MirkoHey Friends of open-source stuff!
My Openthing 2 RepTrap Camera Sensor is now available on Tindie.
The device comes with a Camera Trigger Cable and a Trigger Extension Cable. I've got a Triggering Cable for lots of different cameras, you can find a list in the description.
I also got myself a whole setup to secure my camera within an enclosure from
https://www.camtraptions.com/
There are multiple different things which you can buy and they have a nice guide which you can find here. I went for the following list of items:
- Male to Male Waterproof 2m Cable × 1
- 6V Ni-MH Rechargeable Flash Batteries × 1 10Ah Capacity
- Camera Power Splitter × 1
- Flash Cables × 4 0.3 metre
- Flash to DC Socket Power Adapter × 2
- Male to Female Waterproof 5m Cable × 2
- Male to Male Waterproof Flash Cable × 2
- Waterproof Splitter Cable × 1 2-way
- Female Waterproof Enclosure Entry Cable × 5
- Tamiya to DC Socket Adapter × 1
- External Battery System for Cameras × 1 Nikon EN-EL15 / NP-F Adapter Included
- Flash Splitter Cables × 1
- Flash Hot Shoe Adapter × 1
- Ni-MH Compact Charger × 1 Ni-MH Compact Charger (EU Plug)
- Flash Housing × 2 Clear
- Z2 Camera Trap Zoom Flash × 2
- Camera Housing × 1
Instead of getting myself a super expensive external Batterypack for the camera, I made one myself with 3 x 18650 Batteries (~2300 mAh each, 6900 mAh together) and a DC to DC Buck Boost Converter bringing the 4.2V of the batteries up to 7V (depending on the camera and its battery type). With that setup I should get a runtime of maybe 3 Month or more?
I still need to find a way to also include the sensor into this battery setup, because the internal battery within the sensor will only last ~3 days.
The list above was around 1000€ which is super expensive and I believe there is a cheaper way to protect the camera from moist. On the other hand this project is supposed to run in a rain-forest as well. I was there - nothing survives the rain-forest. My wallet which was hidden deep in my backpack was growing mushrooms after just one month being there.
To make the enclosure a bit cheaper you can go with only one flash of course and reduce the amount of cables needed. You could think about using the normal cables as well instead of the waterproof versions. Then you would need to place one smaller battery together with the flash into its enclosure so the power is directly inside the flash-enclosure and the same you can do with the camera.
The cable for triggering has no real power in it so nothing can be shorted there, it does not really need to be waterproof (of course it is always better to do so). If it shorts because of water or corrosion it might stop triggering or falsely trigger the camera at some point but you could simply protect the connections with hot glue or something similar. That way you might save some money. A 5m normal trigger cable costs around 6€ and the waterproof version 20€. Also one flash costs ~106€ + the enclosure 48€ so using just one flash can safe you 160€ and a bit more.
I went with the waterproof versions because I hope it will last much longer.
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