help designing triggering device for underwater camera

[Alec_t]

I am curious if the connectors inside the female end of the connector (the connector attached to the camera itself) are dirty.

Not knowing how the camera has been housed and used, is it possible salt water has penetrated the female connector at some time and corroded the contacts?

 

[white_chev]

Overdue update: I took the camera to a technician and it turns out there was a small fuse between the two-pin connector and the rest of the circuit which was not responding. The fuse was not actually identified on the plans interestingly but seemed to relate to the strobe unit. He didn't bother replacing it since I am not using strobe with the camera. The camera now triggers properly when the two pins are shorted.

Thank-you everyone for your advice on this one. I really appreciate all the back and forth and guidance.

And... I have one more question.


I now need to source 100 meters of cable to control the camera at that distance. The technician who repaired the camera gave me some guidance here but he was a little curious about shorting something 100 meters away. He suggested I go with a larger size wire- possibly 14-2 cap tire thinking that the slightly larger gauge wire might lose less strength over the 100 meters and I would have better luck creating the short.

Any thoughts on this? Will I run into problems during to create the short 100 meters away from the camera?



Thanks,




Chris

 

[Alec_t]

I think the technician was being over-cautious. Flexible wire the thickness of ordinary bell-wire should be ok for 100m. Its resistance would be less than 10 Ohms. Simulation with LTspice shows that even a 100 Ohm cable would trigger the camera reliably. Ruggedness and water-resistance of the cable would be more important than resistance (within reason).

 

[white_chev]

Thanks again Alec_t. I ended up buying 16-2 cap tire and at 100 meters the connection seems fine. There doesn't seem to be even a slight delay.

I will be traveling to Halifax this weekend to finally shoot with the camera.

Very happy for all the help.

 

[Alec_t]

Hope all goes well. We'll expect a few uploaded pics .

 

[Externet]

Hi Chris.
Last time I saw those scuba connectors was early seventies ! If you do know the brand or vendor, please share !
Thanks.

 

[white_chev]

Externet- the connectors are/were made by 'Impulse' and are now available through 'Teledyne Marine' under their 'Underwater Pluggable Series'.

 

[white_chev]

There is a VERY rough and dirty scan of one of the first images I shot with the camera. Everything worked very well. I ended up using 300' of cabtyre cable with a simple toggle switch at the surface end. I soldered all the connections and used very thick shrink tubing with glue inside to make everything watertight.

Thanks again to everyone who helped. I sincerely appreciate it.

 

[Externet]

Well done and extra thanks !