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modifiable webcams

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Sceadwian

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Anyone have suggestions for an easily modified webcam? I don't want to spend more than about 30 dollars. The main modification I want is to acid dip the lenses to remove the IR coating, so all I'm really looking for is ease of physical deconstruction without having to rip apart fused plastic as I want to put it back together in somewhat decent shape. 640x480 res at 30FPS which is pretty basic for a webcam. The only problem is there area lot of them out there and I don't know which might be easier to take apart.
 
The 'SWEEX WC004' webcam might be worth looking at as an off the shelf solution, built in IR illumination and price driven down by mass production, here in the UK it retails for just under £8
 
If you get the right camera you dont need to dip it, usually the IR filter is right at the back of the lense arrangement. Just pull of the back of it and take the filter out!
 
The keyring camera from Digital Dream called L'Espion is another with a good low light capability extending into the IR end of the spectrum, the case is of the snap fit variety and yields to a screwdriver with a bit of brute force.

Cheap digital cameras / webcams to avoid... anything marked 'Oregon Scientific'
the cases are generally held together with screws and opening them up is painless but the image quality is awful (far worse than keyring cam) and the driver software unstable on WinXP. At least that has been my experience, I may of just had a bad one from the batch.

Like many night owls on the web I found that using a webcam after dark involved grabbing every desk lamp I could find to hand and burning my retinas.These days I use a Phillips CCD camera connected to the PC using a TV tuner card (its got a spare input for composite video). The camera came from a local pawnbroker franchise, I swear they must of thought it was a dummy one as it only cost me £5. Came complete with an adjustable C mount lens with auto iris and works a treat from just the glow of the monitor screen.
 

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