First off, let me warn you, I’m always trying to do things on the cheap and I guess that you get what you pay for. I don’t have a weather camera yet but I have a camera mounted in a birdhouse ( http://www.weather.under-1-roof.com/birdcam.html ) that takes a picture every five minutes. It’s simply a cheap security camera, similar to one that you can buy at Sam’s Club for less than $40US connected to a $20US video capture card that I bought on ebay. I use Pryme freeware to do the capture and upload to the web.
I’m sure that if I tried to use such a cheap setup as a weather camera I wouldn’t get great results but I may give it a try if I can figure out how to set up a second camera in this computer. If anyone has any suggestions on how to do that I’d appreciate it. Thanks.
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Sorry can’t help on the extra camera hook up but…The bird house cam interests me. I may try putting one on my bluebird house. What are you using for a light source?
The camera has a built-in I/R LED light source. Supposed to be perfectly safe for the birds and it seems to do an acceptable job. The camera that’s in there right now is a b/w camera. The one available at Sam’s Club is color and has a built-in microphone for sound and I’m thinking about trying changing to that before nesting season begins. Hope this helps.
Yes, thanks. Going to Sam’s today and will take a look. BTW… I’m sure someone will be able to help you with the camera setup. There are some mighty sharp folks who hang around here and are more than willing to help.
Have fun at Sam’s. I don’t know how your Sam’s is arranged but the camera at the Sam’s that I go to is in the electronics section right under the other security systems. It’s in a big blister-pack.
I don’t know how this one will hold up in the heat and humidity of an Illinois summer but I figure that it’s worth a try.
Yep, I’ve found the people on this forum very helpful. Thanks, again, and good luck!
Is it possible to setup another camera, at a different location across town hooked up to a pc to the internet and have that data transmitted to the same site as mine as well so I get 2 different aspects of the weather???
You could use either another Install of WD, or other web cam upload software, for the second machine and webcam and just change the upload directory on your web server where the images are uploaded and then code the appropriate image into your web pages…
I have been thinking about doing something similar here only the second webcam would be more of a birdbath/feeder shot…
If you don’t want to do anything with the second camera but upload images, consider Dorgem, it’s open source and thus freeware. Very smiple, works great, easy setup. I don’t have the URL handy but it’s found easily through Google.
Another suggestion for a webcam with a built-in server and PT control is the Sony SNC-M3. It comes in wired or wireless models and works great. It includes software for scheduled snapshots and built in FTP upload. It is Pan-Tilt remote controllable, but no zoom on this model.
The great thing about going with a webcam with its own server, is it doesn’t need to be connected to a PC and you can put it most anywhere without wiring problems.
I have a powerline modem that lets me plug it into the local network anywhere I have an AC jack. After the weather warms up a bit, I’ll be moving the camera out to the garden shed. With the wireless model, you have even more freedom.
) solution would be “Fwink”