bird boxes and the like

You might get away with having a white LED that is only illuminated between an hour after sunrise to an hour before sunset. The birds might be fooled into thinking it is just sunlight leaking into the box. Something based on a resistive photocell should do the trick. Good luck with that project.

I don't know but I gave up on watching my blue t*ts after dark because they're boringly asleep. Instead I drilled a large hole in one side of the box (away from the sun) and covered it inside and out with plastic from a milk carton. This let in a lot of light during the day an gave an excellent picture on just an ordinary camera. They didn't seem to mind.

They laid 10 eggs last spring, 9 hatched and one chick died. That left 8 young which fledged and left the nest.

You need to fasten the plastic and the camera very firmly and shield the wiring because blue t*ts suffer from attacks of sub-psychotic rage (I still don't know where the wide-angle converter went).

Incidentally, the nest box is occupied from New Year onwards at least so ideally a nest box should be in position from then.

Another Dave

Not sure about all birds in general, but the ones that have taken one of my sheds as their own get very upset when I go in at night and turn the lights on for more than an minute or two. Similarly when I accidentally leave the lights on in the day and go out to switch them off at night.

They all fly around there wildly. Not sure what they're trying to do, but it's quite discouraging for anyone intending to do something in there.

The nature shows on TV all seem to use infrared light for filming birds at night.

This is a good present idea for my mum or sister. How do you power it? What O/S image do you use? Do you find it needs much maintenance to stay online?

Hi Toby.

I power mine from an old (ie redundant) laptop power supply to deliver ~ 19volts down a length of 10A two core cable. The sort used for hedge trimmers or lawn mowers. I use such a high voltage and thick cable to compensate for the voltage drop of the longish runs to the garden.

At the camera end, this (highish) voltage is fed in to a buck dc-dc converter eg.

Initially I used raspbian wheezy then later I have been using raspbian stretch but have updated to buster over the last week or so. All the cameras are headless Pi Zeros connected to my wifi network.

The image capture is handled by "motion" which can be downloaded from the repository. Sorry but it's a complex package and does have a significant learning curve. However, once set up it just runs and runs and runs.

The only maintenance is the occasional wipe of the camera lens to remove dirt. I also have a few local scripts to handle image archiving and SD card space management. Mainly run from cron.

The images can be seen on your local network at :8081 or you can configure your router to pass it to the internet via a virtual server. I usually copy the last day's images to a laptop using rsync and view them there using the application pix.

If you want further info please let me know and I'll help as best I can. One day I might even put it on a web page.

Thanks for this, and the other comments. I have decided to try: Constant IR light as now. Plus white light that comes on at dawn and off at dusk as well as on for a few seconds when I take the hourly snap shot image. White light LED controlled via a gpio pin.

An alternative, easy to use, package is:

Another Dave

Very true, very true indeed but that package does not support usb cameras. I have 3 PiCams and 7 usb cameras. I like to use the same package on them all.

Have you seen this?

Erm. yes. You can see my name in some of the comments. :-)

Sorry. Didn't read it. It just showed up in my email.

Cool, so do I have this right: Connect the 19V across the inputs, then a large resistor across the outputs, and use a multimeter to watch the voltage drop across the large resistor while twisting the potentiometer with a screwdriver until it matches 5V, then replace the resistor with the Raspberry Pi?

staggeringly bad way to do it

read what he said. "this (highish) voltage is fed in to a buck dc-dc converter eg.

Or pick up one of the solid state DC-DC converters from eBay up to 22v input, 5v and up to 3A out, e.g.

They seem to be designed for lads wanting to bling up their cars with LEDs. I've been using one for two years now to run a Medion PNA in my glider, powering it off the main 12v supply. Never any problems: it 'just works'.

Pay a bit more and you can get a smaller, panel mount unit with two USB sockets: in its flush face. Cut a hole in a panel to match the converter diameter, drop it in and screw down the ring it comes with to mount it.

I find there is no need for the resistor.

There are probably as many solutions as there are people in this group. Personally I went for the variable ones because:

Happy new year every one and may all your projects work as well as you would wish.

I think perhaps I omitted some words and you misunderstood my meaning. et me rephrase:

Connect the 19V across the inputs of the buck dc-dc converter, then a large resistor across the outputs of the buck dc-dc converter, and use a multimeter to watch the voltage drop across the large resistor while twisting the potentiometer on the buck dc-dc converter with a screwdriver until it matches

Yes.Or alternatively buy a custom 5V only converter. Doesn?t need to be buck from 19v

These thongs produced in thousands to allow model avionics to work from a motor pack that can be up to 50V

That's what I like to see: thousands of thongs - not the Australian variety.

And the ability to produce 5V in erotic places is the killer feature