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The Crawlspace Tankcam

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the when-you've-got-the-inclination-you-can-find-the-time dept.

Saint Aardvark writes "Here's a page on the fun you can have with a remote control Abrams tank and a wireless video camera. "I really wanted a way to look for under house leaks and stuff and, in the manner of a responsible home owner, get early warning so I could increase the effectiveness of... Ok, that's a lie. In reality, I wanted an excuse to put a camera on my R/C tank and drive it around scary tunnels, and this just happened to fit my purposes perfectly." Movies included!"

3 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Holy crap, that's my site by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Am I correct in saying happy 1st birthday to your son?

  2. Interesting idea.. by WhatAmIDoingHere · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why not drag a power/control cable behind it? The battery wouldn't be a limitation and if it gets stuck, give the cable a light tug. Also, you would lose a lot of weight from the battery. You could upgrade the motor to the gun turret allowing a greater range than "down" and "slightly less down"

    I read a story about exploring small tunnels in the pyramids using things like this (not toys, but the same idea) and the people doing it were finding lots of neet stuff.

    --
    Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
  3. Infrared by null+etc. · · Score: 5, Insightful
    One thing I noticed during testing was that the camera had poor low-light performance despite the 6 infrared LEDs on the face, so I included a mini Mag-Lite in my plans.

    I have the same camera. The 6 infrared LEDs on that camera are inoperative. They only work on the black & white camera model, which shares the exact same housing. The circuitry required for infrared to augment an RGB display is much more complex than the circuitry required to augment a monochromatic display, and thus couldn't fit within the housing.