switch on a camera every minute to take a picture

[jeffclist]

I'm attempting a 'diy sensecam'

I bought a cheap, **broken link removed** that I can wear around my neck, and I want to be able to have it take a picture every 30-60 seconds throughout the day.

Since it only uses one button to turn the unit on and take the picture, I figured the easiest way is to just attach a relay or transistor to the power button and have it send a trigger signal through this cycle:

1. On.. (wait 2 seconds)
2. Take picture.. (wait 2 seconds)
3. Off (hold for 2 seconds then Wait 30-60 seconds)
4. Repeat

What would be the best plan of attack here? A 555-timer? A PIC/arduino? Which would save the most energy?

 

[mneary]

The PIC 10F200 is more than you need... It's a 6-pin SOT-23A and works from 2-5.5V. Standard US$ single piece price direct from Microchip is $0.41. The SOT-23A chip fits inside 2mm x 3mm x 1.5mm; you would also need to turn it on and off. It's conceivable that you could send it coded messages using the existing switch in the camera, if there was room to hide the PIC inside. (If there was unused space inside the camera, no doubt the camera would have been made smaller )

A 555 would need a lot of external parts, and the smallest 555 I've seen is itself more than 6mm on a side and almost 2mm thick. Arduino would certainly do the job but it's three times as big as the camera. Neither the 555 nor Arduino would be able to use the camera's power.

You would need to learn how to program it.

 

[HarveyH42]

I've got a cheap keychain digital camera ($5), that I bought a while back for a similar purpose, but haven't gotten around to buying an SMD AVR chip to stuff in there. Arduino is a huge over-kill for this, would stick to a single chip. My camera has two buttons, but pretty sure it can be switch directly from the I/O pins. I'm looking at a motion detector, but the timing is similar to snap the picture. I keep putting this off, mostly because the camera's memory is lost, when the battery is drained, and haven't figured out how to prevent that just yet.