After reading [this Slashdot Article], I decided to try the project and convert my Quickcam VC to an Infrared camera. As the article said, the Quickcam case is much harder to get open. I used a mini screwdriver and pried around the seam with no success until I found a little perpendicular groove. I forced the tip of the screw driver into this groove as was able to pry the case open. From then on, it was easy. Just unscrew the camera with an alan wrench, and then there was a little sticker that holds the current filter in. I puilled the old filter out. Used some old negative that didn’t completely block visible light. And then put everything back together. Presto. It works just like the article.
Picks up IR from remotes and shows the security strips on $US money.
There wasn’t else much to do, so I recorded [a few time lapsed] videos of the clouds with the IR detector, which look like a normal recordings with less saturated colors.
Then I took the filter out and experimented with other filters. I used the filter leader from 400 speed film and that worked just like his example. It only lets IR in. Which was pretty boring. So now I’m in the process of hooking the camera up to my telescope. I’m going to try some timelapsed video of the stars. Let’s see what happens…
Oh and there were some technical problems with the drivers. Since I got the QuickCam VC in 1999, it only has usb drivers that work with Win95/Win98. You go to Logitech’s site and they provide XP drivers for the parallel product but not the USB drivers. Luckily, I found the solution from a hacker on the web that already posted a solution to my problem.
