Wireless Blackflash Extender

[FIREMANJIM]

Thanks to Cameron (longnosedoe) for loaning me his UWAY VH200B to experiment with on this project. He will be pleased. This thing works GREAT!!!
Got to playing with this a few weeks ago. Wanted to build a wireless blackflash extender that can be added to a homebrew camera as well as a commercial camera. I found a thread on here where Roger (TCScout) had done some work with one earlier. So I took his info and started building on it. Here is a link to his thread:
http://www.hagshouse.com/forums/index.p ... opic=34448

So I started building on what he did. Had some PCB boards built. Man these things work great. Out to 80 feet it works 100% of the time. Adding one to a Homebrew is a peice of cake. No worries at all there. So I decided I wanted to add one to a commercial camera. I got my hands on a UWAY VH200B Blackflash commercial camera and cracked it open. Mounted the transmitter and transmitter board inside it. The UWAY VH200B works on a 10.5v system. So I found some positive and negative power points and wired them in. Next I had to find a power source that was only ON when the LED Array was on. Found that fairly easily. Wired it all up. So I programmed the Picaxe chip on the Transmitter board to turn on the negative side of the Power to the transmitter and to keep that power ON for 2 seconds. Then it takes away the power to the transmitter. All that is needed for my system is a single channel transmitter and receiver. Roger used a 4 channel transmitter and receiver in his project. Here is a picture of the Transmitter board:

Here is the Picaxe Code:
'Picaxe 08M2 chip
Main:
high 0
pause 2000 '2 second button hold
low 0
end


On Roger's system the 4 position dip switch was mounted on the camera with the transmitter. Well I did not want to put the dip switches with the transmitter inside a commercial camera so I devised some new code and new system so the dip switches that controls the Extender Array ON times can be inside the extender instead of the camera. I also used the VTT output on the receiver board instead of the 1 of 4 channels as Roger did. Essentially the VTT goes HIGH anytime the receiver receives a signal. So therefore a single channel transmitter/receiver can be used eleminating the need for a 4 channel set up. Here is a picture of the board in the extender:

Here is the Picaxe code, the times on this code and be easily tweaked to be used on any camera set up. These are for the UWAY VH200B set up:
'Picaxe 08M2 chip
SYMBOL SWITCH1 = PIN4
SYMBOL SWITCH2 = PIN3
SYMBOL SWITCH3 = PIN2
SYMBOL SWITCH4 = PIN1
DISABLEBOD
INPUT 1
INPUT 2
INPUT 3
INPUT 4
OUTPUT 0
MAIN:
IF SWITCH1 = 1 THEN
GOSUB TIME14SEC
END IF
IF SWITCH2 = 1 THEN
GOSUB TIME24SEC
END IF
IF SWITCH3 = 1 THEN
GOSUB TIME34SEC
END IF
IF SWITCH4 = 1 THEN
GOSUB TIME6SEC
END IF
GOTO MAIN

TIME14SEC:
HIGH 0
PAUSE 15000
LOW 0
GOTO MAIN

TIME24SEC:
HIGH 0
PAUSE 25000
LOW 0
GOTO MAIN

TIME34SEC:
HIGH 0
PAUSE 35000
LOW 0
GOTO MAIN

TIME6SEC:
HIGH 0
PAUSE 6000
LOW 0
GOTO MAIN


As you can see by the layout on the board and the programming on the chip Pins 1-2-3-4 all are inputs. They are looking for a HIGH signal. The Dip switches control which pin goes high when the VTT output goes HIGH. This works great!!! I learned ALOT while working on this project. Here is a picture of the Actual Wireless Extender Unit. I will post up some videos from the UWAY VH200B without the extender and with the extender tonight.

 

[TheLBLman]

Very impressive!
Tell us more when you can!

 

[doubledownranch]

You're like a mad camera scientist. Color me jealous

 

[BSK]

Wow! Can't wait to see how well it works!

 

[longnosedoe]

Cool. I am glad everything is going good. I like the uway camera and I am sure I will like it even better now that I will be able to really see the night pics. Thanks Fireman Jim and as I told you I am in no hurry for the camera. Keep it as long as you like for testing.

 

[BSK]

The VH200B is the one Uway camera I use extensively. I don't much like the NT50B or U250B.

 

[BSK]

FIREMANJIM,

Any idea what you've got in (parts/labor) that wireless flash extender? I'm just curious how much difference in price there would be between a homebrew and commercial flash extender.

 

[FIREMANJIM]

Not sure yet Bryan. I will try to do some figuring this weekend.

 

[FIREMANJIM]

Here is some test videos I done. They are of me. I could not get my local wildlife to cooperate.
This is the UWAY VH200B without the Extender. Just the camera flash alone.
http://youtu.be/sJ-hA8be1-c

Here is the UWAY VH200B with the Extender mounted 12 yards in front of the camera. The big log that is down is 23 yards (69 feet) from the camera.
http://youtu.be/N-XQVpiuc64

 

[Shed Hunter]

How about still pics? To me latency seems like it might be an issue because it is wireless.

 

[FIREMANJIM]

Latency????

 

[Shed Hunter]

Latency????

Lag. I don't really know how to explain it. I'm sure the device works great for still pics, but being wireless it seems like it might be hard to get the actual camera and the flash to line up.

 

[TheLBLman]

Yep, gotta watch out for that latency.
Wouldn't want a camera that was latent, or impotent, or anything like that.

 

[FIREMANJIM]

It all happens in less than 2/10ths of a second. No timing issues at all with either camera. I tested it with the camera facing the extender at 80 feet. Simply triggered the camera. When I pulled the card the pictures showed the extender on and burning bright. I used a constant current led driver so that eliminated any ramping. With a constant current driver the leds are either on burning at 2100mAh or they are off. The pulse width modulation led drivers the commercial camera usues ramps. Meaning they start out dim and ramp up to full brightness. This takes about 4/10ths of a second. Hope this explains things....

 

[longnosedoe]

I can see my food plot bright and clear already. Lol. Looking good.

 

[Good time Charlie]

Thats awesome Jim,

 

[FIREMANJIM]

Well did some more testing. Master Chief was worried about a "LATENCY" problem. Meaning in still pic mode or video mode there would be a delay in when the remote extender came on due to it working wirelessly. So I had to do a test to PROVE there is no issue with that so I put the UWAY in 3 pic burst mode wit the fastest delay possible being 5 seconds. Here is the results. As you can see there is NO DELAY and the wireless extender is just as fast as the camera itself. I did this test for over 100 series and it did not miss a single picture!!!! The first picture shows the set up for the test. The wireless extender is hanging on the wall facing the UWAY camera's lens.

Here is a series of pics. You can see on the bottom the picture count 1/1 2/2 and 3/3 This should prove "latency" is non-existent. As you can see in the pictures the LED's in the UWAY ramp up to full brightness. In the first pic the UWAY is dim and the wireless extender is full brightness. In pics 2 and 3 The UWAY reaches full brightness.

 

[Jaahspike]

Does anyone else think this whole thread is written in Japanese????

 

[DaveB]

The real intelligence here is configuring in your mind how the various pieces (there are more than one or two) are going to work together to create the necessary desired result. For example, using the one pole as a switch, creative would be an understatement. In order to accomplish this, you need to understand at a very low level how the pieces work. What FMJ does illustrates a very competent near genius thought process. For example the issue of latency arose and FMJ addressed it using math, logic, experience. Then, because latency could undo the entire concept FMJ conducted experiments, conclusively making his earlier deduction valid.

It makes for doggone great reading.