TheWaterbug
Getting comfortable
TL;DR version:
The housing is a piece of 3" ABS pipe that measures right around 76mm ID. In a previous BeeCam project I'd had a Reolink RLC-411 in tube just like that, and it fit more or less perfectly, as its OD is 75mm:
I didn't/don't want to use a Reolink camera because they have problems in low light, especially with stuttering in the RTSP streams, and this is going to be looking into a box that's almost always dark inside.
The box is now 20' up a tree, and it would be very difficult to bring it down, so I need a camera that I can just connect to the cable and then slide into the housing with one hand, while my butt is hanging out in free space (e.g. modifying the housing is definitely not a preferred solution):
So I used an old MicroSeven camera. It has a square profile, so I actually used a bunch of spray foam in an attempt to make it cylindrical, so that it would effectively "plug up" the ABS baffle and prevent drafts inside the box. I don't have a piece of glass to block the opening into the OwlBox because the IR lights would reflect off it it too horribly, which is why I want something with a round profile that's as close to 75mm OD as possible, without going over:
That worked OK, but good gawd it was fugly, and it makes the camera pretty much unusable in any other application. Of course any other application is now moot, since the camera seems to have died in the latest rain.I want to avoid having to modify the shape of my new camera, if at all possible.
Any recommendations for a camera with this form factor? In this particular application the form factor is really critical! Thanks!
- POE IP bullet with cylindrical housing of 75mm OD to fit inside a 3" ID ABS housing
- Close focus of 4" or better, as this will be looking at owlets inside a box
- RTSP, because I'm using ffmpeg to push this to YouTube
- Resolution, frame rate, and other features are not critical
- $100 - $150? Is that reasonable?
The housing is a piece of 3" ABS pipe that measures right around 76mm ID. In a previous BeeCam project I'd had a Reolink RLC-411 in tube just like that, and it fit more or less perfectly, as its OD is 75mm:
I didn't/don't want to use a Reolink camera because they have problems in low light, especially with stuttering in the RTSP streams, and this is going to be looking into a box that's almost always dark inside.
The box is now 20' up a tree, and it would be very difficult to bring it down, so I need a camera that I can just connect to the cable and then slide into the housing with one hand, while my butt is hanging out in free space (e.g. modifying the housing is definitely not a preferred solution):
So I used an old MicroSeven camera. It has a square profile, so I actually used a bunch of spray foam in an attempt to make it cylindrical, so that it would effectively "plug up" the ABS baffle and prevent drafts inside the box. I don't have a piece of glass to block the opening into the OwlBox because the IR lights would reflect off it it too horribly, which is why I want something with a round profile that's as close to 75mm OD as possible, without going over:
That worked OK, but good gawd it was fugly, and it makes the camera pretty much unusable in any other application. Of course any other application is now moot, since the camera seems to have died in the latest rain.I want to avoid having to modify the shape of my new camera, if at all possible.
Any recommendations for a camera with this form factor? In this particular application the form factor is really critical! Thanks!
