What can I do with an old(broken-ish) digital camera?

[Dartful Dodger]

I was going through my electronics junk pile this weekend and came across an old Digital camera.
it's a 3.5 megapixel camera.  It can take 30 seconds of 320x240 videos and the display screen works, but the photos it takes end up all white with thin black vertical stripes. 

I don't care about fixing it, but I figured there must be something I could do with it.

Any suggestions?

[shmokes]

Mount it in your front door and use it as a digital peephole.

[Dartful Dodger]

Mount it in your front door and use it as a digital peephole.

That actually was the first thing to cross my mind.

I found a byo infrared camera page.  Even thought the page claims it's easy, I think my electrical skills will put the camera one turn of the screw away from a rubbish bin.

[shmokes]

I think my electrical skills will put the camera one turn of the screw away from a rubbish bin.

I'm under the impression that that is your camera's current status anyway.

[ChadTower]

You can record 30 second clips but can you output a real time feed to a monitor with it?  A lot of those cameras, if connected to a monitor in record mode, can act like a webcam.

[Blanka]

Turn it into a cat-cam 

[Dartful Dodger]

I'm under the impression that that is your camera's current status anyway.

Yeah, I want ti make a science experiment out of it.  The infrared modification looks like it would be a very short lived experiment though.

You can record 30 second clips but can you output a real time feed to a monitor with it?  A lot of those cameras, if connected to a monitor in record mode, can act like a webcam.

Not this one.  I lost the instructions, but I think they said it can only take 30 seconds because it saves to its internal memory card first before transferring the movie to an inserted card.  Which is why it wouldn't take longer movies with larger cards.


The cat-cam wouldn't work out either, since it's only 30 seconds, ...and I don't have a cat. 

I think I'm going to open it up and if it looks like the guts will fit into (on top of) a slot car I'll modify one of my cars to have an onboard camera.

30 seconds is about three laps.  If I set it to 160x120 I can capture 60 seconds with it.

[shmokes]

It takes 30-seconds of video, but move the camera around at a fast pace and look at what it does to your video.  Completely unusable.  It won't capture anything but an indistinguishable blur on a slot car.

[ChadTower]

You load an older 3.5mp camera onto a slot car and it might not move at all.  I don't think speed will be a problem.   

[Dartful Dodger]

You guys are bringing me down.

I've seen slot car POV videos and assumed I could do that with my road and rail track from the 60s.  But those guys were probably using cameras that were bought for that, and not cameras that were one step away from a land fill.

It'd have been funny to get footage showing a car being hit by a train from the car's point of view.

You're both right though.  I have an HO track and a couple of truck & trailers from the 80s.  I figured I could mount the camera to the chassis and put the guts of the camera on the trailer, but I think that'll be too heavy to pull.  Even if it could pull all that weight, with all the turns the video is going to look like butt.

The road and rail track is just on a sheet of plywood, I have a train set above my parent's garage that has scenery on it, I might be able to mount the camera to a train where it'll be less jolting and adjust the speed so that it doesn't blur as much.

And an accident from the train's POV on my R&R track will be less impressive but might still be entertaining.

[shmokes]

Just take it to an outdoor cafe and epoxy it to a table.  Then hide and watch all the people who look around to make sure nobody's watching before they try to steal it.  That ought to bring you some pleasure.  Plus you'll get to imagine the fit the manager will throw when he finds out someone's cemented a POS camera to one of his tables. 

[shmokes]

Funny for different reasons.  When you pick up a quarter you're not stealing anything.  You're just finding something.  When you look around and then grab a camera of a table, you're trying to steal it.  It's a whole deeper level of humiliation for the victim. 

[Dartful Dodger]

I saw the humor in it.  It's funny on a lot of levels. The guilt is the better one, but to take the camera would require the victim/culprit to plan the heist, they'll also be more disappointed to find out they're not getting a camera than to find out they're not getting a quarter.

If I actually ever do anything with that camera I'll end up keeping the guts and I’ll put the shell back together to set up a "sting".

I can use my good camera to catch it on video for you(tube). The gluing is a little too extreme though.  I'd just let the first person to take it, keep it.  Later when they think they got away with it they'll find out it doesn't work.

[ark_ader]

Attach it to a stick and use it to check for bombs/dead cats/plastic bags under your car. 

[psychotech]

Maybe turn it into an arcade machine...?

Try to find a suitable version of MAMED...

(An old build of Mamed -> http://caesar.logiqx.com/php/emulator.php?id=mamed )

 

[TOK]

Tie a string to it and lay it out on a busy sidewalk. When someone tries to grab it,  yank it away real fast.