Maplin Car Rear-View Colour Reversing Camera - part 1

[Dave S]

I was browsing through the security camera section of my local Maplins when I came across this little fella. http://www.maplin.co...g-camera-508644

At £29.99 and promising a sensitivity of <0.3 lux I was tempted and bought one. Whilst only a .25inch cmos sensor probably one already in use in web-cams I still thought it was worth a punt. One feature, being the composite video output (no Usb here) might not appeal to some but as I already have a video capture device that wasn’t really too much of an issue.

I have noticed that there are some sensitive high-resolution cameras on the market and they seen mainly to be composite video output so this little device for me was an ideal choice for a first test.

The first step was to disassemble the lens assembly to expose the sensor. This turned out to be remarkably easy. The cover is a screw fit designed to be removed so the camera can pass through a hole drilled into a car body and then re-fitted to hold it in place. With the cover off the next step was to remove the lens assembly. The first task was to remove a layer of silicon sealant that surrounded the lens. This took 5 mins with a craft knife (safety – care required).

Once removed it looked like the lens was held with a screw thread so (bearing in mind I had no idea of the construction of the thing) I bit the bullet and took a pair of pliers to it. To my relief it was a screw thread and didn’t take too much force to unscrew the lens – phew!! As it turned out the lens assembly is also made of metal and so can take a bit of abuse.

So now I had a camera in three parts.

As you can see the whole thing is quite small and so very light.

The next step was to mount the sensor onto something so as to be able to attach it to the scope. For this I took a redundant 20mm cheapy eyepiece from a bresser skylux refractor i bought dirt cheap s/h for the eq2 mount it came with.

I already have several good quality 25mm ep’s which i use on a regular basis so it was decided that this ep should lay down its life for science.

The eyepiece had a screw thread internal barrel which held the optics in place so in less time it took to write this sentence I had the shell of the ep plus a pile of lenses and barrels.

The next step was to tailor the lens aperture of the shell so the sensor would fit into the eyepiece. This just took a couple of minutes with a round file. CAUTION – When checking the fit of the sensor make sure all the dust and filings have been cleaned off so as to avoid ingress to the delicate sensor.

Once the sensor is fitted and bonded in place and the metal barrel screwed on that was pretty much job done. The picture below shows the completed unit with a plastic ep lens cover for storage.

One side benefit is that the 20mm ep has a threaded metal barrel so my 1.25in filters fit.

The sensor runs from a 12v power source so I chose to use a Maplin solderless 2.1mm inner pin power socket that matched the power output socket from my power tank.

http://www.maplin.co...m-socket-390568

The entire device pictured below.

And fitted to my Skymax 102.

Well thats pretty much it for now.

Unfortunately it's pouring with rain tonight so testing is out of the question. But as the seperation distance of the sensor from the scope body is pretty similar to my Celestron Neximage I’m not expecting any focus problems.

So assuming the quality is similar to my Neximage I’ve just built a web-cam imager for less than half the price of the neximage. No special engineering skills were required and the whole process took about 30mins to complete.

Car reversing cam £29.99

Video capture device £25

Power socket £ 3.99

Tools: Craft knife, round file & some adhesive.

When weather permits I’ll post part 2 and we’ll see how it performs.

Cheers

Dave...

[The Sailor]

Nice to see a bit of astro DIY, did see this last week whilst trawling eBay but put it out of my mind I felt it was too small except for polar aligning. Now you have it Dave it will be interesting to see what you get, good luck. Oh, I think you overpaid on the three items, if I am going to demolish something it will have to be cheap

Jim

[Dave S]

Probably could have got it cheaper but it was an impulse buy

Dave...

[woodbob123]

Dave Which video capture device do you use? I have done something similiar but not as elegant, used some surplus and "found" camera's, so far only imaged the moon to show the grandchildren live tv. Bob

[Gina]

I thought of getting one of those for use as a surveillance camera but found cheaper sources.

[Dave S]

Dave Which video capture device do you use? I have done something similiar but not as elegant, used some surplus and "found" camera's, so far only imaged the moon to show the grandchildren live tv. Bob

This is the current Maplin offering which is the same same one but a different brand name on it.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/dvd-maker-usb-221190

Dave...

[Dave S]

I thought of getting one of those for use as a surveillance camera but found cheaper sources.

As I said it was an impulse buy.

Dave...

[The Sailor]

Not going to muddy the waters too much but I have had these a number of years and they work quite well, never a problem:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-2-0-CARD-VIDEO-CAPTURE-DEVICE-VHS-TO-DVD-CONVERSION-/180874960788?pt=UK_Computing_Video_Capture_TV_Tuner_Cards&hash=item2a1cfcdf94

Jim

[Dave S]

Looks good.

Dave...

[woodbob123]

Thanks all went for the e-bay option just to see how i get on with imaging, using it first on a celestron 4gt on a home made wedge.

Bob

[teleaddict]

I'm looking forward to seeing part 2 and viewing some captured images. I had a play with my modded xbox cam last night, but I would like something which produces better images. Fingers crossed for clear skies, so you can give it a good test drive. Excellent post Dave with a good step by step guide.