cameraseesall

very nice work!

I remember this build very well and I built one of my own just like it! I put a 12v, SLA on the outside of the case so I had plenty of power for my LED array and servo motors to last for weeks and weeks. I used a Sony HC7 camcorder. I still have the steel push rods for the servo to control the day/night settings on the camcorder. You are right; excellent build that lasted me for years. I should dust it off and try putting it out again. I dont remember why I pulled it other than that I got into the DXG line of camcorders and they worked so well, I didnt need the bulk and complicated controller for the Sony camcorder. Great memories and good luck with your next build.

I have a bottle of denatured alcohol that I use to clean contacts with. It is a pretty strong solvent, but seems to work well on metal contacts.

All of my LED arrays were home made, so I don't have anything on the board you have. The record time is usually on a sticker you may get with the Bigfoot sensor card. There are 4 switches on the card: Occasionally, on a card that I have not formatted in a while, I will get random 5-8 second recordings. If you still see short record times, then you may have dead or dieing batteries or if a full memory card. Good luck!

This post is from a problem I had with one of my BigFoot cards for day/night settings. You can see what I used, and then see what TCSCOUT found worked for his card: http://www.hagshouse.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=54912

Here are some helpful links I used to get myself started. This page is where I first got my questions answered. A lot is here: http://www.hagshouse.com/forums/index.php?...=34280&st=0 This link has some good info about testing your build: http://www.hagshouse.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=34957 Here is the PDF I used to hack the camera itself: www.oakleafs.com/bwells/dxgpdf.CV01.pdf Here is the wiring diagram I use (this is about all I need to make a new one now days): I am sure others have info and we can answer questions as you progress.

No black Fresnel. :( I will put this on the back burner for now and see about repairing another one of my builds that needs some TLC. Thanks for the info and ideas. Once I have more time, I would like to dig in a bit more to narrow down what is going on.

Thanks for looking into this! I tried all 4 combinations. If switch 1, 2 are both set to off, then nothing records, but for motion detection, the green light does flash. So the sensor detects motion, but the camera never comes on. For the other 3 switch positions, the camera records 24hrs, day and night. The other thing I noticed is that the LED array always comes on, regardless of the amount of light I shine on the light sensor. So I decided to try another card I had handy. This spare card works as I expected. I got night-only and the LED array only comes on at night. So I tagged the questionable card and will probably not use that in a future build. Even though the CAMSET switches are not used for the exchanger build, can you tell if the light sensor is used to control the LED array? I assume regardless of the CAMSET switch positions, the LED array should still only come on at night. This is the first time I tried changing the CAMSET switches on this card, so I suspect it has never worked. But the LED array seems odd that it is on in the daylight too. all of my cards are at least 4 years old, so I have no experience with the newer cards that are for sale. I do want to get a new card and make another homebrew. I think I will go with something other than the DXG 567 which I have been real happy with for a long while. Thanks!

I have a DXG 567 build and it uses the Big Foot sensor card (not sure what the specific name is). On the sensor-side of the card, there are two dip switches labeled CAMSET. My memory is I could switch these to control day only, night only or 24 hour recording. I have a graphic with these controls, but this evening I tried changing them to night-only, but it still recorded day or night. So now I am confused. Can someone remind me how to set my bigfoot sensor card to record night-only? Here is the only instructions I have on hand. Why would the night-only switch setting not work?

Yea, I kind of figured that. What would it mean is wrong? I wondered if a short somewhere (that I could still find and fix) could be causing it.

Not sure what happened. One week it worked fine, next week the camera will not record. I tried the button to make it record and I tried the record-to-ground to make it record, but nothing will cause it to record. The power-to-ground turns camera on and off correctly. It just will not record. I opened it up and the wire to the record terminal looks fine. I may just try re-solder just to be sure. But since the record button does nothing either, it makes me thing the problem is inside the camera electronics itself meaning I will have to hack another and just use this one for parts. Any last ideas before I call it on this DXG567? Its been in use for 3+ years so I got a lot of time from it. Just hate to lose an otherwise good camera. Thanks

Thanks. This is very helpful to see.

Yes, that is a great idea. I used the same servo idea to "move" the nightshot switch on my Sony Camcorder to turn nightshot on and off between day and night using a Picaxe and a light sensor. It worked very well and I can see this idea will work very well too. I don't see how you would put the motor inside the camera. It seems when you open the Pelican case, the camera/motor would detach from the IR filter on the inside and be pretty flimsy or even break. How did you solve that inside the case? Thanks and great idea!

Your goal is to replace the camera's internal batteries. So you want to do exactly the same wiring as you would with internal, but simply move the batteries outside of the camera itself. Any other wiring needed between the board and the camera and/or batteries stays the same. So you will still need a wire from negative battery to common as you pointed out. This should all work fine if you are connecting the camera, batteries and sensor card in a single waterproof case. If by external, you mean you want your 3 "C" cells in their own separate case, then you will need to get both + and - into the case that houses the camera and the sensor card. At least that is how I see your options.

Excellent! I cant wait to try one of these.