A self powered camera, showing output video

Self Powered Camera Powers Itself

April 18, 2015 by Eric Evenchick 58 Comments

Cameras sense light to create images, and solar cells turn light into energy. Why not mash the two together and create a self-powered camera?

The Computer Vision Laboratory at Columbia built this unique camera, which harvests power from its photodiode sensors. These photodiodes also act as an array of pixels that can recover an image. The result is a black and white video camera that needs no external power supply.

The energy harvester circuit charges up a supercap that provides power to the system. The frame rate of the camera is limited by the energy that can be harvested: higher frame rates require more juice. For this reason, the team developed an algorithm that varies the frame rate based on available energy.

The MC13226V microcontroller that was used for this build features an internal 2.4 GHz radio. The group mentions wireless functionality as a possibility feature in the future, which would make for a completely untethered, battery free camera.

Automated Weatherproof Timelapse System With DSLR And Raspberry Pi

April 10, 2015 by Bryan Cockfield 5 Comments

[madis] has been working on time lapse rigs for a while now, and has gotten to the point where he has very specific requirements to fill that can’t be done with just any hardware. Recently, he was asked to take time lapse footage of a construction site and, due to the specifics of this project, used a Raspberry Pi and a DSLR camera to take high quality time lapse photography of a construction site during very specific times.

One of his earlier rigs involved using a GoPro, but he found that while the weatherproofing built into the camera was nice, the picture quality wasn’t very good and the GoPro had a wide-angle lens that wouldn’t suit him for this project. Luckily he had a DSLR sitting around, so he was able to wire it up to a Raspberry Pi and put it all into a weatherproof case.

Once the Pi was outfitted with a 3G modem, [madis] can log in and change the camera settings from anywhere. It’s normally set up to take a picture once every fifteen minutes, but ONLY during working hours. Presumably this saves a bunch of video editing later whereas a normal timelapse camera would require cutting out a bunch of nights and weekends.

The project is very well constructed as well, and [madis] goes into great detail on his project site about how he was able to build everything and configure the software, and even goes as far as to linking to the sites that helped him figure out how to do everything. If you’ve ever wanted to build a time lapse rig, this is probably the guide to follow. It might even be a good start for building a year-long time lapse video. If you want to take it a step further and add motion to it, check out this time lapse motion rig too!

Camera Slider Utilizes Skateboard Trucks

April 9, 2015 by Rich Bremer 17 Comments

[Peter] wanted a camera slider and found some inspiration on the good ole ‘net. He then gathered some parts and came up with his own design. We’ve seen camera sliders made from roller blade wheels before but never one that uses skateboard trucks as the carriage! On each truck axle are 2 bearings spaced apart without the skate wheels. Each pair of bearings rides on one of two 48 inch long closet rods supported between two push-up stands. The top portion from an old camera tripod makes a handy mount that allows adjustment of the camera’s aim.

Some camera sliders are manual operated. This one, however, is lead screw driven with a goal of keeping the camera moving at a constant rate. A disassembled hand drill provides the motor, gearbox and speed control necessary to turn the lead screw. Although it works well at slow speeds, [Peter] admits that it becomes less usable as the speed increases. This is mainly due to the 5/16 inch threaded rod lead screw oscillating and whipping around after reaching a certain RPM. If you stick with a straight run, a belt-driven system might make those faster movements more smoothly.

Magic Lantern Brings Linux To Canon EOS Cameras

April 4, 2015 by Mike Szczys 43 Comments

On April 1st the Magic Lantern team announced a proof of concept that lets you run Linux on a Canon EOS camera. Because of the date of the post we’ve poured over this one and are confident it’s no joke. The development has huge potential.

The hack was facilitated by a recent discovery that the LCD screen on the camera can be accessed from the bootloader. In case you don’t recognize the name, Magic Lantern is an Open Source project that adds features to these high-end cameras by utilizing the bootloader with binary files on the SD card. It’s long been a way of hacking more features in but has always been complicated by the fact that you must figure out how to play nicely with the existing firmware. Commanding the LCD was the last part of the hardware that had previously not been driven directly from Magic Lantern.

Now that the Linux kernel is in the picture, ground-up features can be built without dealing with the stock firmware in any way (and without overwriting it). We’re excited to see where this one goes. Currently it’s just a proof that you can boot Linux, it’s not actually functional yet. Here’s your chance to polish those kernel porting skills you’ve been holding in reserve.

Resourceful DIY Brushless Hand-held Camera Gimbal

March 28, 2015 by Rich Bremer 16 Comments

Holding a video camera while shooting video can lead to finished footage that has some serious shakes. Lucky for us there are some solutions to this problem such as a passive steady cam stabilizer or an active motor-driven gimbal. [Oscar] wanted a smooth-operating brushless motor gimbal but didn’t want to spend the big bucks it costs for a consumer setup so he went out and built his own.

[Oscar] didn’t have a CNC machine or 3D printer to help with his build. He made his gimbal with simple hand tools out of plywood and hardware store bracketry. In his build post, he talks about how it is important to keep the pivoting axes of the gimbal in line with the camera lens and what he did to achieve that goal. The alignment of the axes and the lens ensures that the video is stable while the gimbal adjusts to keep the camera’s angle constant.

[Oscar] purchased the brushless motors and motor controller which included a gyro sensor on a separate PCB board. The gyro is mounted to the camera mount and sends tilt information back to the controller that then moves the brushless motors to keep the camera level. The final project worked out pretty good although [Oscar] admits he still would like to tune the PID settings in the controller a little better. Check out the video after the break where the stabilized camera is compared to one that is not.

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Microscope Camera For Zeroing CNC Machines

March 16, 2015 by Brian Benchoff 16 Comments

After what we’re sure is several dozen screw-ups or at the very least a lot of wasted hours, [Chris] has gotten around to building a very precise microscope camera mount for zeroing out his CNC machine.

If you need to mill a few bits out of a sheet of metal or plastic, it’s important to know exactly where you’re cutting. A CNC machine can take care of the relative positioning, but if you already have half your holes drilled, you also need absolute positioning. This means placing the work piece exactly where you want to cut, or failing that, zeroing the machine to a predefined point on the piece.

[Chris] is accomplishing this with a pen-shaped USB microscope. With a 3D printed mount and a few magnets, this camera can clip right on to the machine, and with the camera interface in Mach3, it’s pretty easy to zero out the mill to within a thousandth of an inch.

There’s a video demo of the camera in action below, but there’s a lot more CNC mods on [Chris]’ website. There’s custom 3D printed vacuum nozzles, and a lot of work on a small desktop Grizzly mill.

Continue reading “Microscope Camera For Zeroing CNC Machines” →

Robotic Owl Scares Squirrels Out Of Their Skin

March 11, 2015 by James Hobson 22 Comments

Tired of the local squirrels tearing up his balcony garden, 11[metroSFVogange] took matters into his own hands and created this, the Squirrelinator 2000.

He had tried buying repellents and other home remedies, but nothing seemed work. And his poor indoor cat was starting to feel emasculated, as he watched through the window helplessly as his owner’s garden was destroyed by the furry terrorists.

It’s built off of an old IP camera he had collecting dust, which happens to have an alarm I/O port… perfect. To disguise the camera he picked up a owl statue for cheap from the hardware store because it was missing an eye — he plans to add a glowing red terminator eye later on, because why not?

After modifying the owl to fit the IP camera, he can now control the owl’s head with the pan and tilt functions of the camera — accessible by smartphone. He’s also thrown on a pair of solar-powered spinning props to help scare off the squirrels as well. In case that’s not enough, when the motion sensor goes off the owl shoots a squirt gun and takes pictures of the (hopefully soaked) squirrel for internet points. Classy.

Sadly, it seems to be working because he hasn’t caught any squirrels in his garden yet! We will of course update this post if a poor sucker attempts to mess with his begonias again.