Pondcam Blog

Nice to hear we aren't alone

Hi Barry,

thanks for the comments, in case anyone hasn't read his comments have a look and follow the link to his site. It is also reassuring to learn that other people are having the same problems with leaks, condensation etc. The set up we have at the moment is working well but the lack of light beneath the green duckweed infested surface is the main problem. So we are currently using it above water, looking for snakes! Keep you posted...

Chris & Steen

Meadowcam 2

This is the second film, made using the third model of the cable car, this time a simple model made from meccano.

I think this is the most successful so far, although it has been severely compressed and subsequently looks a bit rubbish:

Meadowcam 1

As promised we had an attempt at making a film to record a snapshot of the whole meadow using a variety of cable car type devices to transport a small camera on video mode over the top of the meadow. The first, shown here, used gravity to power the cable car, and the lack of control made it less than satisfactory. In fact at the end of the film it smashed into the  post at the end. The second was a very complex affair using some sort of robotic lego gizmo. Looked great, but it did not work at all, so no film. The final version, and the one I think worked best, is shown on the next post.

Here is the first version:

Glasscam up and running...sort of...

 Yesterday I finished off the glass box holding the current incarnation of the pondcam, gluing a connector for a gorillapod, which was mounted onto an aluminium U channel, which in turn was bolted onto the head of a mini tripod.

The resulting rig works excellently and the box certainly survived being submerged for a few hours. Initially there were problems with the box fogging up, inspite of incorporating silicon gel pouches - perhaps they were already saturated and i have made the problem worse!

The cam is currently working well, above water:

However, underwater views were not very successful. I will retry later.

Update Early August 2008

The past couple of weeks have seen some rather odd views due to the failure of the bag cam. We were forced to simply cover the camera with one of the glass photographic tanks I made earlier in the year and place the cam above water level on the bank. The results were obviously more visible than the underwater cam but also captured the most exciting thing so far, a grass snake swimming in the pond.

This raised a new issue. Had the cam been underwater it would have missed this important bit of action, but the raison d'etre of this project was to build an underwater cam. The next idea was to have two cams running, with both an above and a below water option but it is proving more challenging than we expected to actually upload the data.

I have gone ahead and gone for the next attempt at an underwater cam while we resolve this problem. My initial thought was to use the tank we are currently using as a shelter to make a sort of airlock and I constructed a frame to hold it in position upside down. However, the size of the tank (150mm x 150mm x 150mm) meant much more air was trapped than was required causing it to flip unpredictably and risk damaging the camera.

So I went back to my initial polycarbonate box design and re-draughted it for use with 4mm thick float glass. This material had been combined with the same aquarium sealant to construct the tanks to successfully house a Newt larva for three month with no signs of leakage and I felt reasonably confident that it would work. I have got a local glass merchant to cut the pieces and drill a hole in one corner. The total bill was £12.00 plus VAT, so with the sealant the box could easily be made for under £20.00.

It is currently drying underneath the protective covering of one of the larger tanks.It is now sitting on some decking rather than near the pond, hence the rather odd views today. Yesterday I provided a view of the pond, while the lid I had glued on was drying, but I wish I hadn't: the box was inadvertently placed on an angle and the lid slipped slightly before setting. I put a load of extra sealant around the top to make sure and I am certain it will be fine but I will kick myself otherwise.

I am aiming to stick some sort of rail on tomorrow and hopefully have it in the pond by the weekend. Fingers crossed...