Nig-Cam 2
I've never been a fan of video as it seems even more intrusive than still
photography but I do confess to pleading for a copy of the helmet-cam tape
when I've been on a surface supply rig doing Archeology.
However once I saw cheap digital video cameras, say well under £100, I began to
think that personal helmet-cam couldn't be too complex. I was quite prepared to
buy it a big memory card but what I wanted was switch-on, close box on helmet,
put on helmet operation, so no controls, no complications, no frills. This is
the Nig-Cam project that resulted.
OK, the first take with a cheap camera and a cheap
box just didn't work. However a RBW post pointed me at a nice camera designed
for the manic sports enthusiast and I bought one of them. It takes a 2Gb SD
card and records in VGA 640x480, QVGA 320x240 (Q=quarter??) or QQVGA 160x120
image size at either 30 or 15fps. One thing I do like is its very unsubtle
controls. If you set it wrong and don't get the footage you wanted you have
only yourself to blame. It cost a bit more than the first camera and the fact
that it offered 'water proof to 3 meters' wasn't actually very useful as my
planned use was at 50 to 60 meters would eat those seals alive.
I ran it at VGA/30fps on
a head band and got an hour of a club dive as seen as cox'n. The fixed focus
wasn't bad although the brightness control's averaging didn't always bring up
the bit I was interested in. Overall I rated it as good because the increased
resolution made a big difference and in the water I could probably run it at
15fps which promised 96 minutes on the 2G card. The current system can't write
over 2G.
The next big problem was to waterproof it and the original poster wasn't
returning emails any more. Oh well. There must be some perks in this
engineering company my brother and I run to make up for the endless
paperwork.
I needed a window and a nice O-ring. Well RS do O-rings and the bit of glass
came as a spare for a torch. Now it needed to be wrapped up in a nice strong
tube.
Now the first choice for things like this always seems to be Derin. Derin is a
nice, strong, machineable plastic. You get Derin spools, Derin torch bodies, in
fact Derin dive gear of all shapes and sizes. 'Derin' got a blank look from the
Combro machining Guru. A quick look at my camera and a lump of Aluminium landed
on the table. Subtlty is not his specialist subject. He thinks in terms of 200
bar of hydraulic oil not 60 meters of water. If he makes it it is NOT going to
leak. Well not at any depth that wouldn't have a sat dive team sucking their
teeth and quoting a six figure price. This is personal.
Off to the CAD system for a quick sketch and then dump it into the CNC. No,
don't ask my why seven bolts. Back when I learnt metal cutting we used dividing
heads and everything factored into 360 or your brain exploded. Once you have a
CNC you can just plain show off.
I asked about the O-rings as the torch had them behind the glass. "Wasn't that
the torch that used to flood?" I was asked so I shut up and went away. They
don't tell me how to program embeded micros.
Let's have a few workshop pickies because I'm a sucker for CNCs...
The pictures can be accessed by clicking the thumbnail but they
tend to be 900K+ files
Pictures by Nigel and Robin Hewitt
Thumbnails by Easy Thumbnails
