Last Saturday, as 30+ wpsmb members hiked to the top of Thor, Wagga and I worked all day setting up the Olympus SP500 UZ camera to use as the newer web cam.

We drove over Thursday, and found the first Olympus camera, a C740, which Doug set up in the window of the hostel this past spring. Here's what we found:

 

We were planning on moving the camera up to the attic above this room. But I climbed into the attic, and checked out the wall and vent where it was supposed to go. The place was at least 110 degrees! In the summer, it would cook the camera. Not to mention if anything needed to be adjusted, it would be inhumane to go up there.

So after hiking Friday with the Ashcrafts, we came up with a new plan -- mount the camera on the wall outside. But then it needed to be protected. Mike McCormack in New Hampshire, who wrote the software we use to drive the camera and upload the pictures, has developed a nice box:


Unfortunately, it was too late to get one.

So... time to improvise. Fortunately, the hardware store, although small, is just a block away from the hostel. We lost count on the number of times we went there. The project took all day:
Creating/mounting the bracket.
Drilling a hole through the wall.
Setting up a different laptop to power the setup.
Creating a cover for the camera.

We actually used a fabric softener bottle for the cover.

Here is what we have now:

Camera mounted on the wall, and the cover
 

And the completed installation:


Here is the hostel. Spot the web cam...

That is Trail Bud's jeep in front.

Steve, did we get a photo of the ladder leading up to the penthouse?. A dozen steps & we climbed it dozens of times.

Nope. We forgot to take that picture. How many times do you think we climbed that one?

that is just CHOICE... I love the curly-Q bracket and the plastic bottle cover. You guys are rock'in. Handyman's UNION might have a few issues, but I think the results are awesome. Thanks for all the hard work.

If you want that camera cover box built, just send me over some dimensions or prints of what you want and I'll take care of it. Nice meeting you at the potluck.

Arthur

Arthur, Thanks so much for the offer. I remember you offered, and if we get to that point, I know who to call.

There are some other ongoing issues needing to be ironed out first, so it may be some time.

No worries Stevo, whenever your ready.

I love you engineer types...reminds me of the Apollo 13 situation where the engineers at NASA had a pile of weird stuff that was available to the orbiting astronauts to fix a BIG problem and did. I don't forget that there's more technology in my phone that what they had to get them to the moon and back. You guys rock!!

January 8, 2010:  Due to unfortunate circumstances, Doug took over all control of the web cam.  I no longer have access to the web cam or computer.

There is more info on the issues here.