Lynxmotion Tech Support

A few years ago I purchased a wireless camera with what I presumed to be IR lights on the sides. This one to be exact


But they do not seem to work at all.I took it apart and they are indeed leds and I couldn't find any switches or variable resistors. I can not find any other posts online discussing this and I can not find a description anywhere that says it even has the leds. Anyone have any ideas as to what I could do to solve this? I would love to have night vision

Are they not turned on? Maybe not implemented?

If you find that they are not connected, You can drive them from an available power supply, but you'll have to determine the dropping resistor to use.

Alan KM6VV

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Well see thats the weird part, everything including the leds are on one board... I will post a inside picture in a second

EDIT:

See they are definitely mounted but they do look kind of sketchy. (the camera was around 95$ at the time by the way)

Any clue to the wiring of the LEDs? I see a pair of empty pads on the right side.

I suspect one end of each LED goes to +V, possibly through a resistor of maybe 220 ohms (assuming 20ma and 5v).

What do you see?

Are you sure they aren't lit? Some video cameras will "see" IR light. If you have either a digital still or video camera, see if it "sees" a TV remote. Then see if you can see the IR LEDs of the subject camera.

Depending on how "electronic" you are, you can measure the voltage drop across the LEDs and/or their series resistors.

Alan KM6VV

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Thank you for the quick replies.

I used my analog multimeter to test each led and it read no voltage. I used a digital camera that could see IR light and it didn't see anything.. The only thing I guess is that it is an unfinished/defective board or there is a hidden switch somewhere .

Um here are some hi res front and back of the camera that are packed in a pretty large (9 mb) zip file, if anyone feels like checking it out ...
http://www.mediafire.com/?5q4tsvdg0kutih4

Hmm, I guess I can go and order some IR leds and make my own lamp.

Thank you again for the help

You may be better off with the LEDs off as they could put an extra load on a small battery.

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Normally IR camera do not turn on the LEDs by default. There is usually a light detector somewhere that turns the LEDs on... when it's dark. I see a small hole in the case. Any chance it lines up with a photo diode on thew board?

Your camera could be broken too.

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Jim Frye, the Robot Guy
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I've always tried to do my best...

Actually the hole is for the microphone, and I tried it in complete darkness many times... I guess it's just broken..Oh well the camera works great and has perfect range. I will just make or buy a IR lamp.

Thank you for the help!

Since no one seems to carry a small (cheap) IR illuminator it took me a while to find one, but I am a little scared to buy it from this site...http://www.dinodirect.com/18-LED-CCTV-C ... -1-PB.html

I have never heard of the site, does anyone have any experience with it? I really like this unit though, it would fit well on the front of the rover (like headlights). Any advice/thoughts or other sites?

I have a place where i buy often. It does take a while to arrive (2week or 3week)

But... it's probably what you need. BTW they have complete camera too...

http://www.dealextreme.com/search.dx/search.ir%20light

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Eric Nantel
Qc Canada

Always liked Robot... Now i am learning to make some...! Wonderfull...

Cool thank you, whats with all of these cheesy names? "DealExtreme" and "DinoDirect", oh well I can now feel confident buying this thing, and they have the same thing with free shipping!

BGmicro below has individual IR LEDs and board kits. Unless you really need IR vision, you could just go to your local dollar store and get a visible 3 LED flashlight and use it with your project.

http://www.bgmicro.com/infrared_1.aspx

_________________
Why I like my 2005 rio yellow Honda S2000 with the top down, and more!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=pWjMvrkUqX0
http://youtube.com/watch?v=qfyRA-g1nhI
http://web.comporium.net/~shb/S2000video.htm

I really like the fact that the robot can see in the dark but people near it can't ... And I like the design of the one from "dealwhimpy" and "dinoindirect", but thank you

(Since this relates to what i'm posting I decided to just not start a new topic)

Today I hooked up my camera to my new jeep stereo like I planned too, I just didn't think it would work because the description of he stereo didn't say whether it had video input (and it was only $100).

Heres the video (sorry for the bad quality) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qzNgIx_fhU

I really recommend this to anyone, It is so awesome! I feel like I'm on a secret mission lol