building your own trail cam

anyone here build there own cams. i have been for about 6 years now and i'm just wondering how common that has become.

I would like to know how to build them. I have seen a few made from old 35 mm cameras.

I looked into about 7 years agos but never tried to build one. One thing I liked about building one was the quality of the pics you could get by picking your camera. The new ones are just so cheap now and quality is better than it used to be. There used to be some website dedicated to building your own cams.

I have 6 homebrews in Pelican cases featuring the Olympus D380 with the BG1 boards. I've added solar chargers for unlimited battery life. They work flawlessly.

BUT....nowadays, cheap, reliable commercial units like the WGI IR4 and Moultrie cams almost make the DIY builds obsolete, IMO.

Here is a build your own kit site.
http://yeticam.com/Kits.htm

thanks for the site, might be fun just to try. Hard to beat the cameras available for the price they are today

Those are my thoughts as well.

I built one many years ago when self-built cameras were your only option. I haven't used it in quite a while because honestly, I just got bored with it. IMO, getting a snapshot of a buck you may never see just seems to take out the element of surprise that makes hunting more enjoyable.

I've made some hybrids so to speak. I purchased the cheap version of the wildview and added solar panels and a rechargeable battery. Looks kinda ghetto but with the lease 4 hours away, changing batteries regularly is not an option.

That's cool. It really is hard to beat the prices of commercial came nowadays but I'm still a do it yousekf type Guy. I love to make my own stuff for some strange reason lol.

I've built over 20 over the past 8-9 years with P32 and P41's with Snapshot sniper boards. Quit building them about 3-4 years ago. Just recently after thousands and thousands of pics two of my cams have had the flash boards go bad.

This below is true also;

"BUT....nowadays, cheap, reliable commercial units like the WGI IR4 and Moultrie cams almost make the DIY builds obsolete, IMO."

The quality and reliability of the homebrews is MUUUUUUCH better but you can't build them for the price you can get a basic these days. Many of the parts suppliers have closed shop becuase of it.

I have built 4 cams, all with the Sony S600. I can get up to 1400 pictures on one set of batteries (2 AA with 2 Cs for external). Try that with a commercial cam.

Only time will tell if my cams last for years, but the $100 commercial cams usually break within a year or two, and if one thing goes wrong (say, a burned out flash bulb), the cam is useless.

I just had a Homebrew done they are awesome I got my stuff at www.whitetailsupply.com bought a E70 Camera on ebay and had it all together for 170.00 and the pics are awesome if I new how to post them I would LOL!! Anyway I got tired of taking the store bought ones back or happen to replace after the warranty but with a home brew if somthing goes out you either replace the board or the camera simple as that. Also the guy at SnapShot is awesome!!!!!

I have built a dozen cameras with sony p-41 and s-40 cameras and Snap shot sniper boards. The P-41's get about 3500 pics on 2aa and 2 d batts and the pics and sensitivity are great.

Gary at sss is awesome, so is Daryl at wts. Come to think of it, all the suppliers rock lol

Might have to try one just for the hell of it