How To Remove Ir Filter From C270

First you'll need a webcam, small phillips screw driver, scissors or an Exacto knife, and some exposed photographic camera picture show. I found an sometime roll of film by digging around in a drawer, unrolled a pes or two of film, and hung it in the lord's day for a couple of hours to get it thoroughly exposed.

For this project, we started with a Logitech Quick Cam Express model number 960-000088 which we purchased locally from an part supply store for almost $18. This is a VGA resolution (640 10 480) webcam. For about ten to 15 dollars more, y'all can also select an XGA or 1024 ten 768 webcam to go a more than detailed picture show.

Here's what it looked similar out of the box:

The front cover is decorative and can be removed past gently prying at the slot on the top. Nosotros used the tip of a dinner knife blade, and the cover popped right off.

Logitech Remove Front Cover

A single screw holds the device together. It's located amidships on the right side every bit viewed from the forepart, and it's beneath a rubberized plug that needs to be removed. A fingernail suffices hither to accept out the plug, and so a phillips screw commuter will take out the screw.

Logitech Remove Screw

The same case half can now be advisedly lifted away.

Logitech Remove Cover Half

This image shows the circuit lath and lens associates removed from the instance. This is not absolutely necessary – the modifications can be done with the circuit lath sitting in the example half.

Logitech Circuit Board and Lens

Unscrew the lens associates past grasping the knurled portion and turning it counter-clockwise. Then gently pry out the infrared filter (reddish-bluish foursquare in the epitome) and apply it as a template to cutting a block out of the exposed movie. Fit the square of film into the space where the IR filter came out, and and so reassemble the webcam.

Logitech IR Filter Remove

We suggest that yous skip replacing the embrace over the lens assembly that fits between the case halves. This is in society to get access to the lens assembly for focusing if yous desire to try some exterior shots.

Information technology can be catchy lining up the snap-shot push button, the circuit board, the ability string, and the rectangular anchor for the swivel mount. Exist patient, and it will fall into place and snap together eventually.

By the way, equally a variation, if you have an infrared light source, you can make the webcam into a visible lite and infrared low-cal (day and night) photographic camera by leaving out the filter completely.

However, having the filter snugly installed prevents all visible light from entering the lens, so we tin can be confident that what penetrates the blackened film is indeed the non-visible, infrared portion of the calorie-free spectrum

Next: Trying the Camera Out

Trying the Camera Out

Now let's look at what nosotros capture from our inexpensive infrared camera.

This starting time prototype is a close-up of a blue and white striped shirt. The darker image at top is a bluish plaid true cat blanket. Because infrared reflects every bit from both blue and white, the strips announced to vanish.

Stripes

This paradigm shows a cable box remote control being pointed toward the camera from a couple of anxiety away in a darkened room. Notice that the two infrared LEDs are shown distinctly.

Remote From A Distance

Get much closer, though, and the brightness overloads the webcam's paradigm sensor. This will be a problem outside in bright sunlight, too, and some tweaking of the image controls in Logitech's supplied Quick Cam software volition be constantly needed.

Remote Up Close

Note that the Quick Cam viewer tends to give the images a bluish bandage that'southward not really in that location. In the following images, I've corrected for that by desaturating the image using the GIMP (Graphic Image Manipulation Programme). After playing around in the house, we took the notebook and the camera outside. Here's an infrared view and a conventional camera view (taken at the same 640 10 480 resolution) of an autumnal pecan tree.

Images

And looking outward onto a pasture . . .

Images

And at a couple of RVs sitting in the pasture . . .

Images

And finally, this spooky picture is me playing around with a remote control in my darkened part.

Spooky

My ten-year-old nephew Caleb helped me with this project, and we used it as excuse not just to fill up a part of a Dominicus afternoon, but as well to talk near ultraviolet, visible, and infrared light. This led to discussing the unabridged electromagnetic spectrum, microwave ovens, how television stations work, and how different frequencies propagate though different mediums.

So even though the images themselves were non astonishing, the learning potential for an inquiring young mind was payback plenty for me.

Thanks for reading this.

Nosotros hope yous are enjoying reading and learning at the new Vivid Hub.