Radio Control Varmint Control

Feb 15, 2009 43 Replies

I've been doing a little searching on the web and experimenting. There are youtube videos of mounting a video camera on a rifle scope and some videos using the IR capabilities of video cameras to make economical IR night vision rifle scopes. I saw a video of someone shooting rats that looked pretty neat.

I bought a wireless network camera and have it in my carport now. Saw a skunk coming up and getting into the cat food. Anyway, I tried and the network camera could see the IR from the TV remote, not sure if it has an IR filter or not. The thing I like least about this camera is that there is a lag between live and the image I get on my PC. I think it would be better to use some wireless cameral that transmits a video signal instead of network data.

I also tried my camcorder looking through my rifle scope and a red dot sight and that worked great. I wasn't sure if it would require a lens to focus, but it doesn't, just needs to be held aligned.

Anyway I was looking for IR illuminators on eBay and found some IR laser sights. They said you had to use night vision or a camera to see the dot, sounds perfect. I'm thinking that if I make my gun turret balanced or counter-balanced it shouldn't take much RC servo torque to aim it. I may experiment with something like a Gamo air rifle for now and later make a gun & camera I can use on an RC vehicle. I have a Traxxas E-Max 4x4 RC truck that could handle a small gun & camera setup.

Tonight my son bought a CO2 pistol from Wal-Mart for $31 and it says it has a muzzle velocity of 480fps and holds 15 BB's in the magazine. Sounds like that could be a possibility for a vehicle mounted gun. I kind of like the idea of shot filled 22lr, 38's, 9mm's, or 44's myself but the BB pistol may be a cheap, quick, and easy way to get started.

So far things are looking very do-able on this project, plus a lot of fun :-)

RogerN

I have ran across what they call First Person View (FPV) of radio control models. The basic idea is that people operate radio control models using a camera on the model and video goggles. Some use a sensor on the video goggles and servos on the camera, when the operator moves their head, the camera moves. That way you can operate a RC car, boat, submarine, tank, plane, or helicopter and look around by turning and tilting your head.

They also have camera switches that operate from RC that allow you to switch between 2 cameras. In my application, it would be nice to switch between an operator camera and a scope camera. It would also be nice if instead of just moving the camera, I could rig up servos to move a gun turret with view cam and scope cam. This might allow varmint drive by shootings :-)

This place has info and videos.

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Before long I'm hoping to order the camera, transmitter, and receiver. Later on I might get video goggles. On my dual stick transmitters I think I can throttle and steer with one stick and point with the other stick.

I bought a wireless network camera and have spotted 2 skunks stealing cat food with it in 2 days. It seems that every time I try to look at the network camera, it has to be reset. I'm not sure if it's a signal problem or something else. I'll try relocating my repeater and see if that helps.

RogerN

Why don't you rig one of the gophers with the camera, and put a little suicide vest on him? Then you can watch him go down the hole, or to show up for a gopher hoe-down, and blow up a whole pack of the little suckers at once.

If you rig him with a receiver and a speaker, you can even shout "Allah akbar!" just before you push the button.

You could make kits for the things and sell them through ebay. These should sell big in flyover country.

-- Ed Huntress

Nah, propane down the hole is more fun!

David

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