DIY Sunshade

CCTVCam

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A little instruction on how to make a DIY sunshade.

Sunshades can be bought off Amazon quite cheaply. However, if you're camera is like mine and needs to angled, eg at 45 degrees as here, you'll probably find an off the shelf sunshade won't shade the camera adequately as they're made for a straight forward look.

To make your own, what you need is:

- A sheet of black perspex (preserably matt but gloss is fine if not) of adequate thickness - I used 5mm. Thicker is better but becomes harder and harder to bend.

- A paint stripping Hot Air Gun

- Gloves

- A bench or piece of wood (to bend and form the plastic over)

- A sander with some 80 grit or similar sandpaper

- A small coin

For my usage, I determined that A4 was probably the correct size (after a trial with pieces of cardboard held over the camera during the problematic part of the day to see where the shading fell).

Take the perspex and if you want round edges on the protruding par (recommended for safety so you don't poke you eyes out adjusting the camera) peel back the protective film slightly and draw a radius around the coin at each of the 2 protuding corners giving you the amount of curvature you want. Next use the sander to gently sand the corner off and shape it to the drawn radius. Repeat at each corner.

To bend the perspex, put it on the bench with the amount you want to bend over protruding over the edge (allow enough here to allow for the radius of the bend plus the fact you need to put screws in underneath the bend and so need sufficient material to do that. I think on mine I allowed about 2 inches.

Strip back the protective film and start heating along the point where you want to bend the perspex. Use a moderate heat and keep the gun moving along the potential fold. Heat the top of the fold and also from underneath. After a few minutes and if the surface is hot, put one hand on the bench side and a gloved hand on the over hang and try to bend the plastic by using gentle to moderate pressure. Don't force it or you risk breakage. If it doesn't want to bend, keep gently trying to bend the perspex every few minutes of further heating until eventually it starts to bend. Again don't force it. It might only bend slightly and then require more heating. Eventually you'll find it will bend in which case using the edge of the bench as a guide, bend it to the angle you require - remember here if you want a slope to bend slightly further than 90 degrees At this point you have to decide where you want the bend to be facing up or down as this affects whether you bend past 90 or before 90 degrees.

You can now cool the plastic. Watch out for it trying to bend back whilst warm. You may need to keep some pressure on.

Using a drill you can now drill 2 or more screw holes in the folded over piece (leave enough room to get a screwdriver or drill + screwdriver bit in (Use torque control set to low when fixing as overtightening will shatter the perspex)). Drill gently with a sharp metal bit and don't use pressure. If you do, you may shatter the plastic.

Finally, if you got gloss perspex, I recommend running the sander over the perspex at least on the bottom side (I did both) to scratch and dull the surface and prevent reflections. With some patience you'll be able to dull it all over.

The final result:

Sunshade 1.jpgSunshade 2.jpg

BTW the approximate UK cost for this using an A4 sheet of gloss 5mm perspex from Amazon was £9.50.
 
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TonyR

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CCTVCam

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So much effort.

Here is an easy solution

The bracket wouldn't provide enough overhang and the biggest issue here is the camera isn't pointing straight out but at a full 45 degrees out of the bracket. Thus a commercial sunscream or bracket will protrude out at 90 degrees to the wall, when the camera is body and lens are pointing at 45 degrees. The screen is bigger than it looks - that's an A4 sheet of perspex so 11.7 x 8.3m inches. I doubt I'd have found a sunscreen with an 11.7 inch projection and before you say it's oversize, it only just shades the lens with the sun reaching the leds below.

As for effort, very little. 10 mins experimenting with card to estimate the size. 2 mins on Amazon ordering. A few days later, 10 mins to bend drill and mount. (PS remember to add on the amount you're going to bend it over by when deciding the dimensions of sheet you need).
 
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