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Selective Intervalometer (days, days of week, hours/min, intervals min/sec)

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Offline matt314159

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Re: Selective Intervalometer (days, days of week, hours/min, intervals min/sec)
« Reply #70 on: 01 / June / 2012, 16:31:52 »
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Quote from: reyalp on 01 / June / 2012, 16:22:37
FWIW, people who measured power consumption have reported that this saves very little power. When video out is on, the sensor and display output hardware still run all the time. If your interval is relatively long, you can use the cameras display off timeout to turn the display and sensor off after a short time. You may need to add an extra keypress to wake it up again before shooting.

I'm not concerned with saving power at all really.  This camera is going to be running for 60 weeks straight and I would rather just have the screen off during that time to save it a lot of wear and tear versus either a) being on 24/7 for 60 weeks straight, or b) having it turn off and on every five minutes M-F, for 60 weeks straight.   This way it's just "off"   I'll poke through the settings yet again to see about the display timeout feature (interval is 5 minutes) because that might be a good idea.  Then again I'm never sure what's worse on electronics--leaving it on for over a year straight or turning it off and on over and over for a year. 
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Offline kidtree

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Re: Selective Intervalometer (days, days of week, hours/min, intervals min/sec)
« Reply #71 on: 01 / June / 2012, 18:15:12 »
Good move, except that i would have bought a 1/8" plug from an electronics parts store and saved my cable.  One of these days I'm going to need my camera on supermacro mode hooked up to my TV to help me pull a sliver I can't see.
Will you run the camera off AC power or a big external battery?  I've been thinking I might want a big battery for a long project of some sort, and that if properly mounted, it would also stabilize my tripod.  The more mass, the better, in the tripod biz, as long as it's rigidly mounted near the camera.
I read somewhere -- maybe in this forum? -- that the point & shoot camera shutters are designed to last 10,000+ shots.  60 weeks of shooting a frame every five minutes adds up to about 12 times that life.  Are these cameras tougher than in previous generations, or are you expecting that keeping it in a sheltered, vibration-free environment will help extend its life?
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Offline matt314159

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Re: Selective Intervalometer (days, days of week, hours/min, intervals min/sec)
« Reply #72 on: 01 / June / 2012, 18:39:45 »
Quote from: kidtree on 01 / June / 2012, 18:15:12
Good move, except that i would have bought a 1/8" plug from an electronics parts store and saved my cable.
The cable that came with the S90 was a goofy bastardization of miniUSB for its composite AV.  We bought this camera solely for the purpose of this project so I didn't mind sacrificing the cable. 

Quote from: kidtree on 01 / June / 2012, 18:15:12
Will you run the camera off AC power or a big external battery?  I've been thinking I might want a big battery for a long project of some sort, and that if properly mounted, it would also stabilize my tripod.  The more mass, the better, in the tripod biz, as long as it's rigidly mounted near the camera.

This is mounted in the window in an out-of-the-way corner of the third-floor of a nearby building with a bird's eye view of the project.  The mount is an auto suction-cup mount that sticks right to the window.  It's quite firm and sturdy, both the adjustable neck for the mount as well as the suction cup itself.  In fact the suction cup has a lever you flip to engage it.  It's not going anywhere.  Since it's indoors, it's on AC power 24/7.  I will install a UPS in the next week or so to ensure uninturrupted power to it.  That way, so long as the hardware doesn't fail and the script doesn't crash, it will go indefinitely. 

Quote from: kidtree on 01 / June / 2012, 18:15:12
I read somewhere -- maybe in this forum? -- that the point & shoot camera shutters are designed to last 10,000+ shots.  60 weeks of shooting a frame every five minutes adds up to about 12 times that life.  Are these cameras tougher than in previous generations, or are you expecting that keeping it in a sheltered, vibration-free environment will help extend its life?

In my experience it's been quite the opposite.  Some entry-level DSLR cameras can be limited to 50,000 shutter actuations (newer ones rated for 100,000 typically) but the P&S seem to go much further than that. 

I'd refer you to This part of the wiki. From the link:
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Word of Warning: If you are running off of an AC power-supply and going to set the endless-repeat flag do so at your own risk. All Canon manuals warn against allowing their cameras to run for many hours or days at a time. Having said that, the shutter mechanism on SLR cameras is typically reported as lasting at least 100,000 images. In field tests, we've run a Canon A-series camera for more than 4 months taking 2 pictures a minute without any apparent harm to the camera (more than 300,000 images).

I'm hoping that this will hold out for the duration of my project.  (96 photos a day, 5 days a week, 60 weeks = 28,800 snaps).  The ultra-long duration of this project is why I want everything on the camera powered down as much as possible so it minimizes not only wear and tear on individual components (LCD for example) but also minimizes heat and things like that. 
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Offline hillbille

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Re: Selective Intervalometer (days, days of week, hours/min, intervals min/sec)
« Reply #73 on: 01 / June / 2012, 21:25:01 »
Quote from: matt314159 on 01 / June / 2012, 18:39:45

I'm hoping that this will hold out for the duration of my project.  (96 photos a day, 5 days a week, 60 weeks = 28,800 snaps).  The ultra-long duration of this project is why I want everything on the camera powered down as much as possible so it minimizes not only wear and tear on individual components (LCD for example) but also minimizes heat and things like that. 

You are putting a lot of confidence - in a suction cup. Changing weather can cause condensation on windows - frost and or ice during cold periods and sweat condensation due to cooler air inside and warm air outside during warmer months.

My thoughts on this - LOL!! - if it were me I think I'd opt for a tripod - anchored (the legs might be set into 1 gal paint buckets filled with sand AFTER the leg is in) so that it can be adjusted and set. Also the camera could be fitted with a quick release plate - and using a file - that plate could be "keyed" for exact repositioning each time. This would allow a very minor interruption - say every 1st of a month - to dump the photos for processing and allow a quick return to service. Also - should the camera have any type of problem - another camera could be easily substituted in EXACTLY the same position without too much fuss. But that's just how I am.  60 weeks sounds interesting - long term project of over a years "work" for 16 minutes of video (30 fps). I am impressed!! LOL!! And I mean that in a sincere way!!

Hillbille
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Offline waterwingz

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Re: Selective Intervalometer (days, days of week, hours/min, intervals min/sec)
« Reply #74 on: 01 / June / 2012, 21:47:34 »
Quote from: hillbille on 01 / June / 2012, 21:25:01
You are putting a lot of confidence - in a suction cup.
My thoughts exactly !
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Offline matt314159

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Re: Selective Intervalometer (days, days of week, hours/min, intervals min/sec)
« Reply #75 on: 01 / June / 2012, 22:12:56 »
Hey, I feel like i'm starting to hijack this thread, I replied here instead.  My apologies. 
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Offline SkyWalker9

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Re: Selective Intervalometer (days, days of week, hours/min, intervals min/sec)
« Reply #76 on: 02 / June / 2012, 22:27:58 »
Quote from: waterwingz on 28 / May / 2012, 20:26:34
Quote from: SkyWalker9 on 12 / May / 2012, 13:57:59
One limitation of UBasic is that the size of the script appears to determine the maximum number of input parameters the script can display - small scripts can have more than larger scripts. Due to the size of this script, only 8 parameters could be used.
Something does not seem correct here.  There is nothing in the code that "adjusts" the number of input parameters allowed AFAIK.   However, maybe its possible your overall script  is too large and uses too much memory ?  Reducing the declaration and use of those variables lowers the overall size ?
@waterwingz

"...maybe its possible your overall script  is too large and uses too much memory ?  Reducing the declaration and use of those variables lowers the overall size ?"

That's also what I thought might be happening because I was able to add another parameter after I recoded/reduced the number of lines of code. During the testing the script size was always smaller than the max specified in CHDK UBasic. This might just be associated with the SX20IS port. (I've seen similar problems in other compilers as well, so I just programmed a way around the problem.)
« Last Edit: 02 / June / 2012, 22:51:17 by SkyWalker9 »
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Offline SkyWalker9

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Re: Selective Intervalometer (days, days of week, hours/min, intervals min/sec)
« Reply #77 on: 02 / June / 2012, 22:48:54 »
Quote from: hillbille on 27 / May / 2012, 16:08:38
What would be really nice from my end...would be a way to set everything in the script - like instead of having to choose days of the week (DOW's) how about a simple string of "dates" from 1 to 31. The camera IS already set to it's date and time so it already KNOWS them - so it would be nice if I could just input into the script to "SHOOT" on  4,5,6,7,8,11,12,13,14,15. Those numbers representing DAYS of the current month. The time routines are fine as I already have figured out how to mod them in script (NOT in camera with the script running - but on the PC before the script is loaded which makes my changes be "DEFAULT" numbers)...So what I am asking for I guess is that the DOW routine be altered to a DOM (date of month) routine...This change would be good as it would allow really long term use.
@hillbille

Yes, I think this script can be modified to a DOM Intervalometer script. However, it certainly won't allow "really long term use". The DOM script would only be good for one month at a time and would need to be stopped, tweaked, and re-started for each month, whereas the original script can be set to run much longer.

Quote from: hillbille on 27 / May / 2012, 16:08:38
...The time routines are fine as I already have figured out how to mod them in script...
Actually, the time routines wouldn't need to be changed; just set the default values for the parameters to the times you want before transferring from your PC.

I'll take a look at the script and try to create a "non-LCD" DOM script when I have a chance.
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Offline waterwingz

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Re: Selective Intervalometer (days, days of week, hours/min, intervals min/sec)
« Reply #78 on: 02 / June / 2012, 22:49:56 »
Quote from: SkyWalker9 on 02 / June / 2012, 22:27:58
That's also what I thought might be happening because I was able to add another parameter after I recoded/reduced the number of lines of code. During the testing the script size was always smaller than the max specified in CHDK UBasic. This might just be associated with the SX20IS port. (I've seem similar problems in other compilers as well, so I just programmed a way around the problem.)
Seems like you hit a lower memory limit than specified rather than a limit on the number of user variable allowed.
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Offline reyalp

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Re: Selective Intervalometer (days, days of week, hours/min, intervals min/sec)
« Reply #79 on: 02 / June / 2012, 23:08:16 »
Quote from: SkyWalker9 on 02 / June / 2012, 22:27:58
That's also what I thought might be happening because I was able to add another parameter after I recoded/reduced the number of lines of code. During the testing the script size was always smaller than the max specified in CHDK UBasic.
There is no specific maximum size. At one time scripts were limited to 8kb, but I fixed this back in 2008. If any documentation still refers to this limit, it should be corrected.

Running out of memory would not affect the number of parameters you could use, the camera would crash, or in the case of Lua you might get an out of memory error.

The maximum number of input parameters for all scripts should be 26 (a-z), and should not be affected by the size of the script. If you have a test case that shows otherwise, then please post it, because that would be a bug. Feel free to start a new thread for this issue.
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