This is a 16X2 switcher so it gives me plenty of room for expansion. While the cameras are nice, what I really wanted was the ability to pan and tilt selected cameras to change the view if necessary. I did quite a bit of searching and most of the pan and tilt mounts were more than I was willing to pay. I also considered building my own but, while doable, was more packaging than I wanted to mess with.
Click here to download the full size of the above Circuit.
I finally settled on the Ninja Pan and Tilt Camera Mounts from X-10. These are relatively inexpensive - I got my last one on eBay for $30 - and appear to be reasonably well built. The negative to these mounts, at least for me, is that they are controlled by an RF remote and the knock on them is that they have a pretty limited range. My cameras tend to be spread out and I wanted to control them from my home control system located in the basement so that didn`t seem to be a very attractive option. There are quite a few sites around the internet devoted to hacking these devices but most of them seem to be aimed at increasing the range of the remotes. There`s even a few where someone has replaced the processor in the Ninja with their own processor and custom code. Since my cameras are all hard-wired, I decided to go with a hard-wired approach for the Ninja as well and convert them to operate an an RS-485 network. That`s what this page is all about. As I mentioned previously, there is quite a bit of information available on the web and the most important piece of information I needed was the protocol currently used by the Ninja. I found the best descriptions on Ed Cheungs comprehensive home automation site (although the data was actually provided by Dennis Hawkins) and Dave Houston`s excellent web site. I also found all of the details of how the Ninja hardware worked on this site. This last modification consisted of replacing...
This project fits more for custom made battery casing that can have more space to hide things inside. This switch with few alterations can be used for any other project as well but is designed based on e-bike needs! This project use a clever functionality of....
The circuit described here uses ultrasonic oscillations and operates based on the propagation velocity of these oscillations in the air. Thus, we can easily determine the distance of two points if the time within which the wave travels this distance is....
Sometimes the precious metals are hidden too deep and are not detected except with complicated devices. In many cases, however, small pieces of precious metal buried near the surface can be detected by relatively simple means. Everyone is very attractive to....
Many times for various reasons we forget or can not water the plants that we have in our homes. And many humidity sensors units just notify us with a beeping sound or with a flashing light, that the pot needs watering. But what if we are away from home? This....
The principle behind a metal detector is really very simple. Proof of this is the circuit that follows, in which it proves that the construction of a metal detector can be done in the minute, with few components that we find very easily everywhere. With the....
The sub-harmonic bass generator is a sound producing unit for guitars. The sound it produces looks very much like that of the bass guitar. The octave generator is sometimes quite unusual since it does not produce any of the usual ways of coloring the sound,....
In the past the sounding (sea bottom measurement) was done with the "bullet", that is, with a heavy lead object that the seamen plucked into the sea hung from a calibrated rope. As soon as the "bullet" reached the bottom, the depth appeared directly from the....
This Amplifier was designed to have the following specifications: Distortion less than 0.1% at full power of 100W even at 20KHz. Power has to be attributed to an extended bandwidth. The output transistors must be protected against short circuits. The power....
A series of LEDs serve to alert the gardener when plants need water. Using two conventional digital integrated LEDs and a series of LEDs, we make a very useful device for gardening. The device detects the amount of water in the pot and alerts the grower.....
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