It's funny you bring this up at this time...I just built one! Keep in mind it is still a work in progress and many bugs need working out but here it is...
On ebay I found some stainless steel tubing that I ordered but a 5' stick that is rated for 20,000 lbs and this has a hole running thru it for very high pressure hydraulics. I am sure for a fee a ten foot stick could be mailed or picked up. This ran me but $30.00.
Below in the sub, I am going to have the John Wayne handles that can fold up and lock out of the way and a small car back up color monitor mounted where the view piece would normal have been. This monitor is but 3 1/2" n size.
I will somehow mount a small rechargeable power chair 12 vdc batter to the back of this lower periscope assembly for running the monitor and a small concealed 9 vdc battery for the camera itself. Both will have small toggle switches to power them on when needed.
The camera is a very small cube type and was $12.00 from China!
I fried the first camera while attempting to figure out just how to extend the interface cable for running it thru this long pipe...
If you get one of these camera's, it comes with a very short cable that splits at one point to become power, video, and sound. In taking this apart carefully, I found this junction contained a small line amplifier card for the sound circuitry and provided a strong junction point to separate these three functions. None short of God will be able to feed this line amplifier into such a small hole without problems...but take heart as better way has already been found!
On my second and successful attempt, I severed this interface cable 3/4 of the way down from the camera and within 1/2 of this junction point. I removed the plastic insulation for both ends of this cut wire and exposed but four wires. Seems ground is common to all three functions with power positive, video, and sound using the other remaining three. I stripped these four wires (black, white, red and blue) and after having fed a very small four wire cable thru this pipe, reconnected them wire for wire and used heat shrink to reestablish strength to this cable.
I took a chance that this line amplifier would work after such a distance and upon looking closer found this was not needed on the video signal as this input bypassed all electronics within this small junction card anyway. (I do not make use of the sound feature so simply omitted this after this junction. The video is not perfect and is not a great quality, but for collision avoidance it should serve me well.
In that the entire periscope is hard mounted together and it never changes what you see from where you aim and both power requirements move with the unit, one can do turns in a single direction all day long with no wire fouling. Bearings will always be relative to the boat.
The head of this thing I wanted to look as much as a real periscope as I could so as to give local fisherman something to talk about during bullshit sessions. It is a small aluminum enclosure that was threaded such as to be able to screw onto this stainless steel tube used for the periscope shaft. After the camera was installed within it as desired, I mounted plexiglas and properly sealed this against water leaks with goop and then painted the entire unit short a small clear viewing window flat black. I plan on a follow up painting of battleship grey in patches.
I will be attempting to mount this on my small ambient sub (forever under construction) so should be plenty high enough for my application in that this toy will be only 12 to 15' long. The strong pipe should bend in a collision but the use of some sort sealant as this enters the sub would negate the need for a cable shear and ball valve isolator.
If you wish, upon my return to work, I will provide several pictures of this upper periscope assembly. The lower assembly is still under construction and must be made to be taken apart at the time of installation aboard my small boat. I also have a second "raw" periscope head should you wish it. These are free being discarded material from my office. I hang on to items like this for ready spares and a good show of before and after sort of thing.
David Bartsch
From: ShellyDalg@aol.com
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2010 13:39:41 -0400
Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Periscope Camera
To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org
I have an idea for a simple periscope camera.
You all know I like having a ball valve on every hull penetration, but running a video cable through a hole presents a problem. I was looking at various types of cameras and came across some "pencil" type cameras. They cost about $30 and have a little memory chip in them. If it would be possible to run a cable directly from the camera to a laptop computer or video screen, then the small size of the camera makes it possible to just push it up through an opening into a plexiglass tube and rotate the camera by hand.
Here's a little sketch of the concept........
Not much detail in the sketch but you get the idea. I don't think the resolution on these little cameras is very good but it could be a simple way to look behind you and still have the ability to close off the chamber in case of a leak.
Frank D.
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