Wireless Cam Sensor not available
Maybe I did TOO good of a job on it, because I've been overwhelmed with email requests to purchase the wireless camera seen here.
The Wireless Camera you see here is homebrew. This means I made it myself. There is no KellyEngineeringGroup company (Kelly is my surname and this was meant as a joke). It is not an official LEGO product - it is not available for sale - you cannot buy it from HiTechnic or other vendor. I took a spare (extra) Light sensor and took it apart to obtain the shell needed for the camera. There was no wiring or soldering or any special skills needed other than the abilities to squeeze out superglue and drill a small hole for the antennae.
What I can provide you is a link to buy the camera and receiver here. Thank you ALL for your emails, and I'm sorry that I can't make one for you. But it's not hard. $30US (plus shipping fees) will get you your own camera... consider supergluing a small 3L beam to the bottom of the camera if you don't want to sacrifice a sensor.
I won't be able to respond to any more emails about the camera... sorry.
Comments
--
Brian Davis
I do like the image quality... the color is nice, but you have to keep it about 20 feet away from the receiver or the color gets funny. I don't have any trouble with the tuner... once I find the proper setting, I don't touch it and it never seems to waver...
Jim
--
Brian Davis
jim
How odd, I'm already getting NXT accesories and I don't even have the NXT:-) Oh well, I can set it up with the RCX until that blessed day when I get the NXT.
I'm still curiouse about the piece of cable that attaches to the 9v, I want to make an adaptor so that it can be attached directly to the NXT (or RCX) but I don't know what kind of cable to get...You mentioned that the NXT addaptor probably isn't compatable, so what kind is? I guess I can wait until it comes in the mail...
It's hard to explain, so I guess what I'll do is take a picture for you... I'll try to get that done in the next few days for you.
Obviously, with the right electronics skills, someone could come up with a way to wire the camera's power in... but I'm just guessing. I really don't know what the power requirements of the camera in terms of amperage...
I like the 9V battery solution because it's so portable. I can take the camera and use it elsewhere if I so choose without worrying that I've messed with the cable or power supply.
Hope you get your NXT kit fast... can't wait to see some of your designs.
Jim
Maniac - be careful with the RCX, the voltage can reverse and I am not sure whether, even at full power, the power is continuous. Certainly at lower speeds the power will switch on and off rapidly.
From Jim's earlier pictures there is certainly a 9v battery clip.
If you know what you are doing you need to treat the RCX output as the AC input to a full bridge rectifier. You will need at least a couple of capascitors (an electrolytic, maybe 100 uF and a ceramic 0.1 uF) on the DC output. If you do not fully understand this stuff it is much better to not risk both your mini camera and RCX!
Best wishes,
Tony
Jim, do you think you can post a screen shot or 2 to detail the camera's resolution? I have a similar camera I haven't used in a long while. I might want grab one of these newer models.
Christopher
As for resolution, I'll see what I can do... I don't have video output from my tv to post, but I'll try and figure something out.
Jim
I am hoping to get this working so that the images can be fed from the video camera on the NXT into my laptop and fed from the image digitizer on the laptop to ImageJ running on the laptop. ImageJ is a free image processing tool that I can use to 'look' at the images that the NXT is seeing. With ImageJ you can locate objects in the image to tell the NXT to move to, do face recognition, etc. If it works, then we'll have a closed loop from the camera to the PC and then processing the images from the camera and sending commands back to the NXT via Bluetooth to command the NXT to respond to what it is seeing in the images.
Jim
I've tried it on only one TV monitor, used both wall power and a 9v battery to power the camera. I've tested it at varying distances from the reciever, starting with touching the reciever, and moveing as far away as 20' with a wall in between.
Nothing.
I checked out geeks.com but the product support didn't help much, I have yet to send them an email though. Maybe if I can't get it working tomorrow.
If anybody knows how to fix it, that would be great.
Jim