSC-W200 - 12.1 mega pixel

[Machias]

If it's the 9th, I'll probably be there.   

[Jeremy S]

I can probably make it out on the 9th too.

[CastleRocker]

Wish it was the 10th.  All of our kids have games on the 9th. 

[Skyvalhunter]

Bob maybe you could move over to the west side of the state so you can have a Homebrew building workshop here.

[WABONEHNTR]

Bob,

Looking for a p41 and seems you have to bid on everyone of them.  Could a sony s60, sony s90 or a sony L1.  Seems they are easier to get and they are all 4.1mp.  Just wanted to know if it is possible to use them. 

[Skyvalhunter]

Ok Bob you mentioned a way to do an external battery for the Sony W series cameras. How is this done thanks Sky

[YellowDog]

When is this workshop happening?  Did I miss the posting of the date? 

[BobR]

The workshop is Saturday May 9th, at Steve's Archery on Isaacs Street in Walla Walla.
Keith, I will get you the info on external batteries later tonight.
Bob

[BobR]

Keith,  Here is a link that will get you started. There is more info on the homebrew forum also. Let me know if you have any questions.
Bob

http://www.hagshouse.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=29404

[javman]

Hey Sky,
I've been researching that for a couple of weeks. Just got an answer over on the "Real Deal Hunting Chat" forum.

Check out:
http://realdealhuntingchat.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=24286
and
http://realdealhuntingchat.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=23863

From what I've gathered, your only option for added battery life is to wire multiple of the Sony battery packs (or generics of the same size), externally in parallel. These batteries have three terminals.. the third terminal is labeled "C" on the battery, in between the plus and minus. When you've got the camera taken apart, you'll need to solder wires to where plus and minus contacts are (but not for the third, "C" terminal).

The extra terminal is for the camera and battery to communicate, making it a "smart" battery. Who knows what they're communicating about... probably just how much juice is left in the battery. If you wire two external batteries, and keep one battery in the camera, you're going to have triple the capacity of a single battery setup. Oh and you're going to have to keep one battery in the camera, because if there's no connection to the third terminal, it will complain that the battery is generic and won't work.

Does that make any sense? I haven't done one myself yet, but probably will in the next couple weeks (when I do I'll take pics). The places where I put my cameras are too far from home to be checking them on a regular basis... So I'll probably be using a 3 or 4 battery setup. Oh and you can buy generic rechargeable batteries for these cameras on ebay for around $12 a piece, that have a slightly higher capacity than the standard Sony ones.

The only thing I haven't figured out yet is how I'm going to make a battery "holder" to fit these batteries... The guy on RDHC stripped apart one of the battery chargers to "hold" his...

[BobR]

It is a lot easier and cheaper to use AA batteries for externals. If you use the Sony Li-ion batteries, you will have to have three more when you check your camera.  The AA externals will get just as many pictures, but you have to use a 1060 case.
Bob

[javman]

Thanks for that link Bob, I probably would've never found that.

I just wired my W120 with three external C batteries in series at 4.5V. Works great! The Sony NP-BG1 is rated at 960mAh, and this setup with 3 C batteries should be close to 8000 mAh.. So it should last 8 times longer!! I'm guessing I'll get at least 2 months on this setup. Squeezing this into a 1040 might be tricky, but I'm going to try it soon.