How to prevent sun damage to webcam?

[George Richardson]

Kevin,

Sorry but I need to hijack this thread.

I am concerned about the possibility of my public webcam being maliciously being set on the sun and burned. I don't know how long such an exposure would be required to damage a camera. I have seen fixed time lapse cameras that take sunrise every day.

The webcam video feed can be limited timewise but that would not prevent someone from aiming the camera and leaving the site. My concept solution is to call an independent program whenever the camera is accessed which would time out at just under the viewing time limit and send a command to the camera to "GO HOME".

If you think this idea might work, could you you post the necessary lines to call the small program, and the code in that program to, say, wait 5 minutes from camera being accessed and then send the home command in the form: http://<servername>/cgi-bin/camctrl.cgi?move=home.

As always,
Any help appreciated.

George

[WeatherBeacon]

George:

Hiiii ...... Jack!

You might want to post your question under "Weather Web Cams":

   http://www.wxforum.net/index.php?board=72.0

You can copy it and paste it there and then perhaps delete it from this thread. Just a suggestion.

Regarding your question, I don't have a web cam, so I don't know the answer.

Regards,

Kevin...

[saratogaWX]

Good suggestion, Kevin.. I've moved this topic to the Web Cams area .. back to your regularly scheduled programming

Best regards,
Ken

[kanewolf]

Depending on the camera, it may already have that capability.  My Panasonic HCM331A has that capability.

[George Richardson]

Actually, the question needs to be in a programming section because the part about the webcam only tells why I am asking it. My question followed a timer related question and answer concerning a refresh command after a variable length of time. Thanks Kanewolf but I don't think my camera has that capability. I've studied the 25 pages of programmable commands and asked manufacturers technical support but there is not an easy way. I just have to be creative.