I'm a frequent flyer to Fablab Leuven. For those who do not know what a fablab is... it is a worldwide concept. It provides material en equipment that will help you fabricate your own inventions and prototypes. Typically what you will find there are laser cutters, 3D printers, CNC mills, ...
Often it is overcrowded with people waiting to have there stuff laser cut. But January this month it was heaven on earth... Plenty of laser cutting time available. After finishing the things that I needed for my running projects, still nobody needed the laser cutter. So I decided to start up another project: a bird box with a spy cam built in...
I quickly designed the bird box with a hidden compartment for a camera.
Often it is overcrowded with people waiting to have there stuff laser cut. But January this month it was heaven on earth... Plenty of laser cutting time available. After finishing the things that I needed for my running projects, still nobody needed the laser cutter. So I decided to start up another project: a bird box with a spy cam built in...
I quickly designed the bird box with a hidden compartment for a camera.
The box is mainly made out of white birch plywood. Because I had not enough plywood, the upper compartment for the camera is made out of MDF. I wrapped the MDF with duct tape to make it a little bit more weather proof.
The heart of the bird box is a raspberry pi computer with an camera module. A raspberry pi is an extremely versatile and cost effective small and low power computer with programmable IO pins.
The heart of the bird box is a raspberry pi computer with an camera module. A raspberry pi is an extremely versatile and cost effective small and low power computer with programmable IO pins.
I choose for the raspberry pi because being a full features computer, I am able to program it 100% to my needs. I can use the camera module to record video, or to take pictures at the rate that I want to make a time lapse. I can process the pictures and video on the raspberry pi itself, and copy it at certain times to a NAS on my network. The raspberry pi can convert time lapsed pictures to an mp4 video format... It can stream live video to video stream hosters like Justin TV on Internet. No technical boundaries at an incredibly low cost.
This raspberry pi is connected via a UTP cable to my home network. Since I have a power over ethernet switch, I bought o POE splitter to provide the power for the raspberry pi via the LAN cable.
This raspberry pi is connected via a UTP cable to my home network. Since I have a power over ethernet switch, I bought o POE splitter to provide the power for the raspberry pi via the LAN cable.
The camera module for the raspberry pi comes in 2 versions. With infrared filter, or without. The one that is installed for the bird box is without infrared filter (Camera NoIR). Additionally an IR led is installed to "light up" the box, and a normal led that can be remotely switched on and off (or dimmed) to take color pictures or video.
The raspberry pi runs Arch linux. Several python scripts drive the camera and led functionality.
The raspberry pi runs Arch linux. Several python scripts drive the camera and led functionality.
The raspberry pi can be accessed from any Windows computer to view the pictures and footage. In time lapse mode, pictures are taken every 10 seconds. Every hour, the pictures of the past hour are converted to and mp4 video file. This is all done by the raspberry pi and does not need any other computer to be switched on.
For those who like to get more details on the setup, you can contact me via the Contact section.