Those little pocket TVs were quite the cool gadget back in the ’80s and ’90s, but today they’re pretty much useless at least for their intended purpose of watching analog television. (If someone is out there making tiny digital-to-analog converter boxes for these things, please let us know.)
Now that analog pocket TVs are obsolete, they’re finally affordable enough for hacking into a useful tool like an inspection camera. [technichenews] found a nice Casio TV and a suitable analog pinhole camera that also does IR. Since the camera has RCA plugs and the TV’s video input is some long-gone proprietary 3.5mm cable, [technichenews] made a new video-only cable by soldering the yellow RCA wires up to the cable from an old pair of headphones. Power for the camera comes from a universal wall wart set to 12V.
Our favorite part of this project is the way that [technichenews] leveraged what is arguably the most useless part of the TV — the antenna — into the star. Their plan is to use the camera to peer into small engines, so by mounting it on the end of the antenna, it will become a telescoping, ball-jointed, all-seeing eye. You can inspect the build video after the break.
Need a faster, easier way to take a closer look without breaking the bank? We hear those slim earwax-inspection cameras are pretty good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6qDQXUxU0k
Via Instructables
“If someone is out there making tiny digital-to-analog converter boxes for these things, please let us know.”
That’s called a Raspberry Pi Zero W.
That said, unless you have a really nice portable TV, those cheap backup camera displays are likely to be superior.
The Raspberry Pi Zero W has a digital video input?
No. It has a composite video output point.
More than just a few digital interfaces that can accept video data at a useful data rate. MIPI CSI, USB, Wifi, SPI, and a little known parallel data bus.
https://iosoft.blog/2020/07/16/raspberry-pi-smi/
Also don’t forget the SD card if you want to count recorded videos as opposed to just streaming.
Many of those tiny pocket TV have very low resolution. The one I had was only 320×240 and it was a big 3″ model. A cheap $5 LCD display on eBay or Ali for backup camera has better resolution, better color, and better viewing angle and is so much thinner and would be better suited for DIY inspection camera than a Goodwill pocket TV
Great, I can use it to inspect the broken off telescoping antenna that’s stuck in my engine!
LOL!
Hey have the television in the ad. It has a flip up LCD screen through which you let light shine and you watch the image reflected off a mirror on the base!
Sound warning. The starting theme is +50 dB compared to the narrator