Technical specs for Northbay's webcams

This page has been long overdue for an update.  This version was composed off-site so lacks a few specifics.  Check back for revisions, probably in January '13.  Happy Holidays!
The home network - the broadband connection is DSL from the local telco. A recent speed upgrade required a new modem, now an AT&T ADSL 2+, otc at Best Buy. The router is a Linksys WRT54GS wired/wireless.
	Three cameras: lake, yard and indoor/outdoor thermometer Each cam is connected to its own laptop.  I bought three used Dell D600's here. They run legal copies of Windows XP, on auto update. The camera software is KabCam.  This package is easy to use but my version suffers from a memory leak if left to run for a long time.  So I run shutdown.exe /r once a week under Scheduled Tasks to force a reboot.
The Lake cam is a Philips SPC900NC.  Its CMOS sensor has remarkable sensitivity in low light.  Sadly, these are no longer available.
	The Yard cam is currently a Microsoft Lifecam.  Nice field of view and good focus, but not as sensitive as the Philips.
The indoor thermometer cam is now a Dynex cheapie, but its manual focus allows a close-up of the digital indoor/outdoor thermometer:
The battery back-up system
At our location in rural northern Wisconsin, the electric power frequently burps so we need a backup system to keep things running when we are not here to re-boot.		This is an APC XS 800 battery backup. It currently powers the Dell laptop for the yard cam..
The above photos show the battery power for the lake cam and the indoor cam. The modem, router, and  lake cam laptop are powered by an 800 watt inverter similar to the red Vector unit shown above.  The two marine batteries are constantly refreshed by a Minn- Kota MK210 shore-power charger.  This is a dual mode charger, giving up to 10 amps on demand, but dropping back to trickle charge whenever possible.  So, when the ac power drops out, the batteries have enough reserve power for an outage lasting 5 or 6 hours.  After the outage, the shore charger can recharge the batteries while continuing to power the system.
Updated: Nov 18, 2012		Click to go back to the webcam page.