Devoloping a internet controlled surveillance camera

Hello there.

I am new to these forums, and have only little experience with arduino.

I am devoloping a suveillance camera as the title suggests, and I would really like som help on what Stepper motors to use for controlling the movement of a webcam, so if any of you have some experience in this area, and know some cheap, but good stepper motors, please tell me.

I'll probably be writing for more help later, and hopefully be able to post the entire workprocess here later on.

Thanks.

Welcome,

Search the forum (upper right) and you will find several similar projects e.g. - http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,53909.0.html

The choice of motors totally depend on the weight of the webcam and additional gear (e.g. umbrella :slight_smile: So you need to provide more information what you want to build.

Succes,
Rob

If you were to use servos instead of stepper motors you could make a simple pan/tilt setup like below.

http://web.comporium.net/~shb/wc2000-PT-script.htm

Have you looked at the Foscam cameras? 80 bucks, wifi, does everything you want and more. They're all over ebay and Amazon. Cheaper than an arduino and an ethernet shield and far more capable. If you want to hack them they're running embedded linux and you can find instructions on the web for uploading your own code.

Have you looked at the Foscam cameras? 80 bucks, wifi, does everything you want and more. They're all over ebay and Amazon. Cheaper than an arduino and an ethernet shield and far more capable. If you want to hack them they're running embedded linux and you can find instructions on the web for uploading your own code.

Yes, sounds useful, but this is a school exam project, so buying a camera that does it all is not an option.

Servos instead of stepper motors? i think that'll be fine, however, i still need some directions on what to buy, the camera is a logitech C120, and its for indoor use only. (so far anyway)

I've already been looking through the forums, and googling a little, but it's hard to find out whats good and whats not. so, if you have some experience with some good servos or motors, please point me in the right direction.

Thank you

Below is the info on how I made the pan/tilt cam in the link I posted. It has been on line 24/7 for 6+ years (the servos do need replacing every couple of years). For small cams, cheap $5 servos will work.

http://web.comporium.net/~shb/ezservo.htm

Below is the info on how I made the pan/tilt cam in the link I posted. It has been on line 24/7 for 6+ years (the servos do need replacing every couple of years). For small cams, cheap $5 servos will work.

Now, what you've made here is excactly what im aiming at. Im just gonna read through your stuff, and i'll ask if i have any questions...

Can the Ezservo chip be switched for an Arduino?

From my tinkering the arduino can be substituted. Once the arduino is programmed, you will have to defeat the arduino auto reset using a 100 ohm resistor.

Hmm, can you tell me how i should connect the resistor?

And by the way, i tried the code from http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,53909.0.html but i have a problem with my arduino, so it didn't work, i saw you saying something about using the servo library instead, im not entirely sure what to do with this :S

Also, can you tell me a little about setting up the apache server, and actually running the page where i can see a picture from?

Thanks for the help so far :slight_smile:

You connect the 100 ohm resistor between the reset pin and +5v pin. With windows, just download the apache server from an apache mirror site and run the install. When asked if you want to run it as a service, select yes. The htdocs folder is the main folder where the html pages are placed.

You connect the 100 ohm resistor between the reset pin and +5v pin.

So there should be a direct connection between the Reset pin and the power pin, with only a 100 ohm resistor between them? i haven't used the reset pin yet...