FreeTrack Forum
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Dont be a NOOB like me and go TRY THINGS till you know what your doing!!
Heres the mistakes I made -bought lights that were NON Infrared Don't waste your time or money buying lights that JUST WONT WORK!! [EDIT-I see from other posts that some are using NON infrared just fine. But what I notice is that there is HUGE dependence on software adjusting which can be combersome if your not living in a black hole. In otherwords. you need to change settings constantly when its day, or night.] -Search this forum for the camera you are using. Try to learn as much as you can about the camera you are using before you break off the IR lens. I broke the wrong thing. -Only buy what you need. This is supposed to be a cheap version of TRACK-IR. 3dollar lights add up. Now heres what worked for me. SHOPPING LIST Software from http://www.Free-Track.net Shopped at Digikey [Honestly, I tried buying lights at radioshack. I went through MANY kinds. Do yourself a favor. Have patience and buy these, their cheap] 3X Infrared LED's Price = About $10.00 shipped. Shopped at RadioShack Enclosed 4 "AA" Battery Holder With ON/OFF Switch 10 Ohm, 1/2W 5% Carbon Film Resistor (5-Pack) 5-Piece Basic Soldering Set Price = Approximately $11.00 Shopped at Target Logitech C120 Webcam - Black or C200 Price = $20.00 on sale! TOTAL COST OF PROJECT = APPROXIMATELY $41.00 Other Supplies. Ball Cap Wire from bad christmas lights.  Electrical Tape Pen Tubes Rear computer slot fillin Zip ties Double sided foam tape Floppy disk or camera negatives to use as light filter CAMERA SETUP -Note: I broke my first camera because i didnt know what I was doing. the pics are different colors but the design of the camera is the same. What To Do. Buy camera. I bought the Logitech webcam 200,  Remove the rubber plug on the side, take out the screw.  Split the camera apart.  Unscrew the lens from the frame that sits on the circuit board.  Unscrew the backside of the frame from the circuit board.  Remove the red glass that is in the frame, It may break, just clean it out good. (thats the IR filter)  Cut out a small filter from the floppy disk or film negative and put it over the lense  then put the camera back together. NOTE: Do NOT remove the eye of the camera, this is the first camera I broke.  MAKING MY HAT I got my hat ready for my lights. drilled holes and ziptied!  Then I added some wire. Dry fitted.  Used 2 sided sticky foam to attach my battery supply. NOTE: This setup proves to be too heavy for the lid of the cap, But it was super easy to do and is good to just get going.  Then I saudered the resistors in line on the positive NOTE: See the diagram  Extended the negative side of the battery terminal with extra wire.  I covered the resistors with electrical tape and dry fitted the positive side then dry fitted the negative side.  Then I clipped the ends to get rid of excess wire where the lights would go.  Saudered the lights NOTE: See the diagram. -Be sure to check the lights for the positive terminal.   Use electrical tape to cover any connections to stop them from grounding.  Put all the lights through the pen holders.  DIAGRAM:  ADJUSTING SETTINGS TO GET IT WORKING SMOOTHLY restarted computer, set everything to defaults.  Stream/output size = 352X288 Stream/color space/compression = YUY2  Press START, Then adjust the brightness down to 0  Adjusted the threshold to the breaking point where the dots dissappear.  Manually adjusted the camera focus to get the dots bigger. NOTE: Dont make them too big, if they turn gray they wont work!  Then I set the exposure to -1  Notice the Green Dots!!
Join the -=UGF=- Teamspeak, I'm here to help. IP: 76.73.228.80 Port: 9987
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Join the -=UGF=- Teamspeak, I'm here to help. IP: 76.73.228.80 Port: 9987
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Join the -=UGF=- Teamspeak, I'm here to help. IP: 76.73.228.80 Port: 9987
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Join the -=UGF=- Teamspeak, I'm here to help. IP: 76.73.228.80 Port: 9987
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Hi, I am also agree with Devey1 that there are less failures as compared to youtube. I find a lot of help from here. Thanks for sharing
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 I ordered the same LEDs from the tutorial: http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&name=475-1470-ND I went to Radioshack and got the same resistors as the OP: http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062309&kw=040293114947&sr=1&origkw=040293114947 In the picture I point out where the flat sides are and which way the resistors are facing (not sure if those matter, but I did them exactly like the diagram to be safe). I painted in where I had the battery pack connected as well. My phone doesn't take pictures well enough to get a good shot of the soldering job I did up close, but I thought I did pretty well considering it's my first try. This picture is just something I found on google, but the connections on mine look as good as this:  I didn't know about pre-tinning the wires, but that couldn't be why m LEDs don't turn on, could it? New thought: Could the problem be in the wire that I'm using? Is there a certain gauge I have to use or something? Thanks for the reply by the way. |
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