Hardware Hacking Projects for Geeks

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Part I: Basic Hacks, Tools, and Techniques

Reinstall the camera on top of the pole and reattach all of the wiring. You

now have a video periscope that will allow you a unique view of traffic!

Test out the camera assembly

Take the entire assembly out to the car, but do not attach the trunk

mount—you first want to see if everything works. Plug in the video camera

to the LCD TV set and plug the power cable into the power supply. Connect

the power supply to the 12V cigarette lighter and see if there is a video pic-

ture on the LCD TV.

Close the trunk of the car over the cables and connect the camera. Plug in

the cigarette adapter and look for video. Don’t go for a ride just yet—you

will need to check the weatherproofing at the enclosure and tighten all of

the tie wraps.

Adjust the Madol antenna mount to give you the view you want. It can be

oriented forward to get a peek at traffic up ahead, or backward to see what

(or who) is behind you.

Extensions

Once you have the camera working, you may want to experiment with dif-

ferent configurations. Here are four examples.

Multiple cameras

Multiple cameras can be attached

around the car. Simply purchase and

build additional cameras and hous-

ings and add a multi-pole switch to

rotate the power and video among

the different cameras. Figure 6-21

shows an example of how multiple

cameras can be connected.

Motorized mount ...