gothika wrote:
On Mon, 21 Jun 2004 15:00:12 -0500, "jakdedert"
wrote:

Si Ballenger wrote:
On Sun, 20 Jun 2004 08:53:17 -0600, (Ken G.)
wrote:

A small security camera these days is pretty cheap .. forget the
camcorer .

Camcorder optics and low light operation are usually far superior
to what is available in most inexpensive security cams.

Not to mention that there are tens of thousands of them out there
clogging up the landfills, pawn shops and thrift stores; which can
be had for next to nothing.

jak

Right. While I have several of the "inexpensive" security cameras in
use I find the old video camcorder(old sony 8mm) that I wired up to do
much better work.
I made a metal watertight enclosure for it(lexan front panel) and
wired the controls into a canon plug assem.
Now it zooms in and out and I can adjust all the basic exposure
controls to get a perfect picture.
I mounted it on an old antenna rotor and and get a full 360 pan out of
it as well.
Had to do this to keep the crack dealers of my front drive and
sidewalk.
All in all I put about 15 buck into this project and got a camera that
rivals a 400 dollar setup from any of my local security stores.

Now...if we could find similar uses for all the TFT LCD displays out there
which are currently connected to dead or obsolete laptops, camcorders,
digicams, mini TV's etc.... If the manufacturers had settled on a common
display addressing scheme, someone could design a cheap universal interface
which would supply RGB, composite or VGA inputs to drive them.

I've got four or five displays in several such gadgets which are useless
without the aforementioned devices--which have all died--although the
expensive display is just fine.

jak