I plan to make a bird nesting box with a (USB) webcam built into it (so that my kids can observe the development of the birds without disturbing them).
I will need to extend the cable by about 10 metres, as the box will be high up in a tree and a little distance from my house.
I had planned to use shielded cable and solder and heat-shrink the joints.
My question: will extending the cable by this length degrade the signal to the extent that it won’t work?
It’s USB so the image data sent along the cable is digital, if that makes any difference.
Plus I’m also thinking about stripping the guts out of the camera and setting them in a block of cold-setting resin with just the lens protruding, to protect the electronics from damp and dirt, but is this likely to cause overheating?
Yes, the limit is 5 meters. I’ve been told that you can use USB hubs to extend the distance - i.e. you need a hub every 5 meters. They also sell USB extenders but they are more expensive.
Thanks, firewire has yet to become popular/widespread here in the UK (I’ve not seen any firewire webcams here at all), although I understand it’s a superior technology - I think it might be like the VHS/Beta thing all over again.
I may have to get just an ordinary camera module and use a video capture card, this does have the advantage that I can fit an InfraRed camera and some IR LEDs, which will probably work better in the gloom inside the box.
Firewire is widespread everywhere, you just haven’t looked for it. Every Mac and every Sony computer ships with Firewire. You can add a Firewire card for cheap, like US$50 to $75. Firewire webcams (like the iBot) cost a little more but they are higher quality and higher frame rate, and can have cable runs up to 100 ft. You can buy a Firewire card and the camera for cheaper than you can buy a video capture card.
Yes, it was like a beta/vhs thing, BillG did everything to squash Firewire that he could, but it became so popular that now it is part of the Windows spec, and is here to stay. USB 2.0 is the “Betamax” and will die out before it ever takes off.