Re: Mark IV is Moving

[Peter T Mount <peter@retep.org.uk>]

On Wed, 3 Mar 1999, Chris Albertson wrote:

> Tom Droege wrote:
> > 
> > I just took the Mark IV apart in preparation for a move up to the roof
> > tonight.  It will take a day or two to get everything put back together and
> > cabel tied up.  For those thinking about installing a Mark IV, it will just
> > go through a 32 inch door.  It needs about 31".  A 36" door would be safe
> > and you would not have to remove the door.
> > 
> > I have tested everything that I can think of.  For sure as soon as I try to
> > make it work I will get tired of running up and down that spiral staircase
> > and want to get a camera to watch it.  Anyone know how long a cable you can
> > put on the $100 cameras they sell to sit on top you computer to transmit
> > your picture?
> 
> I've thought about doing this too.  Our proposed site is a 1 1/2 hour
> drive away from where the "control room" will be.  This is far worse the
> a your spiral staircase.  I'd like to be able to check the weather by
> using the camera
> I was thinking about using one or two of these
> little ball shaped cameras.  I've seen black and white units as low as
> $50.00.  These camera tend to come in two "flavors" one connects via
> the printer port the other via USB.
> 
> The other option I was thinking about was to buy a frame grabber card for
> <$100 and get a standard NTSC video camera that outputs its signal to an
> RCA jack.  This would likely provide better video quality.  In your case
> where everything is all on one building you could skip the computer and
> use a TV set for display.   
> 
> I have one more constraint in that I want a camera or frame grabber that
> is supported under Linux.  If all you need is Win98 support USB cameras
> seem like the way to go as USB cabling is pretty flexible and all sorts
> of extenders and junction boxes are available.  USB support under Linux is
> still experimental however.

I can't remember if the Connectix camera is supported under Linux, but I
did come across a few sites that deal with getting them to work.

> The Connectix camera has a PIC micro controller inside the D shell that
> plugs into the parallel printer port.  I think it talks to a serial
> ADC that lives in the camera ball. I doubt a PIC can push data down
> a 100ft printer cable. 

I've driven a PAL video signal down a 100m length of coax with no visible
loss of signal.

Here in the UK, there are some small mono camera's that are capable of
this for under #50.00


-- 
       Peter T Mount peter@retep.org.uk
      Main Homepage: http://www.retep.org.uk
PostgreSQL JDBC Faq: http://www.retep.org.uk/postgres
 Java PDF Generator: http://www.retep.org.uk/pdf