Stuff

Other interests and ramblings.

Weather cam details

The weather cam sits outside, facing close to due West.

I stripped down a Microsoft Xbox webcam and mounted the camera circuit board in an external floodlight enclosure. Using a floodlight enclosure is a cheap way to get a weatherproof external housing! I used a 400 W floodlight, but a 150 W lamp is much smaller! There is an additional shield over the camera to help keep the rain from the South-Westerlies off the glass. From the images, looks as though the camera can't cope with the afternoon Sun just into the left-hand side, so I may have to move it. The camera is still working well after a year with no maintenance, I have not even cleaned the glass.

Out of the box, the webcam has a USB cable with a pcb mounted connector. This meant I could easily pass the camera end of the USB cable through the gland at the rear of the enclosure. The gland would not fully tighten onto the cable, so when ready to make the final joint, I filled the recess in the gland with hot melt glue.

In the original camera housing, the camera board uses four green leds to give a green glow around the lens. I kept the leds on the printed circuit board to draw additional current and help keep the circuit board and camera sensor dry. This meant I had to take care not to get a green reflection off the front glass when mounting the camera board.

To mount the camera board, I cut a piece of plastic sheet to fit inside the floodlight housing, cut a hole for the camera lens and sprayed the sheet matt black. I fixed the camera board to the plastic sheet with hot melt glue (making sure the camera was the right way up when in the floodlight housing!), leaving the lens poking through the hole.

To prevent the green leds reflecting on the front glass, I cut a 'U" shaped hole in each of two pieces of very thin plastic sheet so the bottom of the 'U' was a tight fit around the lens. After spraying these sheets matt black, I fitted the "'U' shaped hole around the lens. The 'U' shaped hole in these sheets give an overlap on the joint. As these sheets are close to the lens and hot melt glue leaves a lot of "strings", I used superglue to secure the thin sheets to the camera assembly.

Before securing the camera assembly inside the floodlight enclosure, I filled the (large) volume behind the camera assembly with closed cell foam. Although this is not good from an ESD (electro-static discharge) point of view, the camera continues to work.

Finally, applying some Rain-X to the glass helps keep it rain-free.

As the software updates the webcam image through the night, I had hoped the camera would be sensitive to infra-red. Unfortunately, trials with an infra-red illuminator showed the camera is just not sensitive enough to infra-red. So, the black screen remains through the hours of darkness until I upgrade the weather camera.

Industrial archaeology

Industrial archaeology is an important part of our heritage. The nineteenth century was a time when many, including engineers such as Trevithick and Brunel, made important contributions to society as a whole and not just their own pockets (unlike many of modern bankers!). This was the time when the title "Engineer" meant something - when you next drive over the Tamar bridge, have a look at Brunel's Royal Albert bridge, carrying the GWR line into Cornwall - Brunel was proud to be an Engineer!

Image of Brunel's Prince Albert bridge, Saltash

This photo also shows Brunel's broad gauge line (the rails are supported along their length with occasional cross members, unlike modern railway lines). For more information on Brunel, see the IK Brunel portal

The Trevithick Society studies and preserves industrial archaeology in Cornwall, but has a world-wide membership.

For more industrial archaeology, I can recommend visiting Ironbridge, a fascinating museum.

Meditation

After along absence, I started meditation again using Take10, a series of daily, non-religious, 10-minute guided meditations from Headspace. Headspace is not a religious or spiritual organisation, their mission is "…to get people to Take10 minutes out of their day to sit in the here and now, because we believe it makes a hugely positive psychological, emotional, and physical difference to the quality of life of everyone who tries it". I think these differences are well worth 10 minutes a day. Give it a go!