The Chevy Volt's backup camera is ok under normal lighting conditions, but at night if someone is parked behind me and has LED or HID headlights on, there's so much lens flare/glare/CCD overdrive/whatever that you can't see a blessed thing and it becomes nearly unusable.
Any suggestions for an expedient fix or a good aftermarket camera where this is less of a problem, if not possible?
Tinted rear window ???
-- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus
Nah, the camera is mounted in a little housing above the license plate frame.
Get a real car >:-} ...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson | mens |
| Analog Innovations | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| STV, Queen Creek, AZ 85142 Skype: skypeanalog | |
| Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I'm looking for work... see my website.
Thinking outside the box...producing elegant & economic solutions.
Sorry, my garage won't fit one of those aircraft carriers that someone stuck wheels on.
Exactly, seems these euro style cars have one big blind spot.
Plus swiveling the neck is good exercise.
Cheers
Nah, the camera is mounted in a little housing above the license plate frame. =======================================================
Piece of tint over the camera lens? Go to one of those places that tints car windows and ask for some little scraps to play with.
-- Regards, Carl Ijames
They would have to take away Biterex's Y chromosome.
-- Never piss off an Engineer! They don't get mad. They don't get even. They go for over unity! ;-)
Not man enough to drive one? I'm looking at buying a 20' box truck, and I've only driven pickup trucks, for over 25 years.
-- Never piss off an Engineer! They don't get mad. They don't get even. They go for over unity! ;-)
That's fascinating
The problem is the dynamic range of the camera isn't enough. Your solution is rather like gluing sunglasses to your eyeballs. It's going to decrease brightness in daylight and increase noise at night.
There is none to take away.
There's a possibility of mounting two or three cameras instead of one (they're available for $10 or so each), and fitting some with neutral density filters so they accept bright conditions. Cleaning the lenses will help, too.
But, realistically, if you were standing a few feet from someone's headlights, it's hard to see details like their fenders against the glare...
Just the photos in his purse?
-- Never piss off an Engineer! They don't get mad. They don't get even. They go for over unity! ;-)
Damn't Michael, You _must_ learn to be politically correct... the correct pronoun usage now is "s'he'it" >:-} ...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson | mens |
| Analog Innovations | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| STV, Queen Creek, AZ 85142 Skype: skypeanalog | |
| Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I'm looking for work... see my website.
Thinking outside the box...producing elegant & economic solutions.
You misspelled 'Excrement'.
-- Never piss off an Engineer! They don't get mad. They don't get even. They go for over unity! ;-)
Back when I got my first job in electronics about 44 years ago, the company I worked for installed video cameras around factories. One of the problems was a night, headlights would wash out the entire picture. This was in the days of vidicon tubes. One of the techs built a little circuit that would clamp anything above 1V to 0V. So a car with headlights coming at you just had two black circles on the front and everything else looked fine. It worked perfectly, it was really slick. I don't have a clue whether this is possible with the electronics of a backup camera. Mikek
What happened in daylight?
There are no (exposed) analog signals, so it's more difficult than that. There is also a problem of the carriers leaking from one cell to another so it's a complicated problem. More expensive sensors have a larger dynamic range but "expensive" and "automotive" don't go well together.
I've done some chip designs for controlling surveillance cameras... iris control was a section of the chip. ...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson | mens |
| Analog Innovations | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| STV, Queen Creek, AZ 85142 Skype: skypeanalog | |
| Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I'm looking for work... see my website.
Thinking outside the box...producing elegant & economic solutions.
Yes, it's possible. Most backup cameras run composite video. If the cable from the camera to the display is a 75ohm coax cable, it's composite video. The video signal from todays backup camera is exactly the same as what was produced by the vidicon.
Incidentally, you have the voltages backwards. +0.075v is white,
+1.0v is black, 0v is blanking, and -0.4v is sync. You want to switch anything that goes down to around +0.075v to +1.0V (and ignore the color burst at 3.58MHz). A simple comparator should do the trick.The modern version is an LPR (license plate recognition) camera. Some work as you describe by converting an overload to black as in HLC (head light compensation): Others have video compressors, that produce WDR (wide dynamic range) video. You still see the high level whites, but not with as much flare and glare. Overall dynamic range and contrast can also be improved with an auto-iris lens and switching from color to b&w in low light. Some of these operate by sniffing the composite video and might be retrofitted to a backup camera. (Hint: Watch out for the connector wiring. While everyone uses the same 4 pin molded or DIN connector, not everyone uses the same pinout).
I should be easy enough to add the circuit you describe into the composite video line of an existing backup camera. I couldn't find a patent for it.
-- Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.