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Conversion from laser to monitor using a hollowing system.

Joined
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I switched a couple of years ago. There are several paths one can follow depending on whether a computer or tablet will be used. Those can use usb cameras or borescopes. I did not want a computer device to be necessary.

I used a small Swan surveillance type camera, ~ 1-1/4” square and ~3/4” tall. It was ~$40 but is no longer available. I cut down a piece of square stock leaving a mounting square on one end and ~3” dowel that fir in the laser mount. 3m emblem tape has held the camera well. Just depends on the shape of the camera what you need to do to mount it.

I had an old flat 20” flat screen monitor with vga input. I found a signal conditioner, bnc camera input to vga output, with an internal power supply for the camera, camera rca power plug plugs in. ~$20 on amazon. There are all types of cameras and signal conditioners available - home surveillance is big business. For $65 and the monitor that was useless otherwise, I have a nice system. It is head and shoulders above using a laser

Pay attention to the lens. I forget all the stuff I looked up about fov and magnification, but I think my camera is 90 deg fov. The tighter the fov the more magnification it will have - just depends on what you want. The distance from lathe center to the lens also determines the size of the image. My magnifies ~3:1, which I like when doing thin walls.

There are several ways to represent the tool position on screen. I chose to draw up a target and color print it on a transparency. I have 2 sizes, 6mm and 9mm, for the bullseye, as I use those sized tools. The transparency is just taped to the screen, no drawing required. Pics below
 

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Joined
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Peoria, Illinois
All I did was remove the laser and add an inspection camera on my Jamieson system. I added a longer bolt in the holder to compensate for a slightly larger diameter on the camera. Cost me 15 cents for the bolt, $14 for the camera, $3 for two fine point white board markers, 2 sheets of acetate for free, and an ancient laptop for free. So $17.15 for me. I love it. 1/8" wall thicknesses are now common.
 
Joined
Sep 19, 2021
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Location
Odessa, TX
I switched a couple of years ago. There are several paths one can follow depending on whether a computer or tablet will be used. Those can use usb cameras or borescopes. I did not want a computer device to be necessary.

I used a small Swan surveillance type camera, ~ 1-1/4” square and ~3/4” tall. It was ~$40 but is no longer available. I cut down a piece of square stock leaving a mounting square on one end and ~3” dowel that fir in the laser mount. 3m emblem tape has held the camera well. Just depends on the shape of the camera what you need to do to mount it.

I had an old flat 20” flat screen monitor with vga input. I found a signal conditioner, bnc camera input to vga output, with an internal power supply for the camera, camera rca power plug plugs in. ~$20 on amazon. There are all types of cameras and signal conditioners available - home surveillance is big business. For $65 and the monitor that was useless otherwise, I have a nice system. It is head and shoulders above using a laser

Pay attention to the lens. I forget all the stuff I looked up about fov and magnification, but I think my camera is 90 deg fov. The tighter the fov the more magnification it will have - just depends on what you want. The distance from lathe center to the lens also determines the size of the image. My magnifies ~3:1, which I like when doing thin walls.

There are several ways to represent the tool position on screen. I chose to draw up a target and color print it on a transparency. I have 2 sizes, 6mm and 9mm, for the bullseye, as I use those sized tools. The transparency is just taped to the screen, no drawing required. Pics below
Thanks for the quick response and the information. I am waiting for the camera to come in. Hopefully once I get the camera in I will be up and running..
Rodney Quesenerry
 
Joined
Sep 19, 2021
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Location
Odessa, TX
All I did was remove the laser and add an inspection camera on my Jamieson system. I added a longer bolt in the holder to compensate for a slightly larger diameter on the camera. Cost me 15 cents for the bolt, $14 for the camera, $3 for two fine point white board markers, 2 sheets of acetate for free, and an ancient laptop for free. So $17.15 for me. I love it. 1/8" wall thicknesses are now common.
Thanks for the information
 

Roger Wiegand

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I used a "bullet" camera from Amazon that was a direct swap into my Bosch stabilizer. A $70 screen for a backup camera works great, I really didn't want something huge so a 7" screen that I glued a magnet onto for positioning works great.
 

Roger Wiegand

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This one, but the problem is that specific versions of these cheap Chinese cameras are usually only around for a couple weeks. Generically they are always available from Amazon or Ebay and the specs for focal length and other parameters are what matter. They all seem to work fine. You don't really want a wide angle camera for this application, I added a telephoto lens to mine to make it useful-- to let me zoom in the field of view.
 
Joined
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Peoria, Illinois
Interesting. I probably have all the equipment to do this. Can someone point me to info of how this works?
 
Last edited:
Joined
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Monticello, FL
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www.waltwager.com
I have started with a back-up camera (for a car) available from ebay - it used a rca video out, and required a 12v dc (low amperage) power supply. The monitor is a 19", $99.00 TV, from Walmart that has a rca video input (also HDMI if you are using a webcam). I now use a logitec 720 Webcam - it requires a usb power adapter. I believe the webcam has better resolution than the back-up camera.
 
Joined
Apr 13, 2017
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Location
Gainesville, VA
Doug Brinks (
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yITyIM6jjGQ
) makes a nice system with a quick setup. I've got a Jamison hollowing system and it was very easily adapted to my setup. As a larger issue, I used the camera system and it worked fine (and fun to play with)...however, I truthfully did not find it to be any improvement to the laser system that Lyle send out with his hollowing system.
 
Joined
Feb 26, 2019
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Lebanon, Missouri
Monitor placement - the video above posted by Donovan made me think about it. I happen to have a diametrically opposed opinion to Mr Brinks in the video. My monitor is mounted to an arm with a base having a 1" dia post, designed to drop into a hole in a desk. It happens to drop right into the outrigger "banjo" bolted to my Nova Galaxi. The mounting method is not really significant, but the resulting placement is to me. My monitor typically sits just to the left (operator) side and just behind the TS. I do not need to turn my head, only move my eyes, to look at the tool/work or the screen, and the axis of the lathe is front to back in the image, relating directly "in space" (and visually) to tool movement direction. Mounting the monitor at 90° to the lathe bed puts the image 90° out of phase with respect to the lathe. No doubt one will adjust to this orientation over time, but there is no reason to need to.

The monitor is a step in front of me, easy to draw on if need be (I use a tape-on diagram) and the wires simply go around the back side of the lathe, along with power cords for lights, etc. where I have a power strip to plug it all in. An advantage of the mount: very easy to remove the monitor and keep it in the house out of the shop environment when not needed. I do a lot of different things in the shop and don't want to worry about damaging the monitor. I don't use a pc in the system for that reason also.
 

Dennis J Gooding

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Doug Brinks (
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yITyIM6jjGQ
) makes a nice system with a quick setup. I've got a Jamison hollowing system and it was very easily adapted to my setup. As a larger issue, I used the camera system and it worked fine (and fun to play with)...however, I truthfully did not find it to be any improvement to the laser system that Lyle send out with his hollowing system.

I have a shop made system allows me to use either a laser or a camera/monitor. To me, the major advantage of the latter is that it allows me to see the exact orientation of the cutter bit relative to surface being cut.
 
Joined
Sep 19, 2021
Messages
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10
Location
Odessa, TX
Monitor placement - the video above posted by Donovan made me think about it. I happen to have a diametrically opposed opinion to Mr Brinks in the video. My monitor is mounted to an arm with a base having a 1" dia post, designed to drop into a hole in a desk. It happens to drop right into the outrigger "banjo" bolted to my Nova Galaxi. The mounting method is not really significant, but the resulting placement is to me. My monitor typically sits just to the left (operator) side and just behind the TS. I do not need to turn my head, only move my eyes, to look at the tool/work or the screen, and the axis of the lathe is front to back in the image, relating directly "in space" (and visually) to tool movement direction. Mounting the monitor at 90° to the lathe bed puts the image 90° out of phase with respect to the lathe. No doubt one will adjust to this orientation over time, but there is no reason to need to.

The monitor is a step in front of me, easy to draw on if need be (I use a tape-on diagram) and the wires simply go around the back side of the lathe, along with power cords for lights, etc. where I have a power strip to plug it all in. An advantage of the mount: very easy to remove the monitor and keep it in the house out of the shop environment when not needed. I do a lot of different things in the shop and don't want to worry about damaging the monitor. I don't use a pc in the system for that reason also.
Yes Doug I received the overlay file. Thanks for the information.
Rodney Quesenberry
 
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Jan 18, 2020
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Location
Bath, Maine
I had an old flat 20” flat screen monitor with vga input. I found a signal conditioner, bnc camera input to vga output, with an internal power supply for the camera, camera rca power plug plugs in. ~$20 on amazon. There are all types of cameras and signal conditioners available - home surveillance is big business. For $65 and the monitor that was useless otherwise, I have a nice system. It is head and shoulders above using a laser
I think that I'll try putting something together. I've found a small monitor and a bullet camera on Amazon, but I'm not sure what the signal conditioner is. I'm assuming that I can't just plug the camera output into the monitor input.
 
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Once you know the type of camera output connector, and type of monitor input connector, you should be able to find a signal conditioner. Not always, but usually the connector type is indicative of signal type. You might get lucky and have hdmi camera output and monitor input.
 
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I ordered my camera from Amazon. It is a BlueFish Cam Mini Analog CCTV Camera. The monitor is a Haiway 10.1 inch color security monitor. Purchased a Hi power 12V1A security camera power supply for the monitor. Needed to use a adapter for the video input wiring from the camera cable. Total price was $ 110.00 complete. The picture on the monitor is very clear. Need to set up everything up on the lathe and get to using the system.
 
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I ordered my camera from Amazon. It is a BlueFish Cam Mini Analog CCTV Camera. The monitor is a Haiway 10.1 inch color security monitor. Purchased a Hi power 12V1A security camera power supply for the monitor. Needed to use a adapter for the video input wiring from the camera cable. Total price was $ 110.00 complete. The picture on the monitor is very clear. Need to set up everything up on the lathe and get to using the system.
How did you decide between the 2.1, 2.5, or 2.8mm lenses?
 
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The BlueFish Cam Mini came with a 2.5mm lens and a 3.6 mm lens as a spare. I really did not give it much thought about the lenses. The BlueFish Cam was shipped from China. The delay was about 2 1/2 weeks. There are other cameras available on Amazon. This is the one I ordered not knowing it has to be shipped from overseas.
 
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Thanks for the info. I went ahead and ordered the same camera. It'll arrive in a about a month, so plenty of time to figure out more of the details. It appears to come with its own power supply, which I didn't expect. What kind of adapter did you need to buy (and why)?

If all that's needed is a way to connect it, my monitor should have it covered, I would think 20211007_133833.jpg
 
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@Allen Mattsen appears you have a choice of 3 types of video input - hdmi, vga, and component video. Assuming the camera has a bnc connector, there are converters/signal conditioners on amazon to hdmi and vga, for $20-$25. Using component video looks to be more expensive. IMO the video quality differences of the 3 types is completely irrelevant in this application - all will work just fine. Whichever one can be done the cheapest, including the cable from the converter to the tv monitor. If you had the rca video input like Rodney, you could use the same small plug converter he did, since your camera has a power supply. My camera did not come with a power supply, and the pc monitor I used only had vga input, so I needed a powered converter.
 
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I've found a BNC female to HDMI converter that is probably the route I'll go. $21. I believe HDMI is the best signal of these and can carry sound if ever needed. Plus, if I ever upgrade the monitor or use a TV as a monitor that's the standard.
 
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Does anyone have any input on which camera lens is best since there is also a 3.6mm lens option??
in general, longer focal length is better as long as the system will focus at the short distances involved here. You're trying to center up and concentrate on a relatively small area of about 4" x 5" or so from about a foot away. Wider angles don't help much in that situation. The Swann surveillance camera that I got several years ago actually has an adjustable (focusable) lens.
 
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I'm going to try a simple coupler to link BNC to my monitor and see if it works without a converter/device. Not sure if it'll work but I'll know in a couple of days. I got one BNC to Coax and one BNC to RCA. I want to see if there's any difference in picture quality if they do work as I intend.
 
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