Tips for DIY target cam?

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Re: Tips for DIY target cam?

Post by juststarting » 12 Apr 2016, 8:12 pm

Like with anything else technology related, it is either an enabler, allows me to burn more powder as you put it; or an epic f*** up that I will use as a target! Wet shall see :)
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Re: Tips for DIY target cam?

Post by brett1868 » 12 Apr 2016, 11:48 pm

I have a 1500mw 900mhz video transmitter along with all the relevant receivers and small LCD montitor. Might have a crack at building something similar to the commercial target cam. They use WiFi and software to track / record the shots which I couldn't do with a conventional setup but should do the job. Maybe a screen protector and whiteboard marker on the monitor would allow me to "Mark" the shots. Something to work on...

Ready Made RC in the US have some good stuff and they are fast to post.
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Re: Tips for DIY target cam?

Post by juststarting » 12 Apr 2016, 11:55 pm

Hence, I think sending images to a programable device or having a programable device on the target end is the way to go, since you can process the image files. Reason, I gravitate to RPi is that if you put a hole in it, it's $40.

I was just reading (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3027 ... cond-image) how to do image diffs (lots of ways by the way, need to test a few promising ones). Say N and N+1 and render image with highlighted differences.
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Re: Tips for DIY target cam?

Post by petemacsydney » 13 Apr 2016, 10:07 am

sub'd, looking forward to seeing what we all come up with!
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Re: Tips for DIY target cam?

Post by Releb » 15 Apr 2016, 10:18 am

Yeah I'm interested to see some in action.
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Re: Tips for DIY target cam?

Post by petemacsydney » 21 Apr 2016, 11:10 am

well, haven't started my build yet as my time has been taken over by reloading and i daughter obsessed with cooking and making everything (supervision required!).

found an interesting piece of tech though, to convert a 5.8ghz transmitter to wifi signal so i can do away with the LCD screen and just use my mobile phone. For those using wifi in their builds - Are you using something similar to this to convert the analogue cam A/V feed to wifi?

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/stor ... source=EDM
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Re: Tips for DIY target cam?

Post by Rocker » 17 Jun 2016, 2:05 pm

Phone sounds like an idea.

Someone must to an app that's about right for what you want already mustn't they?
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Re: Tips for DIY target cam?

Post by juststarting » 15 Sep 2016, 1:40 pm

Can someone or a few of you do me a favour and post 3 or 4 photos (4 or more preferred) of their targets at a range, has to be the same target - before any shots, after the first shot, after second shot, etc. I am messing around with image processing, before I start thinking about shoving it into small cheap hardware.

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Re: Tips for DIY target cam?

Post by juststarting » 15 Sep 2016, 1:41 pm

...a good mix of separate holes and overlapping holes would be good too.
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Re: Tips for DIY target cam?

Post by juststarting » 11 Jun 2017, 1:29 pm

Alright, so I had some free time and I thought I'd comeback to this idea and get my geek on.

Image
Coin for scale. But I will pack it into something a little larger later.

So far I am up to about $80 worth of hardware. I am using older model of Raspberry Pi (small, embedded computer). Newer version (if an older version ends up with a hole in it, lol) will drop the price to about $50... A camera module, battery pack; and USB WiFi card with somewhat of a high gain antenna. I am hoping to stretch it out to about 600m with current setup, as long as there's a line of sight between the rig and a phone or a tablet. If not, then power options will need to be tweaked, but I am told by folks much better than me at WiFizzz wizardry that it's definitely doable well beyond that range, with small tweaks. Will see how I go with this first.

Anyway, hardware is done. Camera is working. Now setting up WiFi access point to connect to, then some sort of nice little web interface and see how we go :)

Will this work, yes, 100%. Will this have the range I am after - most likely. Will this go to 1000m - probably with better battery pack and alternative wiring setup, which would add maybe $20 cost for a powered USB hub to provide dedicated power to WiFI card.

Will it highlight new holes on target - yet to be determined. Tested some thoughts, definitely works, but not in a pretty way I'd like it to be. But, doable and that's a start. Anyway, nice Friday/Saturday evening project.

Will keep you posted :)
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Re: Tips for DIY target cam?

Post by pomemax » 11 Jun 2017, 6:01 pm

http://www.busywww.com/cameraremote.aspx bet you have old mobiles not sure of the range you could look at this sort of thing
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Re: Tips for DIY target cam?

Post by juststarting » 11 Jun 2017, 6:20 pm

You could, Bentaz. You could even get an app that takes images on motion... But. What if there's no signal? And paying for data SIM is kinda sucky too.
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Re: Tips for DIY target cam?

Post by juststarting » 11 Jun 2017, 6:21 pm

...but really, a wise bearded weirdo once said there's is no kill like overkill :)
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Re: Tips for DIY target cam?

Post by juststarting » 11 Jun 2017, 6:25 pm

pomemax wrote:http://www.busywww.com/cameraremote.aspx bet you have old mobiles not sure of the range you could look at this sort of thing


Conceptually, the same thing. But having it run on a dedicated computer gives a bit more flexibility with what can be done in terms of taking photos or videos. How it's streamed and most important, wifi range.

That said, this is what I had around the house... Minus camera module, I did buy that specifically for this project. Rest is just recycled old projects. If I had old phones and could power a wifi router for long enough with a small battery, I'd probably use that...
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Re: Tips for DIY target cam?

Post by juststarting » 12 Jun 2017, 12:23 am

Alright, so everyone is sleeping and it's time to get back to it... Granted I am sitting right next to the antenna, but hardware, router and programatic camera control part is done.

Image

Tomorrow will go for a walk with a rangefinder and see how far the signal will stretch...


*router, i.e. making it run as a WiFi access point, so I can connect and control it from my phone.

Random thought, since this is a router after all, I could even add a second WiFi dongle and then a cheap 4G hotspot, to upload images somewhere in real time. Arghhhh must resist the urge to over engineer already over engineered 8-)
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Re: Tips for DIY target cam?

Post by juststarting » 12 Jun 2017, 12:34 am

...aaaaand some digging through my draw of hardware I refuse to throwout... Hoping the panel antenna will do it.

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Re: Tips for DIY target cam?

Post by juststarting » 28 Mar 2018, 9:29 pm

My toys arrived today and I quickly hooked everything up, to see if it arrived alive.

I've tried a couple of different setups. I am not sure, I think someone mentioned bluetooth - this is out immediately, range is in meters (normally)...
WiFi - same deal.

What you want is to stream to a device like a phone, to take photos and record... And range...

Another requirement, the transmitter has to be cheap! So you don't cry if it comes home with a hole from a bullet or most likely hit by fragments.

I purchased 2 FPV cameras (what you use on a drone). One has an inbuilt transmitter and the other is just a camera and I hooked it up to a transmitter. the camera and transmitter separately is actually a smaller unit than the one in the photo (all in one). I like all in one because you can have a spare. The camera with transmitter was $40.55 (second camera and separate transmitter I got were actually a lot cheaper) - all from Bangood.

Image

I don't have the time right now, I need to build some jig (like a breadboard or something) to experiment with it. I want to avoid soldering until I am done with everything. When I get around to it, I will set it up in a housing in front of a target and see how it looks in good light.

Next, the receiver. Receiver and cameras have to function independently. I got this one:
Image
($21.24)

You can see that this one connects directly to an Android tablet or phone and streams to screen. I can now take screenshots or record video. It is powered by the device, but I am going to give it auxiliary power when I am done. I think the next model can be used with an iPhone (if you are disabled or something).

Range on this thing at a very minimum would be 500m. However, given enough power, you can crank up transmission power (little turn thing on camera).

This is how the entire rig looks:
Image
(Housing for 18650 - $3.23; 8 x 18650 - $16.99)

Currently it's running of one 18650, but I will wire 4 - 2 in serial x 2 parallel.

When I get time, I'll hook it all up a little more sturdy, grab my range finder and test the distance.

BONUS:
If you miss and hit the unit, specifically the battery, boom :D So you know, if you destroy it, it's still fun.

I'll test it with day lite and paper... If it works, great. I think it will.

I am confident I can comfortably get 1km out of this.

Plan B:
If I am not happy with image quality, I will change the camera unit only. I will either try to use a HD camera from Raspberry Pi (will need to see if i can wire that in) or more likely, order a clone of GoPro with AV out. It will have it's own power and I will power the transmitter separately. I also want an action cam, so there's that.

Anyway, that's about it. I am happy that all components work. Will write a full how to when it's all done.


PART 2, because there's no kill like an overkill (--Bentaz)
Because images comes through on the device, image can be parsed... So you could have hole identification/highlight/circle and all that (in theory). This will be part part 2 when I am done with hardware side.
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Re: Tips for DIY target cam?

Post by Stix » 30 Mar 2018, 9:37 am

Fantastic JS...!
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Re: Tips for DIY target cam?

Post by juststarting » 30 Mar 2018, 7:56 pm

sungazer wrote:Looking Forward to seeing your working model. Also get the run down on it. I was a electronics geek and back in the day I would have been all over this. I have to say I have lost a lot of that passion. I just look on now with appreciation of those that do.

Ohhh I am very, very, very far from an electronics geeks. I'd really like to understand it a lot better, but I am far from it.

sungazer wrote:I have seen the wifi aerials that will do the 1000yrd plus at work. The Hexta system ues them a long rectangular about 25 cm they actually point at the low power device at each end the computer and the transmitter at the target. They have enough power and signal pattern out the side and back to make the distance between the target and computer.


Correcto, a panel antenna with line of sight and a car battery to power it. It's certainly possible to do this. It's just not possible for this use case, where I want to have a portable unit I could 'just drop in'.

Someone (million times better at this than me) suggested I look at a different approach, using XBees. Which would work very well. And in some way it's the most elegant and the best solution (maybe version 2 later). They are small transmitters used in industrial control systems (think activating a water pump over 10km away over RF). They are very cheap and would definitely work over 10s of km's, but it's the path of the most resistance to do with custom software setup... Also, images received would be either of low quality or transmission would be very slow, but high quality images would be retrieved directly form the transmitter after shooting, I suppose. Definitely doable, just chose not to if I can achieve this quicker with very common and cheap components.

As for the bullseye camera system, I like them. Cost is very prohibitive though, especially for their top model (which is really the only reasonable model and generally for what it is). I had a look inside the box they come in - it's a camera, router and a battery. They are all pretty large too, few minuses there. I am guessing you are paying for the software and niche market. Ignoring software, I thought, hrmmm, I can do this in my head now, so this is where I am (I will think about image editing later).
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Re: Tips for DIY target cam?

Post by Eddie » 31 Mar 2018, 9:15 am

I have built a system from cheap banggood stuff as well. Eachine inexpensive TX and rx and used and old video camera. I use one of those ray gun shaped directional antenna for the rx. I have had it working at 900m. I need a better monitor. How did you use your tablet as Monitor?
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Re: Tips for DIY target cam?

Post by Eddie » 31 Mar 2018, 11:41 am

Sorry, read back and saw the Lieber unit for the av to tablet signal. The rx and TX i use are 5.8ghz 200m.
I see Matlab has some image processing features. I just don't know how to use it.
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Re: Tips for DIY target cam?

Post by Diddums » 11 Apr 2018, 4:14 pm

You could use a drone if you have one. Set it up stationary near the target and just stream the feed to you phone or tablet.
My DJI Mavic has a 7km range for 720p footage.
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Re: Tips for DIY target cam?

Post by juststarting » 11 Apr 2018, 5:43 pm

Drones use FPV cameras and rf transmitters... What I posted above, just minus the motors lol Surrounded by tech giants here lol
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Re: Tips for DIY target cam?

Post by juststarting » 11 Apr 2018, 5:50 pm

The AV equipment on the drone would be the same I recon. The drone is a different story.
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Re: Tips for DIY target cam?

Post by TassieTiger » 14 Dec 2018, 1:24 pm

This is quite interesting - has it progressed at all?

I’m toying with the idea myself - was considering cabling the distance and using a jay car door entrance cam powered by 12v inverted to 240v.

Either that or use an old work ubiquitous microwave dish to link a cheap sports action camera - daylight shooting could be powered from 200w solar panel / battery. Heck, up battery capacity and drop in some leds for night time target shooting practice at distance and watch hits in real time on tablet or laptop.
Which way to go - Bunnings often runs 250m 1.9mm dual elec cable for $70-$80...but I unscrupulous devil and cable might be dead. Hmmm...
Has anyone else done something similar ??
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