Spider webs on CCTV cams grrrrrr!

[Tim+]

But reading dates is one you fail at spectacularly.

Tim

[alan_m]

Having just cleared my porch area of webs and spiders nests I'm sure it will take more than a blast of air to clean them away.

[Mathew Newton]

Not to mention reading what was actually written; I was explaining the diff erence of appearance to the *human* eye - not spiders.

Mathew

[Nikos Zafeiris]

This is my DIY solution to the problem

Ever since I installed it, no more accidental recordings!

[Adrian Caspersz]

Those boxy cameras have plenty of anchor points for spiders to construct their webs across the lens.

The half globe type are not so much of a problem.

[newshound]

Now the *serious* DIY people here would have had at least an Arduino or Raspberry Pi looking at a sensor to decide when the brush needs to be operated :-)

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

Care to explain in words, much intrigued, I assume it does not involve nuking spiders. Brian

[Tim Lamb]

In message <ssdmtu$7r8$ [e-mail], "Brian Gaff (Sofa)" [e-mail]> writes

It is a motorised yard broom rotating vaguely across the lens and retreating out of the way. I expect the system can be remotely operated rather than from the push button fixed near the camera:-)

[Nikos Zafeiris]

So, my "invention" is not a manually operated broom but an automated spider web remover. After all this ip camera is 3 meters above the ground, installed on top of a pole. Here is what I did (total cost 30 euros, time spent to build it 3 hours.

1. I bought a fish feader
2. Took out the feed container.
3. Attached a pipe on the rotor
4. Used a 90 degrees pipe connector
5. Connected a pipe to the connector
6. Took a piece of bristles from a broom
7. Attached the bristles in the pipe. Be sure to use soft bristles, because the feeder's motor is not very strong. I have cut most of the bristles so that they almost touch the camera lens, while leaving 4 bristles longer to reach further. The two "antennas" from the wire is just to add an awkward look!
8. Fixed the feeder in the IP Camera with tire ups
9. Put some plastic to protect the battery compartment from rain. Do not fully enclose the feeder in a plastic wrap! Water will find its way in the feeder and if it nor properly aerated it will be destroyed by moisture. You only need to protect it from a lot of water.

10 .Programmed it to run twice every night DONE!

You don't need any remote control or AI to control it. It runs twice every night, which more than enough to keep the camera clear form the spider webs.

[Nikos Zafeiris]

You don't need to kill the poor spiders. You would have to kill all spiders in a radius of 4 km in order to deter them from making a new spider web on your camera for a year. My invention does what we do to get rid of the web twice a night. No harm done to any living creature.

[Brian]

Do you find the spiders make webs that often?

We have several cameras, only two seem to attract spiders - oddly they are probably the most two exposed ones. I installed the cameras about 18 mths ago and have needed to do something about it perhaps twice per camera

- I use one of those dusters on long rod or, the last time as I had it to hand, one of those hand held vacuum cleaners.

[Andy Burns]

Have your cameras got infrared illuminators? Nikos's one seem to ...

[Nikos Zafeiris]

It's a weekend house next to fields. The IP camera has IR lights around the lens, so spiders make their webs from the camera's top shield to the bottom, infront of the lens and the IR lights. When the IR is on the spiderweb is noticeable and with the lightest wind it moves like crazy, triggering the recording. I don't like to use pesticides, which in the case of spiders don't actually do anything outdoors, so I had to clean the camera every two days.

[williamwright]

I squirt water from the garden hose. This cleans the camera housing as well.

Bill

[Andrew]

Put out a bird feeder and attract blue t*ts. They will regularly check the outside of the property over looking for spiders eggs and other nice tasty morsels, and take selfies at the same time.

[Brian]

Ours have IR but we aren?t that rural. We do have ordinary outside lights, which come on automatically at dusk. They do attract the spiders. Perhaps the just get a better catch there.