Raspberry Pi Trail Camera

[semasko]

Has anyone tried building their own camera using a Raspberry Pi or similar device like an Arduino? I would like to get into it because the opportunity to customize and tinker seems endless, but the learning curve appears to be steep. I just wonder if the process is more complicated and time consuming than its worth for the results, given how advanced modern trail cameras have become.

 

[Bbell12]

following...I code a little in python already so if it’s cost effective to do this, I’d be all about it.


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[CM]

I'm an electrical engineer and work with systems similar to the Raspberry Pi and Arduino all the time. I think it's great to get in and play around if it interests you, but there is no way you will come out money ahead (without mentioning time) of just picking up ~$50 ready to go cameras. Even if you get the Raspberry Pi/Arduino system to work (which is not a small task), the ready to go cameras are likely going to be MUCH better at battery life. You also have to think about things like packaging, weatherproofing, etc. It's one thing to get a Raspberry Pi/Arduino working on your desk, it's a whole other thing to expose it to the elements and have it work for any amount of time.

 

[semasko]

Thank you CM, that's kind of what I was expecting. I wanted to use one as a way to actually extend battery life by having a "box" on the ground with the board, and some type of large battery connected by a long wire to a small camera. I found some mods that enable the use of an HDMI cable to connect the small camera to a Pi, which is what piqued my interest. The idea was to have the actual camera be small and versatile while leaving the "guts" and the battery stationary.

 

[CM]

That might work, You would have to be careful with the cabling, and maybe put it in some kind of conduit or something, rodents love to chew through cable. What are you going to use for motion detection?

Another option is to take an off the shelf game camera, bypass batteries and hook in your own larger battery, you would have to make sure the voltages were the same. You could even get real fancy and put a little solar panel next to it to charge your battery.

 

[come2elmo]

Has anyone tried building their own camera using a Raspberry Pi or similar device like an Arduino? I would like to get into it because the opportunity to customize and tinker seems endless, but the learning curve appears to be steep. I just wonder if the process is more complicated and time consuming than its worth for the results, given how advanced modern trail cameras have become.

are there specific things you wanted to try that the off the shelf cams cant do?

 

[semasko]

are there specific things you wanted to try that the off the shelf cams cant do?

Yep, I explained it in the next two posts but basically just to make the actual camera smaller and more versatile while extending the battery life. This idea is not just for game animals, but smaller non-game as well so some thinking out of the box is required sometimes.

That might work, You would have to be careful with the cabling, and maybe put it in some kind of conduit or something, rodents love to chew through cable. What are you going to use for motion detection?

Another option is to take an off the shelf game camera, bypass batteries and hook in your own larger battery, you would have to make sure the voltages were the same. You could even get real fancy and put a little solar panel next to it to charge your battery.

I thought about the cable issue as well, and I think that might be the biggest one. I'm also concerned about bears ripping them down even with conduit. I've thought about solar panels too, but it would have to either be an open canopy or way high up in the tree to work. I'm not opposed to either but it's another process. I'm not too concerned about motion sensor as it will probably be better to shoot every minute or so, which is another reason why I wanted to have a bigger more permanent ground box to use an external HD.

 

[damxam]

In college I built a simple trail camera with a cheap IR sensor, and kids toy Disney digital camera all run off an arduino and a 12v battery. Fun project and I’ll bet even simpler with a raspberryPi as long as you don’t get overly complicated with features, but hey that’s where the fun is. These days you can get a trail camera so cheap that will have more functionality and quality than anything you could make for 4x the price

 

[sacad]

Look at the new microwave sensors $3-$5 incredible at sensing even 360 deg with distance and sensitivity much better then PIR sensors