What to do on a couple rainy days

[sweetnectar]

Wow, I hope this post stays available for a long time for a reference. I think I can do the painting and drilling on the box but the other stuff would be the ultimate challenge. What did you use for round glass or where did you get the round glass?

 

[drahthaar]

Wow, I hope this post stays available for a long time for a reference. I think I can do the painting and drilling on the box but the other stuff would be the ultimate challenge. What did you use for round glass or where did you get the round glass?

Used to get everthing at Whitetailsupply.com. But the guy has gotten so busy, he seems to take forever to get orders out, kind of upset people. Somebody just found a site where you can get flashlight lenses but I don't know where that is yet.

 

[shoots-straight]

Great thread drahthaar, very cool indeed. My camera's aren't near the quality yours are. Thanks again for the post.

 

[drahthaar]

I just started another cam tonight, got the case drilled out, this one is a different control board that I have never used before, so I am excited to get it done and try it out. I took some pics doing this tonight, I will post them, they fill in a couple blanks from above. Haven't hacked the cam yet, as it is the one I am taking all the pics with. But I got all the holes drilled, now waiting for paint to dry, then I will put on the liquid nail and try to make a rough bark looking pattern, then it will be a waiting game again.

The scariest part is hacking the cam, trying not to ruin it. Once that is fun and the hack works, its just fun from there.

 

[drahthaar]

Ok, so this cam isn't going to have any extra external battery power, just run on the two AA eneloops, so that simplifies things in the build and the hack. For these types of cams, I like to drill out the purge valve to put the pipe thru.

The pipe is .5 inch pvc, it has a 5/8" outside dia., so use a 5/8" forstner bit,

I like to put a little shelf of plexiglass(with a piece of sticky foam on it) in to hold the camera in the case, the glass with be gooped right onto the pipe. So you just get everything lined out where you want it, close the case and with a small drill bit, mark the center of lens and flash.

None of this is glued or stuck in place yet, just lining things up.

 

[drahthaar]

Once that is done, you are ready to countersink the glass circles(I skipped over this above). TAKE THE CAMERA OUT BEFORE DRILLING OUT THE CENTER OF FLASH AND LENS. Hey, people have not done this and bad things happen.
Get your handy 1 1/4" forstner and sink it about 1 or 2 mm into the case.GO SLOW.

drilling out those pilot holes is key.

This is what it looks like when you have it deep enough, then test to see if the glass circle fits and is flush.

Once both of those are done, change to a 1" bit, close the case and drill from the outside and pop out the 1 inch circle.

 

[drahthaar]

You can see, this is a Bigfoot board, The power to the board in 3 AAAs on board, and it comes with the fresnel and standoffs all together. Just line it up where you like, mark the center of the fresnel lens, and drill out the one inch hole.

Again, nothig is screwed or glued into place yet.

Once that is all done, I took it outside and painted what will be the back, and painted my pvc pipe.

Again, really quick, got a good start, to realize I have no more liquid nail. Maybe run to wally world. I want to get rolling on this, so it can start drying tonight.

 

[Randy11]

This is really good stuff. Thanks for taking the time to post it all up.

 

[drahthaar]

EDIT: Don't paint the pipe until its in the case.

 

[drahthaar]

Been three days of the liquid nail drying, seems good to go. So I painted the front and decided to hack the cam while its drying by the wood stove.

So, here are a few pic of this hack.

I want to do a stereo jack on this one.

Took the cam all apart down to this piece. Solder two 30 ga wires to the shutter(white) and power(red) to those contacts. If you go to the links I had, its there in greater detail.

run them out the back and get that little piece back on.

Then I run them over to the side where they can head right down to the tripod holder)which was previously removed.

In the last pic, you can see where you take a black(ground) wire and solder to the usb rod, and run it out with the other two.

 

[drahthaar]

Now get your stereo jack. The tabs that correspond to the wires are,
ground= long tab
power(red wire)= tab across from gold tab
shutter(white wire)= gold tab.

Tuck the extra wire up in the tripod hole and shove the jack up in the hole. Sometimes the case cracks, it isn't a great tragedy, doesn't matter. This one cracked.

Now is the optimum time to check the hack.

Throw some batteries in there, plug the stereo cord in. Touch red to ground(silver wire), cam should turn on. Then touch white to silver, should take a pic.

Yeah!!!!!!

If it doesn't, I will bet, you have a solder bridege to the metal cover over the shutter pin way back at the start.

Get the cam back together(don't forget to take the tape off the lcd) and finish the case.

 

[drahthaar]

One thing I forgot to say, Before you do anything, put batteries in the camera and turn it on. Then open the battery door and remove the batteries. This opens the lens cover. You want to disable it to cut down on noise.
Do this by removing the black wire(its already gone in this pic) next to the little red wire at the top of the green board.

You can see just a solder bulb left after I removed it.

 

[RockyDog]

draathtaar, thanks for posting those instructions. as a guy who has built one I can say draathtar is the man on building these cams. dissassembling the camera and soldering tiny connections is much more dfficult than it looks in closeup pics. i think Draath must be part chinese to be so good at it, next he'll be building his own i-phones.

 

[drahthaar]

I am just not liking the camo job on this one. I have to try something different tonight. Trying to match the Douglas Fir bark is a pain.

 

[drahthaar]

OK, so I came home and put in all the stuff, the glass lenses, the holder for the board, the camera shelf, and the flash gasket over the glass lenses.

Then I screwed the board onto the holder, put in a thin piece of lid foam, which holds the cam tightly. And glued a zorbit pack in the corner(very important for moisture on those days where heat and cold and cause condensation). You can buy those straight from zorbit cheap.

I fired it up and everything worked. I really like this Bigfoot board in trail mode. Keeps the cam on for 30 seconds after the first detection and pic, ready to fire off another pic.

And camo came out pretty good, a little dark, but it will be fine.

Cool, that is it!!

 

[Randy11]

Looks like it turned out pretty good.

 

[chasendeer]

That looks like an useful project. I'm an electrician by trade and was curios about doing a solar charger for the unit and found this info about a kit that would eliminate the d batteries.
Thanks for the ideas
Jay
http://store.sundancesolar.com/flsobachfor2.html

 

[Sytes]

Figured I would bump this thread as I know a couple of us have been searching for it. Others I am sure would have interest as well.

Thanks again, Drahthaar. A great project that does without the rocket science degree.

 

[L. I. Yankee]

Great post Draht....no way am I even gonna try to attempt that one...... electrical engineering is not one my strong points.....