The necessary year of ‘No’

Burn out. It’s a relatively new word for an age-old problem. Apparently, burn-out was introduced in the 1970s and described as “the extinction of motivation or incentive”. We hear an awful lot about it at the moment and it seems the covid pandemic is big contributor to burn-out for many. I’m in the tail end of my third year of appointment to an Assistant Professor level position. I’m not convinced that the covid pandemic is…

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Making Raspberry Pi in the NoIR – Part IX – field testing

Not sure what this blog is about? Go back to Part I to find out. From here, I am assuming that you have a newly constructed Raspberry Pi unit in its plastic container with all the software ready to go. To fully test your camera, you will want to set up the router so that you can connect to the camera trap (the camera unit in the container) and tweak any necessary settings using your…

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Making Raspberry Pi in the NoIR – Part VIII – make the housing

If you don't know what this blog is about, go back to Part I to find out. By now you have a fully functioning camera unit. You have formatted the SD, built the Pi, connected the lights (for nocturnal use), tested the OS, made it all wireless and installed scripts for running your lights. The final step is to make the housing for your Pi unit. Get yourself some cheap plastic containers; the ones that…

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Raspberry Pi in the NoIR – Part VII – control the lights

If you don't know what this blog is about, go back to Part I to find out. You are almost finished. Let's recap. You formatted the SD card, assembled the Pi, connected the lights, tested the OS and made your connection wireless. Now, let's work out how to control those lights. Note: if you only want diurnal cameras you can skip ahead to assembling the container housing. Test the lights: Connect to your Pi unit…

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Raspberry Pi in the NoIR – Part VI – go wireless

If you don't know what this blog is about, go to Part I to find out. For those that do know, here's where we are at. You have formatted your SDs, assembled the boards, fitted some lights and checked the OS. Now it's time to go wireless! Reconfigure the Pi network settings: Unpack the router from the box and connect to power. Make sure your Pi is connected to the internet via an ethernet cable…

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Raspberry Pi in the NoIR – Part V – test the OS

If you don't know what this blog is about, go to Part I to find out. So, you have reformatted the SD, assembled the Pi and the lights to make it nocturnal. Now let's test the OS and install the motion detection software. Check the OS and configure: Charge up one of your power banks and connect it to the Pi board via the 5V micro USB. You will see a couple of small lights…

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Making Raspberry Pi in the NoIR – Part IV – assemble IR lights

If you don't know what this post is about, go back to Part I to find out. By now you should have formatted the SD card and built your basic Pi with camera. If you want to have a diurnal camera only, feel free to skip ahead to testing your operating system. There are two types of infrared (IR) light sources that I trialled for the nocturnal cameras. One good, which I detail, and one…

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Raspberry Pi in the NoIR – Part III – assemble units

If you aren't sure what this post is about, go back to ,Part I to find out. Alright, you have ,formatted the SD cards, now to assemble the units. Unpack your 3 B+ board so that the ethernet and USB ports face to the right of you. Take the small plastic cap off of the ribbon feeder. This is where you will attach the camera. See the images to the left for reference. Next, pull…

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Raspberry Pi in the NoIR – Part II – format SD cards

If you aren't sure what this post is about, go back to Part I to find out. First thing, I am using a mac which has in-built Terminal functionality. Modern Windows based laptops have this too, but you need to download it as an app first. That's as much help as I can offer on the Windows OS side. Any time I am referring to specific code that you should enter in Terminal I will…

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Making Raspberry Pi in the NoIR – Part I

A few months ago I started looking into options for recording insect activity around flowers. It sounds simple enough. It really isn't. There are quite a few things to consider. For example, what size of insect, what size of flower, weatherproofing, cost/budget, diurnal, nocturnal or both. There are quite a number of forums related to 'hacking' camcorders and handheld digital cameras. Some of these options priced out to about $150 ea and needed considerable 'hacking'…

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