Dimmers and auto-iris lenses
I've got an odd issue monitoring the dog crate for my little bad-eyed Boodle. I monitor the crate with an auto-iris IR cam and therein lies the problem. It's very hard to tell remotely whether the light is barely dimmed or dimmed 90% because the autoiris compensates for the dimming. All you see when you hit the DIM button on the X-10 controller is a slight "flaring" of the image as the light dims and the iris open up. I thought sharpness might be a cue, but the auto-iris probably isn't an iris in the traditional mechanical sense. I'm betting it's electronic because as it adjusts there seem to be no corresponding depth of field changes.
The camera's got enough resolution to usefully image a 3" dial thermometer in the heated water bath along the side of her crate so I thought I'd get a solar cell and small electrical meter with a dial I could see via the remote cam and a potentiometer to calibrate lo and hi ranges. That setup would consume no power, but it's probably going to be hard to read. Any suggestions cheerfully accepted. In the meantime I'm going to search the junkbox.
-- Bobby G.
read more and respond »Posted 5 years ago by Robert Green in General Home Automation
