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The Tomato Cam |
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We have the first and only Tomato WebCam!! (As far as we know)
Welcome to The Tomato Cam, here you will find out information on how my Tomato plants are doing, how and why I put this site together and a little bit about other things.
Tomato Plant status as of 1720 on 10/09/2000
Tomato Seeds Planted : 16
Tomato Plants Germinated : 13
Tomato Plants That have died : 0
Tomato Plants that look like they are going to Die : 0
Plants that are not strong enough : 0
Plants in tray that are ready to go into Pots : 0
Plants planted out into the Garden : 13
Plants that have tomatoes on them: 13
Plants that are far too big: 10
Plants in Pots : 0
Weeds Germinated : 3
Weeds Removed : 3
See the Images it's almost interesting.
If the still images are not quite as exciting as you expected there is Movies page. You can see movies from each day so far, and a one long Movie of every day so far in one long file... See them Move!! It's nearly exciting!!!
After being away for many months I've been back and I am slowly uploading the iamges from the last time I was here. THese images are unsorted as I don't have my computer with the sorting software up here yet.
The Tomato cam will be going offline permanatly before too long. Winter is coming and when the plants have died this site will close. Better news is that a new Fridge Cam will start up. You will be able to look at the contents of our fridge and even see us taking things out.
As we will be getting a cable modem (or ADSL) those images will be live!! Not just uploaded when I have time.
New Movies are here!
Yes I've finally got around to making and putting up the new movies. They only took about 4 hours to make and another 4 or so hours to upload...
I've been having problems with the external camera. The camera gets power from inside the house via a step down DC PSU. This decided to blow up during the week due to the contacts getting too wet and corroding (See 20000604 towards the end for the images as it failed). I'm also making a watering system for the tomatoes so they don't dry out while I'm in Kent (I think we'll all agree that it's a little difficult to water plants when you're over 150 miles away...).
The fact that the other people who are staying in the house over the Summer do not have access to this system, does mean that this site will be updated far less regularly than it is currently. If you would like to be notified when something has changed send me some feedback asking to be notified.
Tomatoes are in the Garden!
Yes they are out in the garden, and the indoor camera has been moved so you can almost see them...
For those who want to know what we look like we have some images, we have a brand new image of James the landlord, and then there's Paul and me.
New Camera!
I have had the camera replaced with one that works. The stand is out in the garden, so when the plants go out we will be able to switch over with no problems.
The new outdoor camera has arrived. Testing of this camera over the last day or two (There has been a lack of pictures during this time) has suggested that the camera is faulty, I will be taking it back to get it replaced.
I've been home for Easter and so the Pictures have not been updated very frequently and the Windows NT computer keeps crashing so entire days are missing. Now I'm back the updates should be back to the normal weekly updates. We are also looking at ADSL or a Cable modem. These technologies are only just beeing sold over here in the UK. Cable has been here for a while, but ADSL is not going to be available to most until about June / July.
The Camera has Moved!!
As the plants grow we have had to move them into pots, and so the camera had to be moved so that you an see all the plants. The movie that shows all the days will be still be going, but we will now have a before potting and after potting movies also!
I appologise for the fact that this page has not been updated much, I had to go away for a few days and the software that Paul made has been being creative with the filenames. So until these things are sorted out somethings may not work the way they are supposed to...
You can see a blurred out of focus image of me looking at the camera in picture tomcam200003161612.jpg and Paul (He makes the software that keeps crashing...) in image tomcam200003161615.jpg and yes, we are leaning over. The seeds are on the back window ledge in the living room. They are next to my Multia, the point is, there is a chair in front of the seeds (so I can sit and use the Multia). This stops us from getting close to them as Paul put all his stuff on the chair in a very precarious manner, Happy??
Contact Me!!, or just send me some tips or information.
What is The Homepage? find out...
Coming Soon!!!
Semi-Live images of the Tomatoes as they grow!!
The FAQ.
Why do I do this??
I get asked quite a lot why I do this. Most people who see this or hear about it wonder if I either am a bit mad or if I just have too much time on my hands. Well the short answer is both. Well I did have too much time, when this was set in motion I did not have a lot to do, I don't have that much time now and so this site does not get very much attention (almost all of it is run by scripts all I do is start the uploads of the movies).
It started back before Christmas, I had a day when nothing happens, I was bored, and as I had not built anything for a while (about three weeks) and The Landlord had stopped me from rewiring the house with x10 stuff. So I decided to go over to Maplin to purchase something to play with.
Well Maplin had a sale on certain items, one of them was a pin hole camera (Maplin code PH87U). This was to be had for only £25 in the sale, and so it was sold.
When I got home I was not to sure what I was going to do with it, so I set it up pointing out of the window so that I could decide if I really wanted to answer the door or if I wanted to stay in bed more. Well this worked perfectly for quite some time, until the battery ran out, so It was repositioned on my screen so I could play with video 'phone software.
A few months later, I was eating my way through a second box of cherry Tomatoes when I realised exactly how much it was costing me, I decided to grow my own.
This is a much better plan in the mind than in practice. First off you have to wait for the plants to grow, and second you actually have to put some effort into keeping them alive. Anyway sometime later that day I was messing around with the software again and an idea started to form in my mind...
The Tomato Cam was born...
So How was it set up?
Take, two packets of tomato seeds (you don't need two, but I wanted two types of tomato),
One TV Card,
One seed tray,
One Power supply,
One propagator lid,
Some cutting compost,
Enough speaker cable to get from the camera to the TV card,
And the camera module. So mix these together and you will end up with a Tomato Cam. Simple!!
My Camera is held onto the propagator lid with Blue Tack and Sellotape. Not technical, but it works. The only other thing you would need is some good software to take pictures about once every 5 minutes. Unfortunately we don't have good software. We have Paul. I think the software will be ready for release about the time we finish the TomCam project.
Ian.
Last updated on