Homebuilt ROVs Forum

I was thinking about using a car backup camera they are relatively inexpensive on amazon what are your guys thoughts

Well, why not. But you still have to make sure that it is waterproof.
I used a underwater fishing camera from ebay. It was waterproof, had built in LED lighting and a tether.

Best Wishes.

ErieWreckDiver

I am going to be putting it in a housing so that's takin care of thanks for the reply

A backup camera would probably work fine. I believe I have seen this done before. I would like to mention that decent backup cameras will mirror the image (so it is oriented correctly when driving in reverse), so you would obviously want to find one that does not have this feature. Board cameras are also a great option in a similar price range, and can be found in low lux variations for good performance in low light conditions.

Good luck!

Don't know I'm too late to help with input...

I intended to use a backup camera, but the one I bought includes a digital overlay of reference bars. No option to get rid of the overlay . I'll live with it until I get further along in my project and can replace it. I might even learn to like it, although it extends almost half way into the image.

Didn't think to check if the image was reversed - I don't think it was as I think I would have noticed during the short testing that I did. Must not have been one of the 'decent' ones .

On the other end, you can get cheap little backup camera monitors for the other end to display your picture. Both camera and monitor are 12V, so it works out nice.

Fred

Well, I got back to camera tests and found that the camera does in fact reverse the image. This makes the camera a no-go for me - need to start looking for another solution. Only way to make it work would be to feed it into a laptop and reversing the image through software, but I think that's only putting a band-aid on it.

So, anyone thinking of using a backup camera, watch for overlays and reversed images.

Fred