This Ring Camera Hack Helps Me Keep a Closer Eye on My Most Dangerous Tech

In medicine, the term “off label“is used when a doctor prescribes a drug for a reason or in a way that is not specifically intended by the manufacturer nor approved by the FDA. When doctors prescribe something off-label, it is usually But it’s because they think the drug will be successful in treating a condition that isn’t already being treated better than another drug.

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I’m not a doctor, and I don’t play one on TV. But as a technologist working on unusual or special-purpose projects, I often use electronics and software in off-label ways. that’s what i did Amazon’s Ring Stick Up Cam Battery, it is No Despite what Amazon intended for this product, it works really well.

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ring stick up cam battery

Battery operated ring camera that can be placed almost anywhere.

tracking a laser and the wheel of death

The off-label problem I wanted to solve was seeing my Gloforge Laser Cutter And Inventable X-Carve CNC While they were working to make sure nothing bad happened. After all, the Glowforge is a robotic laser — it shoots an actual laser beam — that burns through material to cut or engrave. The X-Carve is a robotic cutting machine that spins a steel cutter at thousands of revolutions per minute.

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Therefore. In one room I have a robot-controlled laser beam that can slice through most materials, and in another, I have a robot-controlled spinning wheel of death. My wife is very patient. I am very lucky.

In general, the best practice when using any of these machines is to stay with them while they do their work. That way, if something goes wrong, you can see it happen and shut down the robot. Unfortunately, being in the room with any of these machines is wildly unpleasant.

Even though I have a ventilation fan that blows the smoke right out of the Gloforge, the small room where it is located fills with fumes that linger long after the cutting process is complete.

And even though I have dust collection with the CNC, there are a lot of very fine particles in the workshop air that I don’t want to be breathing. Both machines are extremely noisy, especially with the add-on ventilation fan.

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Setting up a camera is the next best thing to being there. Through the remote camera, I can view these devices on my phone or computer. If there’s a problem, I’m just a room away.

why stick up cam battery

I thought about using a combination of Raspberry Pi and webcam to monitor my 3D printer, but I didn’t want all the extra wires (and the complexity of a few hours configuring a custom monitoring Linux distro). More to the point, Amazon sent me the first stick up cam battery camera Back when they sent me one of their Alexas to review, and it was sitting on the review shelf, waiting to be put to work.

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If that were the case, I probably wouldn’t have chosen the Stick Up Cam. But the device comes with a massive battery. Amazon claims that it can monitor the home for about six months on a single charge. It’s easy to take the battery out of the camera and connect it to any Micro-USB charger to fill it up.

It also comes with the Ring app, which allows for live viewing via a desktop browser or phone. While I didn’t need most of the Ring ecosystem features (like motion detection and two-way audio), the basic functionality and solid 1080p video quality were a win. Plus, setup was a speedy five-minute job, which is a huge win, especially compared to connecting a webcam to a Raspberry Pi and installing a custom version of Linux.

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But there was a problem: The field of view, especially at the bottom of the camera, wasn’t wide enough to see my dangerous little robot friends. I had to modify the camera.

Designing a Custom Camera Mount

I did a quick test with a piece of cardboard and found that while increasing the angle of the camera helped, that slight angle didn’t help nearly enough.

In order for the camera to fully see inside the Gloforge and see the bed of the CNC, I needed to tilt the camera 45 degrees. Unfortunately, tilting so high caused the camera to fall. So I needed to make something to keep it at 45 degrees.

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Since I was already working with a CNC and laser cutter, I decided to complete the desktop fabrication trio with a 3D-printed camera mount. i modeled in fusion 360 Using parametric values ​​(which allows you to easily change the dimensions) and recalculating and lofting the design (which creates a mesh between two objects, and is how I got Angled Swoop to work).

The design has three main features. There’s a tube on the left side, into which you slide the camera. To the right is a rectangular area where you can slide in a 1-2-3 block as a counterweight. If you’re not familiar with 1-2-3 blocks, they are inexpensive devices that measure one inch on one side, two inches on the second, and three inches on the third. They are heavy precision steel and have lots of uses in the shop and lab. I found for $18 for two from Amazon,

Here’s what the final mount looks like after it came out of the 3D printer.

The third design feature is a hook that lets me hang it up when not in use. It fits very nicely on my pegboard.

I’m proud I remember I put a hanging hole in it, no use if it didn’t work. Let’s see how it does.

Using stick up cam batteries to monitor my gear

This solution works really well. As you can see, it sits nicely on the corner of my Gloforge. Because the camera is both wireless and battery powered, there are no wires to interfere with using the laser. All I have to do is remember to move the camera so it doesn’t obstruct the opening of the lid.

It does a great job of monitoring the cut. Although you can’t see the actual laser beam cutting, here’s a screencap of the stick up cam’s video feed that was taken while the laser was burning through the plastic material. Trust me, if there’s ever a fire in the chamber, I’ll be able to see it — and act on it immediately.

I can see what’s going on without breathing in the noxious odor – and it’s with a custom ventilation fan venting it out. I can’t imagine how hard it is for laser users who don’t have external ventilation.

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Battery power is pretty good. The camera still had a battery level of 98% after 15 minutes of disconnection. This means I can probably do 20-50 projects on the laser cutter on a single battery charge (though, in practice, I’ll charge it when it gets below 50%).

Because this rig is portable, I can mount it on anything I want to monitor. Here is the unit sitting on my CNC.

so there you go. stick up cam battery Makes for a great surveillance camera, especially when combined with an affordable weight and 3D printed holder. If you want to make yourself, you can buy camera And 1-2-3 block Straight from Amazon. I posted the .STL file for my 3D design on Thingiverse so you can download it to free. 3D printers aren’t very expensive, so if you don’t have one, you might want to consider getting one for projects like this. Here’s ZDNET’s list of cheap 3D printers you can consider.

You can follow my day to day project updates on social media. be sure to follow me on twitter @DavidGewirtzOn Facebook Facebook.com/DavidGewirtzon instagram Instagram.com/DavidGewirtzand on youtube YouTube.com/DavidGewirtzTV,