A few months ago I was taking out the trash and while walking down the driveway I noticed a car stopping at our mailbox, opening it and driving away. It was dark so I know it was not the rural mail carrier. We live in a rural area and have had occasions of missing mail in the past. We don't have any close neighbors and we can't see our mailbox from the house. This made me nervous since I receive customer cameras and equipment in the mail quite often.
So, I decided to camera trap the mailbox. My existing mailbox was quite old, rusted and leaked snow and water, so it was time to build a new one out of aluminum. I had a couple small solar panels from past projects that ended up being used for the rear and top of the new mailbox.
The sides, bottom and door are also aluminum and all hardware is stainless steel. On the inside is a reed switch connected to a Texas Instruments MSP430 that activates a 460mhz transmitter for one second when the door is open. The mailbox solar panels are connected to a MPPT charge controller that keeps three 18650 lithium ion batteries charged.
Across the road you can see a round, dark green piece of 12" PVC pipe sticking out of the ground. I tried to make it look like a utilities pedestal to camo it a little bit. Inside the pedestal is a 460mhz receiver that generates a contact closure when the mailbox is opened. The camera in the pedestal is a Dahua IP camera with two alarm inputs available. The receiver is connected to one of those. To link the camera to my local WiFi is a Ubiquiti radio. The camera, receiver and WIFI link is powered by a 100 watt solar panel that is located about 75 feet away from the pedestal and can't be seen from the road.
The camera is monitored by Blue Iris. When the mailbox door is opened, Blue Iris instantly sends a cell phone text message to my wife and I that includes a picture of who opened the box. It also sends each of us an email with four photos spaced two seconds apart and then records HD video of the car driving up and leaving. The camera resolution is good enough to read the license plate during the day.
Our mail can arrive anytime between 10:00 am and 6:00 pm. With this setup we can now retrieve the mail a few minutes after it is delivered. And if somebody opens the box that shouldn't, we will have their picture and video to pass on to the sheriff. The mailbox monitor has been functional for about six months. Still no stolen mail, but if it does capture the thief, I'll post a video here.
Edit.....
Here is a little more info on the construction of the mail box camera. There are two identical ten watt solar panels connected in parallel that make up the rear and part of the top of the mail box. At this latitude in the winter the sun is well into the southern sky and summer it is directly above. So, between the two panels, I'm covered for the change of seasons.
The two panels are run into a weatherproof box under the mail box and connected to the black board you see in the photo. This is a MPPT charge controller available on eBay. Search BCPB2. It's less than US$15.00. To store the power, three 18650 lithium ion are located on the backside of the black board.
The magnetic reed switch is fastened to the door opening and the magnet to the door. The two wires from the switch are connected to the red board in the photo. On the red board is a 460mhz transceiver module, a Texas instruments MSP430 controller and a 12vdc to 3.3vdc buck (step down) converter to power everything. The transceiver module is a DRA818U and is available on eBay among other places. The red printed circuit board was designed by me along with the firmware for the controller. So, when the door is opened, the magnet is pulled away from the reed switch. This opens the circuit and causes a pin on the controller to go high. The controller sees that and initiates its alert sequence. It powers up the UHF transceiver and activates the transmitter for one second. Then everything on the mailbox end shuts down.
On the camera end, the enclosure is a 12" piece of scrap PVC pipe from a plumber friend and a used PVC pipe cap. The camera hole was cut to the exact size of the camera and sealed with foam tape to keep the bugs out. The pipe you see coming out of the top is a vent. This last summer the outdoor temp was above 100F so the inside temp of this dark colored enclosure was well in excess of that. This caused the camera to become intermittent. My solution was to install two 90 degree pipe elbows on the top and a old 12vdc computer fan on the inside. This solved the problem and worked the rest of the summer.
On the inside you can see the Dahua camera, a fan, the Ubiquiti 2.4ghz WiFi link radio and a black box that contains the same red board as in the mailbox end of the system. The little black box is a passive power over Ethernet adapter used to feed 12vdc to the Ubiquiti transceiver. I didn't take the cover off the controller box since it is the same red board as in the mailbox. The only difference is the firmware written to the MSP430. When the UHF transceiver receives the signal from the mail box and pulls one of the camera alarm contacts low. The IP camera is connected by WiFi to a computer running BlueIris located at the house. BI takes care of the reporting duties by sending my wife and I a text message and email with a picture of whoever is opening the mailbox. It also stores four higher resolution images captured every second and 1080p video on the BI server.
To power the camera end I have a 100 watt solar panel run into a MPPT charge controller. Power is stored in a 100Ah deep cycle marine battery. 12vdc is then run through a buried 10ga cable to the camera enclosure. A future project is to put the solar panel on a adjustable tilt mount so I can adjust it for winter and summer sun.
That's about it. It's a beautiful fall day here in Nebraska. The trees are starting to change and the glow plugs on the diesel have been turning on in the morning. The beginning of winter is probably only a few weeks away.
So, I decided to camera trap the mailbox. My existing mailbox was quite old, rusted and leaked snow and water, so it was time to build a new one out of aluminum. I had a couple small solar panels from past projects that ended up being used for the rear and top of the new mailbox.
The sides, bottom and door are also aluminum and all hardware is stainless steel. On the inside is a reed switch connected to a Texas Instruments MSP430 that activates a 460mhz transmitter for one second when the door is open. The mailbox solar panels are connected to a MPPT charge controller that keeps three 18650 lithium ion batteries charged.
Across the road you can see a round, dark green piece of 12" PVC pipe sticking out of the ground. I tried to make it look like a utilities pedestal to camo it a little bit. Inside the pedestal is a 460mhz receiver that generates a contact closure when the mailbox is opened. The camera in the pedestal is a Dahua IP camera with two alarm inputs available. The receiver is connected to one of those. To link the camera to my local WiFi is a Ubiquiti radio. The camera, receiver and WIFI link is powered by a 100 watt solar panel that is located about 75 feet away from the pedestal and can't be seen from the road.
The camera is monitored by Blue Iris. When the mailbox door is opened, Blue Iris instantly sends a cell phone text message to my wife and I that includes a picture of who opened the box. It also sends each of us an email with four photos spaced two seconds apart and then records HD video of the car driving up and leaving. The camera resolution is good enough to read the license plate during the day.
Our mail can arrive anytime between 10:00 am and 6:00 pm. With this setup we can now retrieve the mail a few minutes after it is delivered. And if somebody opens the box that shouldn't, we will have their picture and video to pass on to the sheriff. The mailbox monitor has been functional for about six months. Still no stolen mail, but if it does capture the thief, I'll post a video here.
Edit.....
Here is a little more info on the construction of the mail box camera. There are two identical ten watt solar panels connected in parallel that make up the rear and part of the top of the mail box. At this latitude in the winter the sun is well into the southern sky and summer it is directly above. So, between the two panels, I'm covered for the change of seasons.
The two panels are run into a weatherproof box under the mail box and connected to the black board you see in the photo. This is a MPPT charge controller available on eBay. Search BCPB2. It's less than US$15.00. To store the power, three 18650 lithium ion are located on the backside of the black board.
The magnetic reed switch is fastened to the door opening and the magnet to the door. The two wires from the switch are connected to the red board in the photo. On the red board is a 460mhz transceiver module, a Texas instruments MSP430 controller and a 12vdc to 3.3vdc buck (step down) converter to power everything. The transceiver module is a DRA818U and is available on eBay among other places. The red printed circuit board was designed by me along with the firmware for the controller. So, when the door is opened, the magnet is pulled away from the reed switch. This opens the circuit and causes a pin on the controller to go high. The controller sees that and initiates its alert sequence. It powers up the UHF transceiver and activates the transmitter for one second. Then everything on the mailbox end shuts down.
On the camera end, the enclosure is a 12" piece of scrap PVC pipe from a plumber friend and a used PVC pipe cap. The camera hole was cut to the exact size of the camera and sealed with foam tape to keep the bugs out. The pipe you see coming out of the top is a vent. This last summer the outdoor temp was above 100F so the inside temp of this dark colored enclosure was well in excess of that. This caused the camera to become intermittent. My solution was to install two 90 degree pipe elbows on the top and a old 12vdc computer fan on the inside. This solved the problem and worked the rest of the summer.
On the inside you can see the Dahua camera, a fan, the Ubiquiti 2.4ghz WiFi link radio and a black box that contains the same red board as in the mailbox end of the system. The little black box is a passive power over Ethernet adapter used to feed 12vdc to the Ubiquiti transceiver. I didn't take the cover off the controller box since it is the same red board as in the mailbox. The only difference is the firmware written to the MSP430. When the UHF transceiver receives the signal from the mail box and pulls one of the camera alarm contacts low. The IP camera is connected by WiFi to a computer running BlueIris located at the house. BI takes care of the reporting duties by sending my wife and I a text message and email with a picture of whoever is opening the mailbox. It also stores four higher resolution images captured every second and 1080p video on the BI server.
To power the camera end I have a 100 watt solar panel run into a MPPT charge controller. Power is stored in a 100Ah deep cycle marine battery. 12vdc is then run through a buried 10ga cable to the camera enclosure. A future project is to put the solar panel on a adjustable tilt mount so I can adjust it for winter and summer sun.
That's about it. It's a beautiful fall day here in Nebraska. The trees are starting to change and the glow plugs on the diesel have been turning on in the morning. The beginning of winter is probably only a few weeks away.
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