How to Make Your Own Snapper CAM
What's Required

First of all, we are talking about a dedicated, almost always on, surveillance or promotional WebCam. If you just want to video chat with friends, read no further and check out the numerous Web Cam How-to sites.

BroadBand, Always Available connection
Not really needed but highly desireable. It definately makes things easier, more reliable, and much more practical. It also allows much faster snap intervals. Otherwise you need a modem and phone line that won't be busy during snaps and you'll probably have to limit snaps to once an hour or once a day or so. Chances are, you've got Broadband for a ton of other reasons. If so, you are in business.

A Network
Needed if you want to have an old PC used as a dedicated snap server. It allows the old PC to share the internet connection, allows you to remotely control the old PC w/o a keyboard, mouse, or monitor, and frees up your main PC for day to day tasks.

If you have broadband, you already have a head start because most use a Network Card to connect to the DSL/Cable Modem. A Router makes broadband connections easy to share as well as providing connections for other PCs. Normally you won't need VPN software to connect to the internet, it has it all built in.

An Old PC w/Network Card
Got an old PC in the basement that you replaced with your new one but didn't have the heart to throw out that piece of junk that was state if the art and cost you $2000, 5-8 years ago? Put that old workhorse back to work.
All you need is a PC that is young enough to run Windows 9x but too old and slow to be a practical everyday machine. Mine is an old Pentium 60 with an ISA 10baseT network card. For grins, I might dig up my old 8mb RAM 386SX and try it out. I did get Win98 running on it (believe it or not) with an old ISA Network Card. Slower than molasis in January but might take a snap interval of a minute or so. You need Win95 or better to have it easily appear on your home network.

Remote Access Software
Not really needed if you want to attach a keyboard and monitor to your dedicated Snap Server. This lets you view the Snap Server's screen and control it from your "main" machine. WinVNC is free and works pretty well. The older (and slower) the computer, the more sluggish the connection is.

A Video Capture Device
Hey, if it's an ancient PC, your best bet is the venerable Snappy.They are easy to find on E-bay for less than $40. It plugs into the parallel port. All snappys are physically the same, only the software that comes with it is different. Snappy 3.0 s/w is all thats needed for most snappy webcam programs. If this is to be a dedicated snap server, you'll want to get a 9v battery eliminator (wall wort) and replace the 9v battery with it. I use one from an old cordless telephone. It's rated at 9v, but puts out about 13v with no load. It was scary to hook it up at first, but it worked just fine with the snappy. Just make sure that you get the polarity (+ -) correct or it's possibly goodbye Mr Snappy. A parallel port card for the PC gives you an extra LPT port (or two) so you can run multiple Snappys or run a snappy and use the PC as a dedicated Print server at the same time.

If you have USB (or a USB card) for the PC, you can use Win98's (or later) built in Video For Windows capability (see below)

A Camera
If using a snappy, you need a camera that has a composite video output (RCA plugs that's used for TV's, VCRs, & DVDs). It needs to not automatically shutoff after a period of time. Composite video allows for long cable runs with little loss of video quality (meaning, the camera does not have to be withing 6' of the PC).

The heavily advertised X-cams use composite, but the quality is VERY poor, they need lots of light, and the wireless versions are unable to get a clean signal from more than about 20-30 feet away through typical house walls and floors.

The Wireless Xcam - Sure doesn't look like the advertisements

Camcorders are fantastic (great quality and they have zoom lenses for focusing in on your subject) ) if they don't automatically shut off and you don't mind running it 24/7. Used camcorders can be had on Ebay for a song, especially if the tape drive mechanism (which isn't needed) is screwed up. You take your chances with whether it has an automatic shutoff. I recently obtained a Sony CCD-FX700 Hi-8 Handycam for under $90 on ebay. Fully operational, too.

Some digital cameras put out a composite feed and can be set to not shutoff automatically.

If you have a choice, use a Camera with a CCD sensor as opposed to a CMOS sensor. CMOS uses little power (not usually a concern for WebCams) but require more light and the image quality is generally pretty poor.

There are webcams available that send composite video, but they are getting rare. Most use CMOS sensors.

There are lots of Spy Cams, Board Cameras, Bullet Cameras, etc, available on the web. IR Cameras (ones that automatically switch on IR LEDs when it gets dark) are really cool, but you cannot have them facing out a window because the window reflects the IR light back into the lens (Mine is mounted outside so it needs to be weather proof). Most of these cameras are small, and use CCDs. The video is pretty good, but is limited to the quality of the lens. A lot of them use BNC connectors so you'll need to solder on RCA connectors or get an adapter. Although generally smaller, they can't beat a used CamCorder for most applications.

If you a using USB, there are tons of webcams available, but you are generally limited to staying pretty close to the PC and you'll need Win98 or better.

WebCam Software
Pretty easy to find on the Web. I recommend Software that:

1) Takes regular snapshots during a specified period of time.
2) Automatically FTPs your snapshots to your website.
3) Can Startup and start snapping automatically with no user intervention.
4) Can handle various problems without user input/response
5) Can Datestamp your snapshots.
6) Can run multiple cameras at the same time (if you have more than one Cam)

I wrote my own software using Visual Basic. That way the price was right (free) and it did exactly what I wanted it to do.

A Website
Most broadband connections come with some type of free Web Hosting service. At minimum, the Website needs to accept FTP connections for uploading your snaps.

A WebCam web page
Tons of examples are available on the internet. Most use Javascript to automatically refresh the snapshot picture at the same interval that the WebCam is snapping them.

That's it! More on the How to set it all up later ...

Page Last updated 04/04/02