Anyone ever built U/W Drop Cam for bad vis?

[Coop]

Would appreciate it if anyone can guide me in the right direction for building a drop cam with lighting for poor vis conditions. Need to be able to reach 140' of depth dont have to be color. I dont want to "BUY" someone elses plans so I figured if anyone knows how, it is this group. I have been following the Canister light threads and appreciate them.
Thanks, Coop

 

[in_cavediver]

Would appreciate it if anyone can guide me in the right direction for building a drop cam with lighting for poor vis conditions. Need to be able to reach 140' of depth dont have to be color. I dont want to "BUY" someone elses plans so I figured if anyone knows how, it is this group. I have been following the Canister light threads and appreciate them.
Thanks, Coop

The first and most important questions should be:
Do you need a live feed or could you do a drop test and review the footage?

If you just need to be able to review the footage, you could pick up an el-cheapo video camera for a couple hundred bucks, and mount it in a homebrew housing of PVC pipe and an acryllic end cap. (think battery canister without the control or cord holes)

For ilumination, I would build one of the 'Instant' divelights featured in the Airspeed press book on divelights. (Or one of many described on this group).

All that's left it to fabricate the mounts to hold it together and your install your operating cable for raising/lowering the unit.

If you needed live video, you need to change you camera to one with an umbilical. If you use decent cords, you may get by without power amplifiers for the video signals. I would still keep the DC power local to the submersible unit to reduce the DC losses. (You really wouldn't want to play with AC for a 'cheap' design) and for a couple minutes of observation, any reasonable 12V SLA can drive your lights.

Mike

 

[Coop]

I need live feed to be able to pre-dive some areas that I normally would not have that much time to explore. I want to build something similar to the Aquaview drop cam.

 

[Genesis]

Any decent CCD camera should work.

The only issues are going to be the cable and housing. Not particularly difficult to solve either problem, I suspect......

 

[Bob3]

Check ebay for the CCD camera heads, you should be able to come up with an infrared B&W for $50, no housing needed even.
Just hook up some wires & tape it to a rock.

 

[Coop]

Yep, you guys rock! Ebay has them rated for 130' with infared.
Coop

 

[Bob3]

Yep, you guys rock! Ebay has them rated for 130' with infared.
Coop

Oh crap, I forgot to mention that I had a couple of closed circuit USN video inspection systems listed in the "for sale" section. [insert 'smackinng my forehead' smilie]
http://www.scubaboard.com/forumdisplay.php?f=101
A tad more than what you're needing though.