Underwater Live camera

[likefry]

I plan on making myself a cheap underwater live camera I can drop off the side of a boat and have a look around.

Main purposes are for fishing or scouting diving locations.

The idea is to get a cheap webcam off ebay, some cat5 cable ( got 30m for $9 off ebay) and splice the USB into the cat 5 or buy an adapter as there only about $8.

I was going use some sort of tube with some clear acrylic or some other plastic on the end. Basically a budget home build I can whip up for less than $50.

I've read extending usb with Cat5 will be ok for a webcam but most likely slow ie only a few frames a second, which is fine for this purpose. I'll then plug it into a laptop and be able to see whats swimming down underneath.


So can anyone see any reason why this wouldn't work.

I've had a look around and the cheapest live tethered camera I could find was $500 and going up to thousands.

[Captain Starfish]

Hmmm

Nice idea, but...

I borrowed a mate's one (he got it at a garage sale for $10) and took it on the dive boat once. Absolutely useless. Unless you start adding thrusters you are completely at the mercy of any current, boat movement on the surface, twist in the tether line etc etc etc as to what the thing is pointing at. And you get a choice of too narrow a field of view (spend a day walking around looking through an empty toilet paper tube) or too wide - not enough resolution and fisheye distortion to boot.

It was a great theory - sounder spots promising ground, throw a camera down and take a peek to see if it's worth diving or fishing. But, in practice, it was a total waste of time and effort.

If you really want to have the opportunity to learn all this yourself, I'd look harder for a premade one first. I seem to remember seeing towfish style cameras for under a hundred bucks on eBay - but they weren't webcam versions, they sent back a proper video signal.

If you're going to DIY, be sure of the reasons you're doing it. Save money? No way - by the time you're done with forming a reliable seal, pressure testing it, getting buoyancy right, replacing bits that didn't work right and getting to about prototype 4 before it even gets wet, it will be cheaper to buy one off the shelf.

If you're going to DIY for the technical challenge or bragging rights, that's a different story. But be prepared for pain. Lots of it. PVC pressure pipe is a good way to go. Mechanicals of your face glass/perspex and cable gland and the seals of same will be the weak points in your rig. Remember that every 10m adds 1kg of force for every square centimetre - and make sure that the perspex can handle the load.

Plenty of stuff on the net on how to put this stuff together, but I'd seriously look at seeing if you can land one from fleaBay or the like.

Don't like being a neg head but I suspect you're about to repeat something I went through a couple of years ago and would like to save you the headaches and disappointment.

[likefry]

Hmm yeah actually looking around a bit I found this

Portable 50m Underwater Monitoring System CCD Underwater Camera & 3.5 inch Color Digital TFT LCD Monitor for Fishing C1-007-02-ET-359, Australia - DinoDirect.com

Should I or shouldn't I?

Looks pretty good and comes with its own lcd as well. Even though its smaller than my phone, most of the boats I go on have a telly on them anyway.

[Barfridge]

Listen the *fish, if anyone knows about tinkering in the shed, it's him. Some things work brilliantly; coffee cooler for use when roasting beans or his ghettotastic bead breaker, but there's a whole host of failed projects in there too.

[Captain Starfish]

See if you can borrow one from someone and have a go with it first, seriously. That's the kind of rig I was using and they just failed to yield the expected results.

If you're gonig to get one, though, that looks about right for something that comes with a screen.

:edit:

...but there's a whole host of failed projects in there too.

Fuck you, bitch there's not that many

[Wedge]

I was thinking of this project too.... However I was thinking of adding an attachment to a GO-PRO case, I.E hook a fish, person 2 clips the modified case onto the fishing line and it would drop down into the water guided by the line down to a split-swivel which should stop it going further hopefully taking some good footage of the fish below as it comes up. Or if it gets off the hook a chance to see what it was. The only issue I have with it is if the line snaps above, there goes $300 worth of camera...

[likefry]

I had a look at the go pro but to get live streaming video you need to have it connected and then it again raises the problem of sealing and having the cords going that far underwater.

[Wedge]

Oh I wasn't planning on having it tethered, though I see that's a requirement you want then. I was planning to bring it back up again to have a look on the model with the screen on it, or wait till later to watch it.

[=Stevo=]

Are there reasons a Bathiscope wouldn't be close to as good? Do you need to get up close or is it super deep or something? Or is the top-down/plan view making it difficult to discern bottom features?

[Jamathi]

Hmm yeah actually looking around a bit I found this

Portable 50m Underwater Monitoring System CCD Underwater Camera & 3.5 inch Color Digital TFT LCD Monitor for Fishing C1-007-02-ET-359, Australia - DinoDirect.com

Should I or shouldn't I?
Yes you should and you will not be dissapointed!
Had mine for 4 odd months and love it.
Not so good for trolling but looking arround on the bottom, YES!
plugs straight in my boat telly and brilliant pictures plus the LED's attract the fish arround the camera!


Looks pretty good and comes with its own lcd as well. Even though its smaller than my phone, most of the boats I go on have a telly on them anyway.

See inside your Quoted post!^^^^