Custom Built Camera Test: ($14.91)

[Marshall]

I built a wireless video camera out of some spare parts I had such as a two laptop webcams and mics and their ribbon connectors and controllers. The only thing I had to purchase was an PCB kit and flux which brought the total project cost to $14.91. I used the laptop itself as the housing since it still works for inet and it had room inside for the guts of the new cam system. To transmit the signal I routed the signal from the webcam over the Bluetooth transmitter and the audio over the WiFi signal using a virtual graphic card to sync it all together which means you can stream save/record the video to a smartphone, tablet or any device with Bluetooth and available data storage. You can also stream directly to the web and save it online. Now the tricky part was making all the parts from different brands and standards work together so I had to write an entire software program and firmware from scratch for the hardware and controllers etc.. As always I wrote it all in Linux which means it did not cost me a dime for the software either only the time invested which was about 2.5 hours for the programming. Anyway, here is a short video of the aquarium just to test the function and image quality of the device. Keep in mind this entire setup cost less than 15 bucks so don't expect IMAX results lol I will let you be the judge to whether or not it is a good quality for $14.91.

 

[peter hillman]

I built a wireless video camera out of some spare parts I had such as a two laptop webcams and mics and their ribbon connectors and controllers. The only thing I had to purchase was an PCB kit and flux which brought the total project cost to $14.91. I used the laptop itself as the housing since it still works for inet and it had room inside for the guts of the new cam system. To transmit the signal I routed the signal from the webcam over the Bluetooth transmitter and the audio over the WiFi signal using a virtual graphic card to sync it all together which means you can stream save/record the video to a smartphone, tablet or any device with Bluetooth and available data storage. You can also stream directly to the web and save it online. Now the tricky part was making all the parts from different brands and standards work together so I had to write an entire software program and firmware from scratch for the hardware and controllers etc.. As always I wrote it all in Linux which means it did not cost me a dime for the software either only the time invested which was about 2.5 hours for the programming. Anyway, here is a short video of the aquarium just to test the function and image quality of the device. Keep in mind this entire setup cost less than 15 bucks so don't expect IMAX results lol I will let you be the judge to whether or not it is a good quality for $14.91.

Good work. And zoom too!