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Homebrew Discussion

backstraps

backstraps

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I have noticed homebrews are beginning to be more and more common.

It would be neat if TnDeer could add a forum for homebrew discussion...or a game camera forum.

FIREMANJIM on this site helped me get my feet wet, and I have not looked back. I did have to scale back a little. Once I finally got my first one done myself and in the field...and it had great results, I WAS HOOKED.

Now I have nearly 20 out, 15 projects in my spare room :)
GEEZZZ I got to scale back again! :) If anyone is thinking about getting a homebrew, or building a homebrew, you will not be sorry.

I was to the point I was going to purchase 2 reconyx cameras for this season (back in Jan of this year) decided to try the homebrews, and wow!
2 Reconyx v/s a small stack of homebrews.. choice is easy now. Dont get me wrong, if I were to ever buy another commercial cam, it would be a Reconyx, simply for their reputation and durablity, but then again, thats why I am homebrew'n now! :)

Oh and let me add one thing, if I were new to homebrews and wanted to buy one, I would for sure seek a "pro builder" rather than newbies like myself.
 
Im not sure we have enough traffic on it for another forum, theres not even alot here. I just had bad experiences with pro builders, Im sure they would have fixed the issues if I had contacted them about it, but when all the cams you buy from them leak, you just decide to do it yourself. 3 out of 3 leaking just sours you. The first homebrew I bought didnt even come with a seal in it, not a rope seal, not even the original Pelican seal. I didnt know that that wasnt right at the time, I didnt know the first thing abotu homebrews, so I just put it out and it got drowned. That tells me the guy didnt even care. I ended up redoing them myself and couldnt be happier. Never will buy another commercial or hb, unless built by myself. Anyway, I know all that may not be popular for me to say but it was my experience so thats that.
 
I have thought about building one. I just never really could find out how. I think I mainly just found bits and pieces here and there. I don't come close to having the time this time of year to spend a lot of time searching and reading.
 
It is a challenge to build one ,the hack is the biggest hurdle.
What a great feeling when you touch them wires and they do what you expected.
And the quality is not even comparible,I had one 100 yards in the woods from my drive,It picked me up every night I came home.
I could not believe it,but that HPWA is just awesome.
I have lots of stuff and plan on having more,I love to do this and I will continue to do so.
 
With exception to wanting or needing true black flash, homebrews are the best option imo. You'll typically get better quality pics, greater relability, and much better lasting value compared to commerical cams in the same or greater price range.

I'll even bet some experienced homebrewer like FiremanJim figures out how to adapt true black flash to a homebrew. Would seem that some how, some way, a black flash slave flash could be connected. Might be an eye-sore, but no more so than they are when used with commercial cams.

In the meantime, I see little difference in the response of most deer to traditional "white" flash vs. the "infrared" red glow flashes on most commercial cams. This is especially true if you adjust the white flash down a bit (may still have a greater flash range than the red-glow flashes). "Flashes" of light are experienced naturally by deer via lightning, so they are already somewhat conditioned to white light flashes.
 
I can not do a Black Flash YET....But honestly a homebrew IR with the 830nm IR material ocer the flash is dang near a Black flash. If you are not looking directly at it when the flash fires you will never know it was there at all. Just a faint dim flash of purple light.
 
Where do you guys buy your parts from and what would be the easiest one to build first,just to get my feet wet.
 
And where can you learn how, hopefully without searching the net for days. One thing I do like about IR though, it keeps people from seeing your camera flash and telling them its there.
 
TheAirMan said:
And where can you learn how, hopefully without searching the net for days. One thing I do like about IR though, it keeps people from seeing your camera flash and telling them its there.
Click to expand...

Airman, really there are a ton of videos on youtube... buckshot164 has alot listed on there showing how to...

As for supplies, here are some I use:

http://www.patrailcams.com/supplies.php
http://www.bfoutdoors.com
http://snapshotsniper.com
http://www.yeticam.com

When you buy cases, you can search Amazon, ebay, etc if you dont want to pay the cost from the homebrew suppliers.

There are ALOT more suppliers on the net...the listed ones above are the ones I have had success using.

Good Luck
 
One thing I prefer a homebrew vs a commercial cam is not having the REDGLOW

I had deer spook like crazy from the red glow, some even avoided the cam. I moved the cam and would catch the deer I wasnt getting at the original site... So I set up multible cams to see what was up... everywhere I placed a redglow cam the deer started to avoid that tree! No joke, the deer were getting their pics taken 40 yards away with a white flash and like FIREMANJIM stated, the IR homebrews didnt effect the deer at all!
 
fourwheeler431 said:
Where do you guys buy your parts from and what would be the easiest one to build first,just to get my feet wet.
Click to expand...

I think the easiest to build, and still have a good camera is a Sony P32 or P41 (cost of P32 is cheaper to buy camera)

You can hack that camera easily, buy a board you dont have to solder the leads into (snapshotsniper, yeti, bigfoot, etc)

Do some external batteries, first build, keep it easy and only do a 2 battery external (2 c-cells, or 2 AA batteries)

Keep it fun, and I promise you, once you build your first one, get pictures with it, compare the pics to what you are used to getting, you will be hooked!!

I am by far a builder :) I have built maybe 20 cameras, all easy cameras. Had the first cameras hacked for me because I wasnt careful enough, and broke some parts inside the camera, dropped solder inside the camera, etc etc, but dont be scared, just be careful and slow.

Once I took the advice from FIREMANJIM and stopped being messy, my cameras started to come together.
 
TheAirMan said:
What all extra do you have to do to make an IR homebrew. Where my cam would be, I would like to have IR.
Click to expand...

Doing an IR... the first one I done was a Sony P32.. I did the "scrape" method on the camera lens, and only extra thing to buy is a red IR glass. The red IR glass will cover the lens hole on the case. Again you can research this on youtube or the net and find it. Easy to do
 
Just beware that your IR will be IR all the time, unless you want to do either the exchanger deal from day to night, use 2 cams in once case, etc, which probably isnt beginner level. Thats what I dislike about IR in homebrews. Youtube and buckshot164 is your friend. One problem I run into with suppliers is that it seems there is no one that will have everything you need, I always end up getting a few things here and few things there, which gets you on shipping but oh well. There are some changes coming to my favorite though, bfoutdoors, but Im unsure what those changes are going to be.
 
Watch those ,flash caps if you do not know where they are you
will.. those things feel like a stun gun.I am not kidding either....
was hacking a L11 Nikon and it is unbelievable the voltage them little coolpix can hold,I had to lay my head down and slobber like a mad dog for about 15 mins.
Just be careful,you can drain the caps.
 
Darton man said:
was hacking a L11 Nikon and it is unbelievable the voltage them little coolpix can hold,I had to lay my head down and slobber like a mad dog for about 15 mins.
Click to expand...

I'm sure it wasn't funny at the time, but that is a mental picture that is too funny now! :D
 

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