BBC Summerwatch DIY for £35 outdoor wifi camera.

[Martin]

This camera was mentioned on BBC Summerwatch this week. I can't find the details of how to make one. Anybody know where the details are provided?

[Andy Burns]

this?

[Adrian Brentnall]

It's here

- link from that page to the infra-red version - which uses a slightly different camera and two little infra-red 'floodlights'

Got one in pieces on the bench now - waiting to be boxed up and then sat outside to see what we can see. Adrian

[Martin]

It looks like it. Thanks. I thought the one on Summerwatch could be used for daylight and night photos.

[Martin]

Daylight or night time version?

[Martin]

Thanks! Adrian.

[Adrian Brentnall]

Yes I had one of the daylight cameras by me, and I've just had one of the IR camera / floodlight kits delivered. As I understand it, the daylight camera has an IR filter built-in - which is why you need the 'No-ir' camera if you want to take photos in the dark.

The No-ir version seems to work OK in daylight....

When I downloaded the RPi disk image, and burnt it to the SD-card, the 'Etcher' software bitched about it during the verification process - but it appears to run OK.

>

[Andy Burns]

You will get weird colour casts without an ir-cut filter in daylight, you can get switchable filters which could be connected (with suitable driver) to a GPIO pin, e.g.

Depends what lens mount you have (CS is popular on single board CCTV cameras) or whatever you can bodge together

But for a wildlife camera, it might be overkill ...

[RJH]

Clever!

How long would you expect it to keep going on the battery? Obviously depends on the battery size (say 6000mAh) and number of times activated, but ballpark?

[Bob Eager]

Springwatch?

[Adrian Brentnall]

Well the Daylight article says to use a 6000MAh (or better pack) and recharge "periodically" - which isn't a lot of use The IR version says to use a 12000mAh pack "ideally" and, again 'periodically'. ISTR I saw a figure of 12 hours usage before recharging

- but I think that was on another site...

I've got a spare 12Ah dryfit battery - so I'll give that a try... I guess, if your trap can be located reasonably close to your house, then you could always run 5v or 12v out to it (possibly 12v would be better for any reasonable length of cable) - or even mains?

Neat little setup. I'd looked at other programs for doing this - but the Spring/Summer/Autumn/Winter-watch one is a complete SD-card image - which makes life simple...

[Brian-Gaff]

Probably be more than stuff on the box just now if you can see. do they have a summerlisten microphone as well? Brian

[Rob Morley]

For night you'll need a noIR camera and an IR illuminator for good results, and for day an IR filter for good colour rendering.

[Johnny B Good]

I think Martin was just being a little playful in grabbing the last unclaimed season based ****watch title as a generic stand in for all the other ****watch named BBC natural history series. :-)

[Bob Eager]

We should have a competition for the best portmanteau title.

YearWatch? Nah...

[Rob Morley]

Isn't it already called NatureWatch?