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Web Cam to Wireless Digital Picture Frame Mod
Wireless digital picture frames have the ability to download content
from the Internet. These frames can display everything from friends'
pictures sent via cell phone, to Facebook updates.
In this video/post
I will demonstrate how to create a 'live' digital picture frame that
displays up-to-date pictures from a web cam.
As you will see in the video
I did this to be able to send live pictures of the sunset set to my
parents house, halfway across the world.
To do this all you need as far as hardware is concerned is a wireless
digital picture frame and a web cam. To the left and the right are a
couple of different wireless digital picture frame options. Both of
these can access FrameChannel content and should have no problem
becoming a 'live' digital picture frame.
Cheap Option:
Expensive Option:
Yawcam
On the software side of things you will need the program Yawcam. You
can get that here for
free.
RSS Feed Here is a link to a
template of the RSS feed I used in the video. Just unzip the file and
right click on rssfeed.html: Open With -> Notepad. (You may have
the click choose program -> Notepad) Once in Notepad search for ***
(three asterisks). In between the asterisks you will find a necessary
field. Have the URL of your picture ready and just paste it in over the
asterisks. Save and upload! Now just type in yoursite.com/rssfeed.html
and you should see a basic feed with one picture. Just copy the URL
(yoursite.com/rssfeed.html) and add it as a feed in Frame Channel.
Web Server
You will need a HTTP server. If you do not have one, you can look into
free hosting options.
Without a RSS Feed and HTTP server - All you need is Windows Media Player and a
digital picture frame that can access a Upnp Server
It is possible to do this if you do not want to use a HTTP server or an
RSS feed. However, your images will only be available as far as your
home network reaches.
First, open Windows Media Player and click on:
Tools -> Options -> Library -> Configure Sharing
In this window check "Share my media" and click OK.
Now go to your picure frame and have it look for Upnp servers.
Yours will pop up, but without any pictures. That is because you need
to return to your computer and you should have a message from Windows
Media Player asking you if you want to allow a device to access the
server. Click yes.
Now if you go back to your frame you should be
able to see the media folders in your My Documents directory.
The
next step is to configure Yawcam to create a file on your hard drive,
instead of upload a file to the internet.
First create a directory
in My Pictures. Next, in Yawcam click: Settings -> Edit settings ->
File -> Browse Now find the directory you just created and have it
save the images in there. Configure the Image array wizard as is shown
in the video. Click OK and next to 'File' click 'Enable'.
Now, at
your picture frame just open the newly created directory and select the
image. Thats it!
Other Ideas:
Text pictures to it from your cell phone: FrameChannel.com gives
your picture frame an email address. You, or friends and family can
send pictures to your frame from their cell phones by simply putting in
its email address instead of your cell phone number.
Show your friends' Facebook updates on your frame
Display recent posts to your favorite blogs on your frame
The Teaters: Christmas Party provided by the Judge
Yesterday we had a special outing to Hotel/Park sponsored by the Judge for Christmas. CLM, CLM Turvo, and the government orphanage were invited for a day of swimming, paddle boat rides, carriage rides, lunch, a snack, and Christmas gifts.
We were able to get a rented bus from the city to make one trip rather than several kombi trips. To make the day less chaotic, the CLM team split up the kids so that each adult could be responsible for just 2-3 kids. When we first arrived it was very overcast and chilly. So we started with some paddle boat rides and carriage rides. Within an hour, the sun came out and there were more kids than water in the pool. The smaller pool lost half of its water while we were there. After lunch they opened an inside heated pool for the babies. I took Maria Luiza and had a wonderful time in quiet, warm water. She has no fear of the water and just giggled and splashed the whole time.
We discovered a few more siblings of a couple of the CLM kids. One of the little girls met her little brother that she hadn't seen in a few years. Apparently the rest of her siblings have been removed because her dad took the little brother to a bar with him and gave him some to drink. This may help move her release for adoption. Pray that the process may be moving forward. Our CLM baby also met her two older sisters. They seem to have more fetal alcohol characteristics. Maria seems to be the cutest and most animated of the siblings.
As with Brazilian style, Santa Claus was about 2 hours late! The kids didn't complain about the extra play time and then received their gift from the judge. I would guess that 1/2 the bus was sleeping on the way home. We are thankful for the special time that the Judge provided for the CLM kids.
Why Solar Hot Water?
Heating water requires a lot of energy. For example here in Brazil we use
instant water heaters that are built into the shower head. To raise water by
45F degrees (from 60F to 105F) about 5,000 to 7,500 watts are required. That
is equivalent to heating your shower water with four or five microwaves
on at the same time! In America typical water heaters have 4,500 watt heating
elements (think 45 100 watt light bulbs on at the same time). Needless to say
with electricity costing 0.22 cents USD per kilowatt hour here in Brazil, there
is a financial incentive to find an alternative way to heat water.
Before I get into how I built the heater here is some basic information about
it:
It heats 80 gallons (310 liters) of water to 135F (55C) on sunny days.
It cost me $300 USD
I used PVC instead of copper to reduce costs
To increase efficiency I sheathed the pipes in the collector with glass
tubes made from old florecent bulbs. Click here to read why I
did this
It is a passive solar heater, so there are no moving parts - it relies on a
thermosyphon to circulate the water.
The solar collector is approximately 27ft2 (2.5 m2)
Sponsored Links
Building the Heater
The solar water heater consists of two basic parts, the hot water tank and the
solar collector. The tank is 310 liters (80 gallons), it sits in the attic and
is insulated with spray foam insulation.
The solar collector is made up of 1/2 inch and 3/4 inch PVC pipe and florescent
light bulbs. The collector is encased in an insulated box with glass on one
side.
The solar collector is approximately 2.5 m2 (27 ft2), the pipes that are
exposed to the sun have a total volume of about 18.5 liters (5 gallons), which
is equivalent to 6% of the volume of the hot water tank. (Meaning that if the
water circulates 16-17 times all the water in the tank will have been heated
once, in theory).
To make the plumbing part of the heater I bought 64 T fittings and with them
made 2 pipes, 32 T's each with the T's butt up against each other. Then
between the two I put a pipe that was just a bit longer than a florescent bulb.
To prepare the bulbs I tore off the metal parts on each end, then poked a large
hole in both ends so that a 1/2 inch pipe could fit through. (Click Here to read more about this step) Then I pushed a
piece of a sponge through a couple of times to clean out the powder. When I
was done I had a long glass tube. While I was taking apart the bulbs I used a
mask and was sure to wash my hands and cloths afterwards, since they contain
mercury.
Close up of the bulbs and pipes, The entire array, The solar collector in
the insulated box. Click for larger images.
The bulbs were painted black on the back side, and the pipes were completely
painted black. Then I closed off the ends of the bulbs with tin foil and a bit
of spray foam, since they are just used as a basic insulator its not that
important that they be air tight. The solar collector was lined with black
plastic, underneath were some Styrofoam sheets to help insulate the heater.
The Heater installed (before glass I tried transparent plastic sheeting but
it wilted in the heat), Installing the Water tank Click for larger images.
The panel was installed at a 35 degree angle and about 1 foot below the bottom
of the water tank. It is below the tank so that it does not act as a water
cooler at night. Basically, the cold water is already at the bottom, so it
should not circulate with the water in the hot water tank. Click here for more on how to connect it to the water tank.
On sunny days when the outside temperature is in the mid 80's the water heats
up to about 135 or more. Even on cloudy days the water heats up to the 90's.
The simple, but tedious way is to puncture them with a screw driver. Here's
how I did it:
First I tore off the metal caps, then I put a screw driver in the end and
wrapped a rag around. The rag is dual purpose. One, it helped protect me from
the mercury inside (I also wore a mask and did it in a ventilated area), the
rag also helped slow down the air as it flowed into the bulb. The bulbs seem
to have a near vacuum inside them, so when they are punctured the air enters
pretty quickly, and can propel some of the debris from the puncturing into the
other end and break it. The rag helps slow the air down. After the bulb was
broken on both ends I tapped out just enough glass so that a ½ inch pipe could
fit in I found G.E. bulbs to be the easiest to work with. Afterwards be sure
to wash your hands.
In the end the bulbs are just for insulation so they don’t have to be perfect.
They just keep the hot air around the pipe, and the ends are sealed off with
foil, which covers up a lot of the imperfections. Of the bulbs in my collector
about ½ of them have breaks or small imperfections. But it doesn’t seem to
matter, it still increases efficiency.
Method #2:
Here is a link to the other way to break open the ends. It isn’t nearly as
simple. I haven’t tried it, but it was published in a magazine so I am sure it
works. I found it with an article about a florescent bulb solar air heater.
It uses common items to build a glass cutter. From what the site says, it
should make nice looking cuts. Link to cutter instructions
Over flow - just a pipe that carries water out of the tank if the float
were to malfunction and it were to over fill.
Water Intake Valve. Just a pipe and float that fills up the tank with more
water as we use it, similar to what is used in a toilet tank.
Hot water pipe. This feeds the house with hot water. It is above the two
pipes that feed the solar heater so that there is always water in the solar
heater. This protects it from over heating if our water pump shuts off and no
water comes into the tank to replace the water we have used.
Return from Solar Heater. This pipe connects to the top of the solar
heater, and to the top of the tank, just below the pipes above. As the water
is heated it becomes less dense and rises. As it rises cold water takes its
place. So the hot water flows slowly through the return to the top of the
tank.
Supply to the Solar Heater. This pipe connects to the bottom of the solar
heater, it also connects to the bottom of the tank. It supplies the solar
heater with the cooler water that settles to the bottom of the water tank.
On mostly cloudy days the heater reaches about 90 degrees, on very cloudy and
windy days it wont
get above 80 and may only reach 70. So I came up with a backup. (Note: while
I have this
tested and installed, I actually have it unplugged to save electricity). I
bought a 'Bucket
Heater' that automatically turns on at 80 degrees and turns off at 110.
I suspended it inside the water tank so that it only heats the upper portion of
the water. I
assume that if it were resting on the bottom that the hot water would rise. By
the time the hot
thermostat measured 110, the water at the top of the tank would be well over
that.
After doing a lot of research on the internet, and a couple experiments I came
to a few conclusions.
While glass does block/reflect some of the light, it also creates an
insulating buffer. The benefits of the insulating buffer out ways the lost
light. This is essentially the same insulating concept used in double glazed
windows.
Since the temperature loss increases when the difference between the
outside temperature and the temperate inside the water heater increases, it is
better to heat a lot of water to 110-115 degrees, than to heat a little water
to 150 degrees. For example, if the hot water tank is at 150 and the outside
temperature is 80, there is a 70 degree difference and more heat will be lost
through the insulation than if the temperature difference was 30 degrees, and
the hot water was at 110.
Passive solar heating requires (as the name implies) no moving parts. As
water warms up it becomes less dense and moves upward, pulling cold water into
the collector. This requires no pump, making it very simple and energy
efficient, as well as there being less to go wrong.
A solar heater would heat the water using two forms of heat transfer,
radiation and convection. Radiation would reach at best 180 degrees of the
pipe, convection would reach 360 degrees of the pipe, doubling the surface
area. In other words, as well as trying to expose the pipes to as much sun as
possible, I needed to also trap hot air produced by the radiation around the
pipe to help heat it even more.
With this in mind I set out to design a solar collector. I priced copper but
found it to be very expensive. PVC was much cheaper, but it does not withstand
more that 135 degrees. This I found out not to be entirely true.
After some tests I found that the PVC pipe itself will withstand higher
temperatures without losing rigidity, however I assume that the fittings would
begin to fail at lower, but still hot, temperatures. I should also note that
the water pressure in the collector is very low, just as much pressure as is
created by about 2-4 feet of fall, others who had failures in their PVC
fittings had put their heater inline before their water heater, as a primer.
Unlike houses in the USA where the water enters the house already pressurized,
houses in rural Brazil have water tanks in their attics to create pressure. So
I figured that the max temp for my PVC would be higher than the standard since
I have sub standard pressure and will subject the pipes to much less stress.
So decided to go with PVC and to insulate the fittings from the temperature
inside the collector and protect them from sunlight. That way only the pipe
itself would be exposed to the sun light and the highest temperatures.
Since I wanted to try to keep the heat close to the pipes I decided to use old
florescent bulbs to act as a second glazing. The wind will cool the glass
panels that cover the solar collector, which in turn cools the air inside the
collector. The florescent bulbs act as another barrier. The trap in the
hotter air around the pipes and keep it from circulating with the cooler air
outside of the bulbs. In tests the pipes with bulbs heated up faster and to a
higher temperature than those without.
I recently found out about HDR pictures. Normally when you take a picture, of a sun set for example, the foreground ends up very dark, since the camera adjusts itself for the bright sun by darkening the entire picture.
HDR pictures are a composite of multiple pictures taken at different exposures. For example, if I were taking a picture of a sun set I would take one with a short exposure which would capture the colors and details of the sun set, but leave the foreground dark and blotchy. Then I would take a picture with long exposure, capturing the foreground but leaving the bright sky washed out.
After that the two pictures are run through a program (photoshop, or even some online services) and it creates one picture by combining the images.
It also is able to understand how the camera interprets color and is able to increase the color saturation in a natural way (or in an unnatural way, for example the picture of the tree). So you end up with a picture that captures the sunset with all its color.
Here are a couple of pictures I took using this process:
Click on a picture to see it in its original size.
It's taken us a week or so to get a video together and get it up on the website but here is Children's Day 2009 ...just hit "play".
Children's day is a national holiday here in Brazil, similar to Father's Day and Mother's Day. Sunday the church plus 50 some others from the community came over to CLM for a wonderful lunch and activities planned by the church. Sunday was also the opening day for swimming. The kids had their bathing suits on at 8 am waiting for the pool to be open at 3 pm. On Monday, we celebrated CLM as a family. Mike & Mary introduced the kids to street hockey which has quickly become a new favorite. Mike also put up a jousting beam across the pool which was thoroughly enjoyed by the older boys. Jake & I organized some water balloon games. We finished off the day with swimming and hot dogs and chips at the pool.
We praise God for these kids - that we can be a part of their lives and daily try to show them how special they are and how much God loves them.
We have been at CLM now for one week now! We are pretty much settled in with all the major stuff inside finished. It will probably be a few months before we get the outside of our house done. Jake is hoping to get the solar water heater up and running today so I can have hot water to wash dishes!!!!
We are really enjoying spending little times with the kids. Mike and Mary gave us a good idea. Jake & I are planning to have the kids over in small groups for dinner over the next couple months to get to know them better. We decided to have them over in the month they arrived at CLM. Our first group were siblings - Lucilene, Janete, and Elielton. They came in 2002 so we knew them from before. As a short-termer, I remember putting the girls to bed when they were just 4 and 7. It was nice seeing how they have grown and changed. We showed them pictures of when they were very little and enjoyed some good laughs together. 3 down, 29 to go. I can't wait.
On the downside, since CLM is on a farm and our house sits next to a field, we are finding all sorts of new bugs that think they are moving in with us. I added a really big bubble to put over the house on Jake's To Do List.
We are continually getting used to Brazilian culture. In some ways it already seems "normal". Some aspects that we really enjoy are the focus on relationships rather than time. We have had people stop at our house just to chat. Very few people give hand shakes when you meet. You get a lot of hugs and quite a few kisses too. There seems to be less of a rush.
We have also discovered some quirks in Brazilian culture so far. Everything shuts down at 11:30 or 12 and doesn't open again until 2. Several times we've been on our way to the hardware store to pick something up for the house...and realize we would have to wait a few hours before we could get anything else done. Gas stations can also close fairlyl early at night. If we would have waited just 10 minutes longer... we would have been a half hour away from the nearest gas station and not enough gas to get there. There are also moments when I feel like we are in a Flinstone episode. Also while we were driving, we past a man sitting in the middle of a new construction sight next to a big pile of rocks. He had a small chisel in hand and was carving the rocks into square stones. One last one that made me chuckle this week. I was helping a lady here with some English and she was asking me how to say different types of clothing in English. I came across one I hadn't heard before. In Portuguese, a tube top or strapless dress is called "Tomará que caia", which is to say "I hope it falls down". I think a man must have given it that name. Oh Brazil, How we love you!
Things are moving forward for us here in Brazil. Today I finished my third and final book
of portugues so my official language training is finished. However, I know learning
will never really be done. I look forward to continuing to learn and mold my speech until
I'm not suspected to be an American.
Our house is also slowly coming together. We have the little kitchen addition finished on
the outside and our bathroom mostly finished. We have started filling in the walls to make
them flat. It is quite a process. By filling them in we hope not only for a more pleasant looking room but also for a warmer
one.
Here is a picture of Jake filling in the walls in the family room. Hopefully by the
end of the week we will have the final "plaster" layer added so that it is all uniform. In
the next couple of weeks, our goal is to finish putting in new ceilings, paint, put tile in
the family room/kitchen, and install a solar hot water heater. Our goal is to move in by
mid-September and start full time ministry on Oct. 1. We are getting anxious to finish up
so we can really start our ministry. But we also realize that the slower pace, more lax
schedule will soon be replaced by a much more intense one but with amazing opportunities as
well.
This past weekend was absolutely beautiful. The weather was in the high 70's, maybe 80's
and so sunny. It has been so good to warm up. We took a hike down to some waterfalls,
Rappel, located about 10 minutes from CLM. There is a huge hill and ravine that you climb
down in order to reach them. (It reminds me of the hill that Princess Buttercup rolls down
in Princess Bride.) It is well worth the hike. The falls are so beautiful. We were able to
share them with Sonya Haring and her group from Columbus as well as the Stuber family from
Tremont who is adopting Nina (Elaininha) from CLM. It was fun being the one to translate
rather than to need the translation.
·Children's Day 2009 - Pictures and video from celebrating... ·Remodeling - While we were doing language training,... ·Short-termers - See what you could do as a short-termer...
