text: Tcscouts And Bowgods V1 Builds - Homemade Trail Camera - Hag's House
  Tcscouts And Bowgods V1 Builds
  June 10, 2010 in Homemade Trail Camera
  I think this cam is done (for now).. There's alot more we can do with this setup but for now this one will go out for some testing when I get a free day to run out to the woods. Roger did a great job on the codes and theres alot more that will go on with the next one I'm sure as we have a few of these cams to play with. But for this one right now it has a remote pir as well as the onboard pir. The idea is to locate the remote pir across a field, feeder strip, etc... facing the V1 build. The cam will come on and take pics like normal with frankensnipers pir, but if the remote pir is triggered the camera will zoom in to that location where the remote pir is located in daylight situations. There is alot more you can do with the zoom features and those will change I'm sure once it gets it first trial run. I'm thinking of adding in a rf remote slave flash that will be located with the remote pir for zoomed night shots as well and it would be easy to add. The couple nice features that the V1 has is the hotshoe located ontop the cam. Just plug in the hotshoe and run your wires to the slave flash and that it. Also you dont need to hack the cam using the lanc remote. I also found out you can use externals through the charging port which I'll probabily do on the next one maybe. But on these setups you dont use the cams intenal flash so battery life should be very good. So basically the V1 is plug and play. Roger has some test pics done and I'm sure he'll post those to show how the V1 works with the remote pir and zoom control and add to how the cam performs. This was alot of fun to build and I'll be doing a couple more with more features. Heres some pics of my setup for now....
  Some pics with the externals. The cams shows charging when cam is off by the led indicator and when the camera is turned on it goes out of charging.
  TCSCOUT 41 posts
  bowgod02 18 posts
  212 4 posts
  Wow! Now that's Homebrew!
  You guys sure do impress the rest of us...NICE! You do know the Driveway Alert can send up to 4 channels right, that means you can watch 4 remote locations.
  Remarkable what you two are doing there. Very good looking setup. The pics make the snorkel look huge. The camo is great. My hats off to you two guys!!!!!
  I did not know that. So your saying 4 different remote pirs each one on a different channel. Would just one reciever recognize a different channel coming in?
  Then depending on which pir sends the signal, you could zoom into that particular location. Heck... you could watch a whole field then. Now you have my mind spinning with all kinds of ideas.
  Edited June 10, 2010 by bowgod02
  Here is mine. It is a Sony V1 Camera in a ultimate camo 1060 case (Thanks Tony for the case) with a hacked wired remote control that is used to power the cam on /off and zoom the lens in and out and take pics. I made the snorkel out of PVC, dipped it and the SS HPWA in matching ultimate camo. We hacked a lanc remote control to run the cam. The control board is a modified Simple Sniper that has a 20X2 Picaxe chip. The Flash is a Vivitar 2000 which is fired by the hot shoe on the Sony Cam, the picaxe will keep the flash charged and the hot shoe on the camera is the trigger. The picaxe is programmed to take a wide angle shot when the PIR on the build detects motion or zoom in 4X Optical Zoom when the remote PIR detects motion. The zoom is set to use just the optical zoom, no digital. In feeder mode daytime it will take 3 quick pics then check for motion, if motion is detected it will take 3 more and continue until no motion is detected. If it is night then it will do the same but the delay is longer to give the slave flash time to recharge. In the feeder mode it will take one pic when motion is detected and sleep for 5 minutes then go check for motion mode again. I put a laser LED inside the snorkel to use to help align the camera. The laser is mostly for the zoom feature so I can get the camera set where I want it to take a pic when zoomed in. It has a arrow shaft pipe through, 4 C's for the Slave Flash and the Laser is powered off of 2 of the Flash Batteries. The remote PIR is a RF Keychain remote with a 3 volt PIR and the SS HPWA Fresnel. I dipped it in ultimate camo to match the Cam. Initial testing has been pretty good so far. It's not real fast to take the first pic, maybe between 3 to 4 seconds, but the HPWA with the foam removed should help. Also with the extra pins it would be easy to add a couple more remote pirs and have them turn the cam on when something is approaching, that way the cam can take a pic instantly when the camera pir detects motion. Lots of option with this chip in there. In the daytime it will snap pics at about 1.5 seconds between pics. The snorkel is made with pvc pipe and has 3" AR glass.
  Thanks to Ron (bowgod02) for finding this camera and coming up with a lot of good ideas.
  Here is the snorkel with the 3" AR glass and the laser pointer inside:
  Outside of the remote PIR dipped to match:
  Inside of the remote PIR:
  Looking great Roger. I really like the laser in there for aiming the cam at the remote pir. We better get started on the next one if we want it done before the rut kicks in...
  This is a test pic without moving the camera. Top pic is normal and bottom is zoomed in by remote PIR.
  These are some walk test pics:
  That camo on yours is awesome as usual and whole setup is Great! Yea, after we put that 20X2 in there we came up with 20X more ideas . I like the idea of 2 PIRs to the side to get the cam ready and one in middle to take the pics. Gonna have to write all the ideas down and decide what to do. I think I will put that keychain video cam in with the next one just for fun .
  Boy you got that right!!!! I have a couple more ideas as well for the remote pirs for trail use and some other ideas. Just just too many options you can do with the 20x2. I think we need some bigger cases...