yoderjac
5 year old buck +
Jack or anyone else, are there products on market that someone could use to coat the circuits of the cheaper cameras?
Circuit boards are typically coated at the factory as part of the production process before a device is assembled. I'm not sure it would be worth your while to disassemble a camera and reassemble it. For specific details, I'd check with folks on a homebrew forum like this one: http://www.hagshouse.com/forums/index.php?
I find it pretty ineffective to try to modify a trail camera. The homebrew folks build as much for fun as anything. There are lots of factors in camera design that need to be balanced. The best trail camera designs do a great job of balancing all those factors. Many do a very poor job. Some cameras might catch every possible trigger but batteries burn out quickly. Others may have batteries that last for a very long time but miss triggers and have a short flash range. Some may have longer flash ranges but cause camera avoidance. Some have mechanical filters to save cost but have an audible click with the filter rotates. When you bring RF into the picture, it adds a whole new factor to power consumption. When you add a private communication network like Cuddelink it add even more to the complexity of balance. Cost becomes part of the balance as well.
For a while, you could by cheap cams from Cabelas or Bass Pro and return them. The Chinese cam problem got so bad, Cabelas and Bass Pro (separate at the time) changed their return policies to specifically exclude electronics like this because of the poor QC and short life span of these cams.
Whether a camera design has a good balance or a poor one, we tend to make it worse when we add third party stuff to them. There is nothing wrong with experimenting with them and having fun and seeding what you can do. If you are looking to save money or improve a camera you have, I'd say the chances of success are low.
Thanks,
Jack