Drew's House - Winter Storm Dec 2009

Merry Christmas

Multnomah Falls - December 2009

Multnomah Falls

Compare the two photos. Notice the pile of snow at the base of the falls.

Drew's backyard - cold December day.

Watch the frost on the roof thaw.

Night photography experiment.

Two seperate photos taken. 15 second shutter speed. One was 2 "F" stops above. Both shots were bracket'd together to form the one photo. The light streaks are from my neighbors car. The white light is the moon. And of course the yellow is the street light.

Sunrise

Sunset

Pacific Ocean (HDR)

Webcams Moved

I've moved the webcams over to my other blog.
Goto: http://techi-craft.blogspot.com/

9/11 - Mt. Hood Sunrise (HDR)

Freeway Time-Lapse

Tonight I started proto typing a thermometer idea. The objective is to create a remote monitoring device that can be placed indoors and outdoors. Possibly adapted for other uses as well. Maybe monitor the temperature of the fridge or the HVAC, or spa. I can go on... and on...

Here is the first stage of my proto typing. It is a simple circuit that entails an arduino, a LCD display and a DS1620 thermometer IC.

I plan on using an XBee to create the remote connection between the Thermometer circuit and Display circuit.

I

Radiometer

This afternoon, I watched "An Inconvenient Truth" It inspired me to take a short video of the Radiometer I have.

Watching the snow melt - Winter 2008

Typical summer day

Time-Lapse 4th of July Webcam

*** Webcam Server ***

Server running webcam scripts crashed last night (4th of July) with a hard drive failure. Good news the webcam itself is still operational. Hopefully with any luck I'll be able to recover the data.

*** "Kill-a-watt" is a cool tool ***

I measured the power consumption of the webcam with a "kill a watt". It uses about 4-5 watts when OEM power supply is plugged into an outlet. With the homemade PoE (Power over Ethernet) setup it uses 7-8 watts. Stay tuned. I am planning to reduce that consumption with a more efficient DC-2-DC converter.

*** Webcam Update ***

The webcam is now publishing images on the web. At the very bottom of the blog is the latest camera image. The images are uploaded/updated every min. Sorry... no realtime video.

*** WebCam Update ***

Time-Lapse video created with still captures from webcam.

Drew's HD webcam project.

There are a variety of webcams on the market today. Just Google "webcam". The HD (high def) units are very $$$ and are not always accessible to the thrifty minded techno geeks.

About a year ago, I had read an article in linux journal about how to hack a Nslu2. The unit runs on 5volts, @ .24 - .5 amps. I figured that would be a good low power consumption server. Searched the internet again for NSLU2 and webcams. Found a blog "High Resolution IP Webcam" this guy did a custom firmware image for the NSLU2. Long story short, added camera component flashed the custom image on the NSLU2 and a Webcam emerged.

Of course...... There was more too it than that.

The NSLU2 and Quickcam 9000 needed to be "weatherized" for outside use. I found a weather enclosure at mouser electronics that roughly cost $30. The enclosure for the camera took some creativity. I went down to home depot, and picked out a flood light kit for about $14. Gutted the unit, and J-B welded the Quickcam 9000 inside the housing.

Powering the unit remotely thru cat5e cable. Well.... The nslu2 has a narrow tolerance band in terms of power. 5volts +- a half volt and can't exceed more than an amp. I went to mouser electronics again, and found a DC-to-DC converter that fits the requirements. The converter is isolated so there are no hazards of producing an "over-current" condition with the DC over the 100 foot length of cat5e cable. The converter handles a 12 to 18 volt input, and outputs an isolated 5 volts. Perfect for the NSLU2. The converter was about $30 from mouser electronics, but worth cost.

Tested the unit first by mounting on the post with the weather station wind anemometer. The unit is powered thru the cat5e cable ran from the garage. Of course this looked..... well it didn't look good because it was hanging. The unit is now permanently mounted on a post in the upper corner of the lot. The cat5e cable is run thru an underground conduit. And it is nestled between some trees for camouflage.

The construction of the HD Webcam project is complete. But... there is more. My plans are to publish the images automatically. Possibly do some time-lapse photography.

The Webcam has been moved to a new location and a second camera added. The second camera has pan/tilt function.

The second camera is a Quickcam Orbit AF. Again... Trip down to Homedepot and picked up another Flood light fixture. This one is roughly 2x the size as the other. Painted the inside of the light fixture with flat-black paint (to prevent glare). Then I mounted the camera inside with "JB Weld" epoxy.