Sunday, March 1, 2009

Converting a Cheap Tesco €10 Camera

Polish made Tesco CIF webcam. CMOS 352 x288,Photo 320 x 240 @ 30fps.Video320 x 240 @ (very slow)fps.Cost €10. Tesco CIF Webcam. Tesco CIF Webcam - Remove Lens Unit One Tesco camera: €10 Remove Lens Unit Unscrew lens unit until it come's out of camera. This one has a lot of thread holding it in. Dismantle Lens unit, In this case by slicing threaded outside until I could get at the piece of plastic holding IR filter in. Came apart easy as it went flying about the place. Tesco CIF Webcam - Lens Unit Tesco CIF Webcam - CMOS chip Remove IR Glass. Try not to damage the sensor. The Camera is now seeing in the IR range as well as the usual visual spectrum. Things will end to look rather crap due to this. Tesco CIF Webcam - Crude IR Filter Mount Tesco CIF Webcam - IR Filter A Crude IR Filter Mount made of cardboad roughly cut to filter size and a hole to see out of. It is held on camera lens with smear of cheapo superglue, which is why the camera body has fingerprints on it. Webcam finally has the 780DF60 IR filter installed. This time for the tests on a cardboard mount. Will cut a better one from rubber or something tommorow with the laser. Focusing is real easy to point of being too easy as the camera seems to be real sensitive to slightest changes. DF Filter Test - CFL Lights Images from the Webcam. 352 x 258 res images as the camera sees it. Left is image from camera with the IR glass removed and the 780DF60 IR filter not installed. Right What the camera sees with the 780DF60 IR filter in front of the lens. It is still showing quite a wide range of IR light, but it should be better than flopply disc material for example.