The weather cam mutates further!

This things really getting carried away with itself now.  I went a bit mental on ebay and ended up with 4 old Olympus cameras.  Before buying I made sure they were all compatible with the Pine Tree Computing camera controller software.  As much as I like this software it does have a few little bugs.  I've found that I need to power up the cameras in a certain order otherwise the computer seems to confuse them all.  Once up and running though the software is pretty stable and hasn't crashed once in the whole time I've been running it.

The cameras were all sat on my kitchen window sill peering outside towards the see.  Even I thought it looked a little jumbled and messy so decided that I needed a solution..

 

The above picture isn't very clear thanks to the darned overcast/bright sky.. I'll try and take another picture later.. anyways, as you can see in the picture the cameras have all been raised up off the window sill and are now all looking out the top window.  But how did I do this.. an anti gravity field around the window perhaps?

Alas not, after R&D problems I decided to go with a shelf instead.  I wanted something light and as inobtrusive as possible (yes, inobtrustive with 4 cameras sat on it..) I just didn't want it to look any worse...

After considering a number of shelfing options, then best one I found was the glass shelves you get at homeware stores like B&Q/Wickes etc that go in bathrooms underneath mirrors.  The best one I could find was at Wickes as it had nice small fixing points for the wall, or in my case, window.  They were adjustable brackets too which means you can be a little less acurate in drilling etc.

this image makes the shelf look wonky.. i can assure you, its not!

 

PVC windows have an aluminium frame covered in the white plastic that we can all see.  Its pretty sturdy stuff so don't panic too much about drilling into it.  Mark the points you want to connect your shelfing brackets to and drill a couple of small pilot holes.

Then just follow the destructions that came with the shelf et-viola!

...can you tell I'm single...

I intend to get some white cable trunking to run down the right hand side of the window frame to tidy away the cabling...

My weather cam website has just been listed on BBC Devons site!  2 of my cameras are now being used by them.  I'm famous!

Fixing my little Dell LCD.. my first ever PCB repair...

I recently bought a second hand Dell LCD monitor to go with my FTP server.  I just wanted someone small and cheap that could be used every now for maintenance etc.  I went on Ebay and managed to pic one up for about £15.  Not bad I don't think for a 15" LCD.

After using it for a few days I noticed that it would flicker on and off.. sometimes off then never back on again.  If I jiggled the power lead around at the back I could hear a crackling sound.. not a good sound to hear.. arcing electricity etc.

I decided to have a go at fixing it, the fact moving the lead around causing the monitor to start/stop I was hopeful it wasn't going to be anything too drastic.

Firstly, find a nice fluffy/thick towel to lay on a flat surface.  You'll be resting your monitor against this whilst you're working on it and dont' want to scratch/dent the LCD panel.

To remove the back of the monitor, you firstly need to remove the stand.  there are 3 small black screws visible at the rear, take these out, then ease and plastic cover off with a screw driver.  You will find a 4th (gold) screw here.  Remove that, then the stand should come away from the bottom of the monitor.

 

Next remove the 3 black screws that run across the bottom.

Then you need to pop the rear away from the front of the monitor.  The line you can see around the edge of the monitor is where the two parts separate.  Slip the two clips at the bottom apart then be brave and ease the two sections apart.

You'll find that a small ribbon cable will run from the front section of the monitor to a lttle PCB containing the brightness/menu buttons.  Just disconnect the plug on the PCB side and then put the front of the montior to one side.  Rest the lcd panel face down on to the towel and pull the rear of the monitors case away.

Next remove the 8 gold screws that run around the metal cover then remove, you'll see across the top of this metal cover that there are little metal clips that the top lip of this cover slides under.

Now you can see the PCBs for the monitor.  You can see that the power lead connects to the PCB on the left.  Disconnect the ribbon connections as with the button panel from the case.  Then remove the 2 screws.
The PCB will now slide away from the chassis like the previous metal cover did.

Looking closely at the soldered joints on the rear of the panel I could see a little carbon ring around one of the pins on the power socket.  This as well as dull solder is a sign that the joint has failed.

A soldering iron with a fine point is generally the best idea for repairing PCB's as its a lot neater and reduce the risk of soldering across 2 joints.  A little bit of solder later and the joint is nice and shiney and ready for putting back together.  Before completing I sprayed contact cleaner across the whole PCB just for luck.

The picture above shows the power PCB removed, note the right hand panel has a ribbon connector at the top. This pushes against a sponge insert attached to the rear case panel.  This will often disconnected when removing the rear panel so make sure you reconnect if before putting back together!

For putting back together, literally do the reverse of what you did to take it apart, I found it easier to place the frame section of the cover of the case on the towel, then rest the LCD panel on top before cliping the rear back on.

Weather Cam Plus!

I've made quite a few changes to the weather cam website, mainly the introduction of a "proper" camera!  I came across a piece of software that enables your computer to control a camera, automating picture taking as well as uploading the images to your ftp server.  There's a freeware version as well as a full version that allows you to use the cameras full resolution.  Its worth the $25 donation to get the upgrade code as the results are pretty amazing.  I'm currently using an old 3.2mp Olympus that has a pretty impressive 10x optical zoom.  It produces great pictures that are available to see on my website. 

Linksys WVC54GCA update - and davey400 is a legend...

As you may have gathered the instructions for this product are pretty useless.  There are so many useful pieces of information that they don't bother to share with you, for example, how to stream direct to your website from the camera without having to bother with third party software, after all, as an IP camera having to use a computer to stream its picture makes it kinda pointless... after a lot of hunting around I came across this forum.  Its worth scanning through as it kinda makes a pretty good point and is a little amusing.  Thanks to Linksys not telling you how to do it, there's a knowledge gap for everyone else to go around the houses trying to fill, as have I.  The last posting is genius.  Its the guys first ever posting and kills everyone else stone dead.  Well done davey400 whoever you are!

p.s just incase their forum ever closes, here's his posting again

davey400 New Member Joined: 08 Aug 2009 Posts: 1

Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2009 6:10 am    Post subject: What's wrong with using the following url's and embed them? Or am i not understanding the original question? Iexplore: http://'s ip>/img/video.mjpeg http://'s ip>/img/mjpeg.cgi Stream wmp: http://'s ip>/img/video.asf Snapshot: http://'s ip>/img/snapshot.cgi http://'s ip>/img/snapshot.cgi?size=3&quality=1 http://'s ip>/img/mjpeg.cgi ---- Image snapshot http://'s ip>/img/snapshot.cgi http://'s ip>/img/snapshot.cgi?size=S&quality=Q Size: 1 = 160×128 2 = 320×240 3 = 640×480 Quality: 1 = very high 2 = high 3 = normal 4 = low 5 = very low Motion JPEG http://'s ip>/img/mjpeg.htm http://'s ip>/img/video.mjpeg http://'s ip>/img/mjpeg.cgi Video feed http://'s ip>/img/video.asf rtsp://'s ip>/img/video.sav

What is IMAP?... its actually pretty darned handy

IMAP stands for Internet Message Access Protocol.  Its generally used by mobile phones for accessing your email.  Its the system that keeps the inbox on your mobile sync'd with your email servers inbox.  Its all very clever and very handy but it doesn't end there...

If like me you use a number of different computers then you'll find this useful for syncing up all your emails.  Its simple to set up with Outlook, just go to "tools" - "email accounts" - "add a new email account" then enter the details provided by your email provider.  If you use Googles service, enter "imap.gmail.com" in the IMAP box and "smtp.gmail.com" in the SMTP box.  Then enter your username and password as usual.  Click on "more settings", "outgoing server" and select "my outgoing server (smtp) requires authentication".  Then click on the "advanced" tab and enter 993 in the "incoming server (IMAP)" box and 25 in the "outgoing server (SMTP)" box.

Then click "okay/finish".  Job done!  You'll notice the folders column on your Outlook screen start changing as the new IMAP account takes effect.  Within a few minutes you should have a mirror image of whats on your Gmail account in Outlook!

This is great if like me, you enjoy the light and easy to use interface of web based email but still feel more secure and at home with trusty programs like Outlook.  Plus, it means you can re-utilise the "right click - send to" function in Windows again which was lost whilst using Gmail on my other computers.

WVC54GCA power supply problems

My weather cam had been plagued with connectivity problems, at random intervals the camera would apparently just switch itself off.  After lots of messing around... I decided to replace the power supply, you'll notice that the WVG54GCA, like a vast majority of IT tech, runs on 5v which is an annoying voltage to get power supplies for. You can pick up a power supply for 4.5 or 6v for about £5 however, 5v will set you back £20.. so a trip to Maplins later I had the L06BR which has been doing a sterling job for over 48 hours now.  Judging by forums the power supply to the WVC54GCA is notoriously poor.  If you're picking one of these up on ebay, the chances are they either couldn't operate it.. or the power supply is knackered.

Watch Freeview channels on your PC!

For anyone that likes the idea of watching Tv on their PC/laptop this website could be the answer for you!  All freeview channels are available, BBC/ITV/Channel 4/5 etc etc!  Perfect if you can get a wireless signal but no decent reception or the thought of mile upon mile of coax cable winding its way around your house is a little depressing.

http://www.tvcatchup.com