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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Labels:
Webcam
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
780DF60 NIR Optical Filter
780DF60 NIR Optical Filter to help me see the "blobs" with the camera.Filter looks like a gold mirror except you can only see a faint redish image through it when outside in the sun. Which is rare to see at present, too much bloody rain.
This will be stuck to outside of lens unit of the webcam to cut out the unwanted light spectrum. Allowing the webcam to only see what it should see.
This filter is 60nm range Omegabob2 who I got this filter from. Now sells filers that allow only 40nm and even only 25nm range of light through. This is best used with lasers to cut down on the extra light coming into the webcam to give you clearer pictures.
Labels:
Optical Filter
Monday, November 10, 2008
AixiZ Lasers 10mw 780nm Lasers Show Up
My lasers have finally arrived in the post from AixiZ Lasers.
They came in a padded jiffy bag and antistatic bag with the mw and voltage written on it. Others have said that these 10mws are 5v, I have no Idea all I know so far is they light when 3.1V is applied.
First testing of the lasers with my new N93CX Bench Power supply I bought. I used 3.1V to test to make sure I would not burn the laser module. Since the meter also shows the current being drawn at .05A you can get the Watts drawn 0.115W in this case or 0.16W per laser when in use.
The camera also shows the NIR laser beam up, this is just a bare red when you see it with the naked eye.
The Lasers came with the 120°Line generators installed so I don't have to figure out which way to put them. These are used to creat the Laser Light Plane for the setup I intend to put together.
Labels:
AixiZ Lasers,
Laser
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Front Surface Mirrors Arrive
The front surface mirrors have minute chips which are not a bother as they don't touch the mirrored part.
You can I think see a slight problems with these mirrors and that is I can actually see through the damm things to a degree. So will need something to absorb or stop any background coming through.
My Front Surface Mirrors finally show up in the post. They are from Surplus Shed. Got charged $52.50 postage when it only cost $40 to send. bloody rip off, but at least I got them.They were sent in a brown box(shoebox) which was packed with that giant bubble wrap packets, then in normal bubble wrap and had brown paper sheets between the mirrors and the 2 other mirrors with their backs out. Seems to work ok even that $3 solar keyring I was sent showed up.
Labels:
Front Surface Mirrors
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
PS3 Eye and tbeta Problems
From what I have come across on NUIgroup it seems my Ideas of running tbeta with the PS3 Eye camera is down the toilet as I own a windows PC and not a MAC system. Alexander Popovich is the creator of the PS3Eye driver. This is brilliant as he has managed to get the PS3eye working on the PC as a webcam. You need a separate mic to talk but it mostly for Multitouch.
I and others are hoping he will get around to adding PC+tbeta functionality.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Parts list so far
Part | About/WhereGot | Price | Notes |
Projectror | Acer X1160 | $523.40 | Vital but only 800x600 |
Lasers | 10mw 780nm laser | €5.60 each | 4 x 10mw 780nm laser modules |
Line Generators | Line Generator 120˚ | €2.40 each | 4 x Line Generator 120˚ |
Laser Goggles | 780nm Laser Goggles | €40.90 | OD>3 for 750-850nm |
Green Laser | Ebay with free P&P | €12.98 | 10mw for testing the alignment |
Acrylic Sheet | Street hawker | €10 | 12mm thick |
Bandpass filter | 780nm Bandpass filter | €20 | reduces stray IR signals |
New Camera | PS3EYE | € | Not got yet. 100fps@320x240 claimed |
Old Camera | Creative something | old | IR filter removed |
Software | Tbeta | € | main software |
TITLE | TITLE | € | f |
Labels:
Parts
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Front Surface Mirrors Ordered.
I have ordered my front surface mirrors so they should be here in a few weeks. The mirrors are needed as regular mirrors having the reflective part at the back, require any light entering them to pass through the glass twice and this causes a quite irritating ghost image. The solution is to use first surface mirrors, in these the reflective part is in Front of the glass and any light hitting the mirror does not come in contact with the glass at all.
I bought 4 front surface mirrors from SurplusShed. They are not expensive as they are only $4 each or 10 for $35. I went to buy 10 originally however when I got the postage quote it was WTF!! As it was $82.50 i then changed the order to 4 mirrors and got charged $52.50 postage still a horrible amount.
The $82.50 is 20lbs for Zone 5. 20lbs is piss take in my opinion as they are only 1/32nd" (0.8mm) thick. The $52.50 is 10lbs weight which I think means they Really pad and pack the mirrors correctly and I so hope so. Or they are up to eBay style Postage padding.
EASTMAN KODAK 16" X 11-1/2" THIN FRONT SURFACE Mirrors are here SurplusShed. $4 each
Postage is here Priority Mail International
If your in continental United States, you only pay $5 postage no mater how heavy it is (you get everything cheap)
So 4 x 16" x 11" Front Surface Mirrors and postage = $68.50 or €47.95-€51.37 depending on how robed with the exchange rate I get.
Say average of €12.42 per mirrors I suppose really is not that bad.
Still that's 3 and 1/4 times what you in the the US pays (€3.80).
Labels:
Front Surface Mirrors,
Mirrors
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