Playing with a wildlife camera

I'm tinkering with one of those tree-mounted wildlife cameras, the type that has a digital camera married to a PIR motion sensor. This is the Moultrie unit from Wally World.

I'm rather ffrustrated with it's apparent lack of sensitivity of the PIR sensor. There are no user adjustments for sensitivity (hey, it's a cheap model) but I'm wondering whether anyone else has used this model and what have your results been?

BTW I'm looking to capture photos of neighborhood wildlife.

PhotonWrangler said:

BTW I'm looking to capture photos of neighborhood wildlife.

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Sounds interesting, but just don't get caught looking in her window :tsk:



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JimH said:

Sounds interesting, but just don't get caught looking in her window :tsk:


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Ahh, nope. Only looking for squirrels, chipmunks and birds, thank you!

What's puzzling me is that it's supposed to be able to detect small critters, but it didn't even detect me until I was right in front of it. I should've remembered before buying it that the cheaper PIR sensors don't have much in the way of gain and signal conditioning between the pyroelectric sensor and the CPU. Thus for a low-gain circuit with a small fresnel lens, the sensitivity is going to be less than stellar.

Of course I would never consider opening it up to verify this

thats sad it dodnt pickup more them auto lights seem to have a good range and adjust ment maybe ya can excahnge it perhasp the senser is messed up?

raggie33 said:

thats sad it dodnt pickup more them auto lights seem to have a good range and adjust ment maybe ya can excahnge it perhasp the senser is messed up?

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Yep, that's what I'm thinking, Raggie. I'm trying a fresh battery again just to be sure, and if it's still refusing to take pictures then it goes back to WallyWorld and I'll look for a better one with a sensitivity adjustment.

also perhaps try to google the camera name and see if ya find good info it sure will be fun for ya once ya gt it to work also hide it from pople

This is the camera...

coundt find much info sory but it should for sure be able to sence small criters

Staring into the PIR window with the aid of my Dorcy 1AA, it looks like the plastic fresnel lens is centered on the active area of the pyroelectric detector, so I know what the problem isn't.

On a side note, I unscrewed the tailcap of the Dorcy to examine the condition of the battery, and I got a whiff of a really, really icky odor from inside the tailcap. Phew! It actuallly smells like an odor that you'd expect in a barn or a sewer. :green: I wonder if that's the thread grease.