Camera wires in tether.

[mrtristanplaysguitar]

I'm trying to figure out what camera to use and what wires and stuff.

I'm thinking this one:

http://www.sparkfun.com/products/8739

And I'll build a waterproof housing for it. But how do I extend the wires and connect to a monitor?
Is there a certain type of wire to put in my tether? and do i need special adapters?

Thanks

-Tristan

[HRife]

I plan on using cat5e cable and video baluns such as these http://cgi.ebay.com/2pcs-mini-CCTV-BNC- ... 2eacc49de2. You can send a lot of information over cat5e wire up to about 100ft with very little problem and I have heard people using it up to 150ft without any problems.

[mrtristanplaysguitar]

So technically with video baluns I could just use a pair of wires (not necessarily cat5) to transfer data?

Wouldn't using a pair of wires instead of coaxial wires reduce tether weight/diameter?

Thanks,

Tristan

[thegadgetguy]

Using a pair of wires instead of a coxial cable would definitly reduce the weight/thickness of the tether.

Most Video Baluns use the whole cat 5 wire(with the usual connector on the end, like you would use on a network) but that particular one does only appear to use two wires. If it does only use two wires, than you should have no problem substituting something else. Telephone wire would probably work fine, but you'd have to test it to be sure.

Hope it helps some. Best of luck on your ROV.

[mrtristanplaysguitar]

Using a pair of wires instead of a coxial cable would definitly reduce the weight/thickness of the tether.

Most Video Baluns use the whole cat 5 wire(with the usual connector on the end, like you would use on a network) but that particular one does only appear to use two wires. If it does only use two wires, than you should have no problem substituting something else. Telephone wire would probably work fine, but you'd have to test it to be sure.

Hope it helps some. Best of luck on your ROV.

So, using cat5 wires to transfer video only uses 1 pair. So with cat5 (4 pairs), you could connect 4 cameras to one cat5 cable. Providing you have 4 video baluns.

What I was wondering is, if I don't need all pairs of cat5 anyway (only one camera), can I use other wires (1 wire) instead? I mean, I might as well, the thinner the tether the better

[thegadgetguy]

It really depends on the video balun. I know somebody did an experiment on a video balun that supposedly used all 4 pairs, and it was only actually using 2 of the pairs for the video feed. If you were to purchase the video balun mentioned above, I think that you defenitly could run 4 of them on one cat5e wire.

To answer you last question, you should have no problem running it on a wire pair seperate from a cat5e cable. I think cat5 is generally 24 AWG copper (it comes in both stranded and solid types).

The BNC camera for our ROV should be arriving tommorow, although I'm still deciding what type of wire to go with myself.

[mrtristanplaysguitar]

Whats BNC?

Also, how are you getting power to your camera?

Tristan

[thegadgetguy]

BNC is just a type of connector that can be put on coxial cables. It's the type of video connector on the video baluns that HRife mentioned before.

For power, I am just going to put a 9 volt battery in the camera housing.

By the way, what type of monitor are you using topside?

[mrtristanplaysguitar]

What about AV Cables? I've heard of people using those too. Do you know anything about them?

For a monitor I'm using MATE provided monitors. I'll probably end up buying one that is similar to MATE's.

Tristan

[Never prototype]

I was told by the guy at the electronics supply store who seemed pretty knowledgeable to use coaxial cable because it is shielded from em interference. Though the only emi I would need to worry about would be from other signal and power wires in the umbilical since water kills rf very well. How does cat 5 cable insulate the multiple signals it is capible of from eachother or the outside efi?

Ps: coaxial usis a faraday cage to protect the signal wire. That wire mesh just under the outer coating, thats the thingy