Cuddeback's Cuddelink

[john volkman]

so here is the scenario.

you have the system set up. you have 4 cameras.

cam 1 has 20 pics
cam 2 has 100 pics
cam 3 has 100 pics
cam 4 is the home cam has 200 pics.

can you clear out cameras 1, 2, 3 from number 4? meaning reset the count to zero after you look at the pics?

What if cam 4 only has the memory for 200 pics what happens to the other pics from 1, 2, 3?

What if cam 4 becomes junk then do all the others become just standard ones where you need to pull the cards?

seems like a neat set up.

 

[john volkman]

You cant clear images on the remote cameras from the home camera. Each remote camera must have an sd card inserted in it to transmit images. Even a 4gb card will hold thousands of images. One will have to decide per each situation the size of the card needed in the remote camera, i think an 8 would work in most instances with a 16 or 32 covering almost any situation. The camera report image below has an 8gb card in it.
I clear my images on the remote camera when i swap out batteries. Your home camera should have a larger card in it so it cant fill up if you wont check it for long periods of time. Each camera users situation is different so you need to adjust your card sizes and battery choices according to your needs.
If camera 4 or the home camera becomes in operable, the remote cameras will hold the images in the "que" until the home camera is operable , It will then send the images to the home camera. I have taken my home camera with me on a trip and when i returned and turned the home unit back on the remote cams started sending the images to it. This is after having the home camera off or away for a week. It will take some time... but it will get it done. You could also switch one of the remote cameras to the home unit which is done in settings in less than a minute.
Keep in mind the report image for each camera including the home camera tells you all the info you need to know each time you check the home camera sd card so you will know how much room is on the cards , how many pics are on them , battery life, etc.

 

[yoderjac]

For us cellular guys that's a pretty standard resolution. 640 x 480 is pretty standard. Those thumbnails are about what I expect. Jack is right, that's big difference if your serious about a particular buck and if you can afford the cost of a buckeye cam system, it might make more sense to go that route. However I am not overly thrilled with buckeyes picture quality for the price paid.

With all of that said, I think if you look at what cuddeback is offering vs the cost. It really seems like this is good system for serious hunters who want to limit human scent checking cameras. I think for 80% of the hunting population maybe more, this is more practicle. Cost is considerably less and if people can deploy them for a hunting season and not have to swap out batteries every month, why not......

I think that is a great comparison. This looks like it is a much better comparison with most cell systems. It looks like a niche system that would work very well for someone with limited distances and little vegetation and topography issues. You trade off those short distances for the monthly cost of a cell phone bill. It may also be a fit for folks in places where cell service is so poor that it is not really an option.

When it comes to picture resolution, I'd say it is more of a data issue than just a particular buck issue. I use antler evaluation as an example. I find that it is often even difficult to distinguish small bucks from does when they are distant from the camera at night without zooming in. This would affect buck to doe ratios.

I'd say that when the data matters, reliability is number 1, and the amount of time a camera can operate at full resolution without a visit is second.

I'd say that for casual scouting, these are much less important.

By the way, BEC doesn't fully satisfy me in terms of how long cameras can operate without attendance. While they run many months unattended, I eventually need to swap batteries and battery lifespan is not all it could be. I'm slowly adding solar panels much larger than BEC offers to keep batteries fully charged. With SLA batteries, leaving the batter at a lower charge state for any period of time significantly shortens the lifespan of the battery. Some terminal cameras with good light do well with BEC panels, but repeater cameras that get a much higher load and cameras whose panels get fewer hours per day of sun need some help. I got my first Orion in 2008 and I'm still refining the system. With my luck, when I finally get things operating just as I want them, the cameras will start to fail. But, they are still going strong.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Peplin Creek]

I think that is a great comparison. This looks like it is a much better comparison with most cell systems. It looks like a niche system that would work very well for someone with limited distances and little vegetation and topography issues. You trade off those short distances for the monthly cost of a cell phone bill. It may also be a fit for folks in places where cell service is so poor that it is not really an option.

When it comes to picture resolution, I'd say it is more of a data issue than just a particular buck issue. I use antler evaluation as an example. I find that it is often even difficult to distinguish small bucks from does when they are distant from the camera at night without zooming in. This would affect buck to doe ratios.

I'd say that when the data matters, reliability is number 1, and the amount of time a camera can operate at full resolution without a visit is second.

I'd say that for casual scouting, these are much less important.

By the way, BEC doesn't fully satisfy me in terms of how long cameras can operate without attendance. While they run many months unattended, I eventually need to swap batteries and battery lifespan is not all it could be. I'm slowly adding solar panels much larger than BEC offers to keep batteries fully charged. With SLA batteries, leaving the batter at a lower charge state for any period of time significantly shortens the lifespan of the battery. Some terminal cameras with good light do well with BEC panels, but repeater cameras that get a much higher load and cameras whose panels get fewer hours per day of sun need some help. I got my first Orion in 2008 and I'm still refining the system. With my luck, when I finally get things operating just as I want them, the cameras will start to fail. But, they are still going strong.

Thanks,

Jack

The data comment makes perfect sense and it didn't even cross my mind. If you don't mind me asking what type of solar panel do you use? I feel like all the ones that are designed for trail cameras never really charge anything. They need to be bigger.

 

[yoderjac]

Jack, to clarify.... the dual flash camera can be set to either true back flash or standard IR , whatever is desired.The camera has both modules. You can even set it to capture images in one and video in the other. The images that are transmitted are not in full resolution but personally i cant see that making it difficult to ID individual bucks.All the images i posted are images that were transmitted in the low rez.
I personally set my camera to take Image in IR and video in black flash, the IR flash is so quick on this camera that i cannot imagine camera avoidance occuring as a result. In fact, i think camera avoidance is more about the actual physical camera hanging there coupled with human scent than it is the flash. I do feel that video mode in IR can spook individual deer. I guess that is a debate for another thread.
The real eye opener for me was after using this system last fall/winter and this summer is how much human intrusion negatively impacted my hunting area even in the summer. I live on the property and assumed the deer were somewhat used to my intrusions even though i restricted them to midday hours. There has been a world of difference in deer usage during daylight and nighttime hours in both fall winter and this summer. I even found it to help with turkey hunting this spring.

Thanks for the clarification. I only use video when trying to capture behavior for a hunter education class, but never for data collection. It is not practical. A couple rapid stills have higher resolution and can capture all the data I need and require much less analysis time for data extraction and require much less storage.

Perhaps the reason you can't see it difficult to identify individual bucks is the short range PIR. The closer the subject is to the camera and the more light available, the less resolution that is required. (Keep in mind that there is a difference between what most companies advertise as resolution which is often interpolated and the native resolution of the image sensor used). With a camera with a long-range PIR, I often get triggers at 40 yards and sometimes even at 60. At low light and depending on position, it can even be difficult to distinguish small bucks from does.

As for flash avoidance, I have the data to show it statistically. This is one of those unknown unknowns until you look for it in the data. I first found this when black flash was just coming out. I found that with the same IR cameras, over bait, I would get repeated pictures of mature bucks, but over small fields, I'd get only one or two pictures of the buck and never again. Eventually, I started to dig up old pictures and scrub them to try to understand this. It turns out that if I was using bait, even mature bucks would accept the risk of the camera to get it. However in a small field, they learned not to trigger the camera. They did not spook or leave the area, they simply kept their distance and kept other deer between them and the perceived danger (flash). When I scrubbed old pictures, I found some of those bucks on the fringe of the flash when the camera was triggered by young deer. Next, I compared a BEC (wireless running unattended for months removing human scent as an issue) with Red Blob to the newer version with Black Flash. I eventually swapped the position of the cameras to remove that bias. I consistently got more repeat pictures of mature bucks using the Black Flash camera.

One more item of interest. When I looked at the data closely, I found mature bucks were closer to black flash cameras during the daytime as well. The physical form of the camera can be an issue when they are moved from place to place frequently, but for cameras in permanent positions, mature bucks seem to acclimate to the camera form but not the Red Blob flash. With a red blob flash, mature bucks seemed to remember and keep more distance from the camera even during the day. With the black flash version, they seem to ignore it day and night.

One note here, deer behavior has a lot of variation. And that variation may be greater from area to area. Here, there is a significant statistical difference between how deer react to red blob and true black flash.

One final note: When I say True Black Flash, I'm referring to a flash that is not detected by deer. Detection is a function of three factors, wavelength (frequency), intensity, and duration. Some cameras that advertise invisible flash are clearly visible and can be detected. At what point the level of visibility is ignored by mature bucks is not established. I would suspect that the less visible the more they ignore it but I don't know if it is linear or a step function.

Great discussion and keep reporting on your system! While you've already shared enough to make it clear it is not a fit for my application, it may be a great fit for others!

Thanks,

jack

 

[yoderjac]

The data comment makes perfect sense and it didn't even cross my mind. If you don't mind me asking what type of solar panel do you use? I feel like all the ones that are designed for trail cameras never really charge anything. They need to be bigger.

Pep,

I'm working with the old 6-Volt Orion and I've learned a lot about solar recently. I started with a 45 watt system from harbor Freight. I threw away their controller and bought a PWM controller. With my first try, I used a 12-volt PWM controller and bought a 35 amp hour 12-volt AGM battery. The controller had a light timer incorporated. You could set it for the number of hours to run 12-volt light after dark. I bought a Powerstream DC/DC adapter for a car. It takes 12 volts in and puts out a selectable voltage. I selected the output voltage at 7.5 volts and connected it to the input of my Orion.

So with this first crude attempt, the panel kept the 12-volt battery charged. Each night I'd set the controller to turn on the "light" (actually my powerstream adapter) for a couple hours. So, for a few hours per night, the 6-volt 12 ah SLA inside my Orion would get 7.5 volt input. This kind of charging is very crude and unkind to the SLA battery.

Finally, I found a source for a 6-volt PWM Controller. They are very nice to your battery. Of course, when a panel is advertised as a "45 watt" panel, that is at a particular voltage. In the case of Harbor Freight, it was 12-volts. I'll spare you the math but when you run the same panel into a 6-volt system you get roughly 1/2 the wattage. So, that cuts the 45 watt panel down to about 22.5 watts.

The PWM controllers I'm now using will automatically detect whether the battery is 6-volt or 12-volt and charge it accordingly. These are much like using a smart charger indoors that you can keep connected to the battery all the time. It will detect the amount of charge needed and apply only what is needed protecting the battery from over and under charging.

The harbor freight panels are inexpensive but very space inefficient. That is you need larger square footage to get the same amperage of a smaller panel. Solar panels have dropped significantly in price. I'm now able to get panels with higher output that are physical smaller making for easier installation.

I've been buying my most recent panels from the AltE store online. I've been buying panels in the 50W-60W range which equates to 25 to 30 watts at 6-volts.

The newer X-Series BEC cams are all 12-volts. This gives you a lot more options for solar charge controllers.

If you search the forum for Orion, you find threads with pictures of some of my recent solar installations with more detail.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[john volkman]

Thanks for the clarification. I only use video when trying to capture behavior for a hunter education class, but never for data collection. It is not practical. A couple rapid stills have higher resolution and can capture all the data I need and require much less analysis time for data extraction and require much less storage.

Perhaps the reason you can't see it difficult to identify individual bucks is the short range PIR. The closer the subject is to the camera and the more light available, the less resolution that is required. (Keep in mind that there is a difference between what most companies advertise as resolution which is often interpolated and the native resolution of the image sensor used). With a camera with a long-range PIR, I often get triggers at 40 yards and sometimes even at 60. At low light and depending on position, it can even be difficult to distinguish small bucks from does.

As for flash avoidance, I have the data to show it statistically. This is one of those unknown unknowns until you look for it in the data. I first found this when black flash was just coming out. I found that with the same IR cameras, over bait, I would get repeated pictures of mature bucks, but over small fields, I'd get only one or two pictures of the buck and never again. Eventually, I started to dig up old pictures and scrub them to try to understand this. It turns out that if I was using bait, even mature bucks would accept the risk of the camera to get it. However in a small field, they learned not to trigger the camera. They did not spook or leave the area, they simply kept their distance and kept other deer between them and the perceived danger (flash). When I scrubbed old pictures, I found some of those bucks on the fringe of the flash when the camera was triggered by young deer. Next, I compared a BEC (wireless running unattended for months removing human scent as an issue) with Red Blob to the newer version with Black Flash. I eventually swapped the position of the cameras to remove that bias. I consistently got more repeat pictures of mature bucks using the Black Flash camera.

One more item of interest. When I looked at the data closely, I found mature bucks were closer to black flash cameras during the daytime as well. The physical form of the camera can be an issue when they are moved from place to place frequently, but for cameras in permanent positions, mature bucks seem to acclimate to the camera form but not the Red Blob flash. With a red blob flash, mature bucks seemed to remember and keep more distance from the camera even during the day. With the black flash version, they seem to ignore it day and night.

One note here, deer behavior has a lot of variation. And that variation may be greater from area to area. Here, there is a significant statistical difference between how deer react to red blob and true black flash.

One final note: When I say True Black Flash, I'm referring to a flash that is not detected by deer. Detection is a function of three factors, wavelength (frequency), intensity, and duration. Some cameras that advertise invisible flash are clearly visible and can be detected. At what point the level of visibility is ignored by mature bucks is not established. I would suspect that the less visible the more they ignore it but I don't know if it is linear or a step function.

Great discussion and keep reporting on your system! While you've already shared enough to make it clear it is not a fit for my application, it may be a great fit for others!

Thanks,

jack

Thanks, i am fairly well versed on interpolation and resolution
Very interesting that you have taken the time to put the math to the both situations using black and red flash, can i ask how many images you compiled to come to the conclusion? The reason i ask is that in my data recording i found that camera or flash avoidance is more based on individual deer personality than it is to mature bucks etc. In fact, i find many mature bucks are less affected by cameras in some situations including strobe flash. As an example , I have images of a mature buck in a heavy pressured area sleeping in front of a strobe flash camera, he could care less about how many times he was flashed. Like you said, deer behavior has a lot of variation. I notice it even when gathering images near my home in door county wi and on my lease in buffalo county wi. I agree bait is not a good barometer since most deer will put up with a lot at a bait/mineral site.
Do you have any transmitted images you could share that your long range PIR cam triggered at 40 or 60 yards? I'm curious to see how large the deer image is and what it looks like when zoomed in, i dont think I've ever seen a trial cam pic where the animal triggered it 120-180 feet away and you could ID points on a rack with black flash! What brand of camera accomplishes this? Is it a BEC? what model ? my friends BEC do not do anything remotely close to that so he must have a different model if it is.

 

[yoderjac]

Thanks, i am fairly well versed on interpolation and resolution
Very interesting that you have taken the time to put the math to the both situations using black and red flash, can i ask how many images you compiled to come to the conclusion? The reason i ask is that in my data recording i found that camera or flash avoidance is more based on individual deer personality than it is to mature bucks etc. In fact, i find many mature bucks are less affected by cameras in some situations including strobe flash. As an example , I have images of a mature buck in a heavy pressured area sleeping in front of a strobe flash camera, he could care less about how many times he was flashed. Like you said, deer behavior has a lot of variation. I notice it even when gathering images near my home in door county wi and on my lease in buffalo county wi. I agree bait is not a good barometer since most deer will put up with a lot at a bait/mineral site.
Do you have any transmitted images you could share that your long range PIR cam triggered at 40 or 60 yards? I'm curious to see how large the deer image is and what it looks like when zoomed in, i dont think I've ever seen a trial cam pic where the animal triggered it 120-180 feet away and you could ID points on a rack with black flash! What brand of camera accomplishes this? Is it a BEC? what model ? my friends BEC do not do anything remotely close to that so he must have a different model if it is.

John,

I can't recall how many images. It was about 2 years worth of data collected from 4 Orions (2 red blob, 2 black flash) running 24/7 365. You are absolutely correct when you say individual deer personality is an import factor. There were clearly some mature bucks that seemed to acclimate to red blob well. There is a wide range of individual deer behavior.

Here is quick example of one of the pictures I was processing today from the last batch. The closest deer is about 45-50 yards in this particular pic. The camera is looking at an angle up the pipeline. The pipeline is 60 yards wide if they camera was pointed at a 90 degree angle (turned to the left). The day is hazy and there is some backlight from the sky reducing dynamic range. I've downsampled the picture to VGA (640x480).

This is an old BEC Orion. I have not yet played with detection distance with the newer X-series. Most trail cams use a shorter distance but wider PIR because it allows for slower trigger speeds.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[john volkman]

John,

I can't recall how many images. It was about 2 years worth of data collected from 4 Orions (2 red blob, 2 black flash) running 24/7 365. You are absolutely correct when you say individual deer personality is an import factor. There were clearly some mature bucks that seemed to acclimate to red blob well. There is a wide range of individual deer behavior.

Here is quick example of one of the pictures I was processing today from the last batch. The closest deer is about 45-50 yards in this particular pic. The camera is looking at an angle up the pipeline. The pipeline is 60 yards wide if they camera was pointed at a 90 degree angle (turned to the left). The day is hazy and there is some backlight from the sky reducing dynamic range. I've downsampled the picture to VGA (640x480).

This is an old BEC Orion. I have not yet played with detection distance with the newer X-series. Most trail cams use a shorter distance but wider PIR because it allows for slower trigger speeds.

Thanks,

Jack

Thanks Jack, i took it that you're able to zoom in on the black flash night images at 40 -60 yards and determine points etc. , i can see being able to do it somewhat with daytime pics but being able to zoom in and id with night BF images would be truly impressive. Even daytime images at that distance aren't realistic with almost all commercial scouting cameras unless everything lines up just right with the lighting and background.

 

[yoderjac]

Thanks Jack, i took it that you're able to zoom in on the black flash night images at 40 -60 yards and determine points etc. , i can see being able to do it somewhat with daytime pics but being able to zoom in and id with night BF images would be truly impressive. Even daytime images at that distance aren't realistic with almost all commercial scouting cameras unless everything lines up just right with the lighting and background.

John,

Nope. As good as the flash distance is with BEC's black flash, it is not as good as red blob. One thing that would be an improvement would be a slave flash. BEC played around with this for a while but never released it. It was technically feasible but probably not commercially viable. Scoutguard came out with a black flash slave but it used a cable to pick up the flash of the camera which did not make it feasible. They made it for their camera that was under flashed but tried to make it generic. The problem with that approach was that with the slave located proximate to the camera it doesn't provide any more than a larger array on the camera. What we really need is a slave that can be located much closer to the subject. This would allow for backlighting and all kinds of fun stuff as well as the practical increase of flash range. Given what is available, I'll take black flash over red blob. I still need the resolution to distinguish deer but the range is shorter. I often get pictures of eyes at night at long range. The reflective taptum lets me know there is a deer there. With photoshop I can generally enhance the picture enough to be sure it is a deer but certainly can't tell the sex.

One key for folks interested in data is having sufficient volume for statistical significance. You will never be able to get sufficient data extracted from all pictures. It is fine to discard pictures from the data set as long as it is done without bias to the subject. You just need to have enough data that is not discarded. With VGA level resolution, I'd not be able to draw the same conclusions from the data sets.

As for most commercial scouting cameras, they don't even begin to pass the reliability test. There is nothing that biases data than cameras being down for service on a regular basis, cameras needing to be replaced, and data influenced by SD card retrieval. Most of the commercial cameras today don't coat the electronics. A single drop of water in the battery compartment will vaporize in the heat of the day and condense when it cools at night. Electronics corrode. Warranties have gotten shorter and cover less. Most of the commercial market is designed for hunters to get a rough idea of what is out there and they do well at that. They are not designed for real data collection.

Thanks,

jack

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Mark Cuddeback]

Guys – I decided to log in and answer some of the questions posted. I normally don’t reply to forums but CuddeLink is such a new concept I thought it would be nice for people to get answers directly from me. We have been working on CuddeLink for over 4 years. Attached is a picture of the test setup. Green is 2 home cameras. The blue icons are a network of 15 cameras and the yellow network is 9 cameras. The blue is a torture test as the furthest cameras have to hop up to 8 times to get home. The blue network has been running continuously for a few years.

Setup is easy. I can field deploy a CuddeLink camera in 2 minutes. We don’t recommend directional antennas as CuddeLink cameras talk to cameras in all directions, so a directional antenna does not make sense for CuddeLink. In my forest (no fields other then my small food plots) I get from 1/5 mile to almost one half mile. Generally one-quarter mile can be expected. In open country the distance is much further. In Nebraska I got over 2 miles between cameras. I am never going to oversell the transmission distance like the walkie-talkie people do. When I say ¼ mile in the forest I mean thick forest with trees the full ¼ mile. CuddeLink radio output is 500mw which is the maximum power allowed by the FCC. BEC is 250mw on the X80 per their data sheet.

Battery life is generally 75 days with the camera’s 4 batteries. Add the power pack (6 more D batteries) and I get 120 days before the 4 internal batteries take over – thus up to 200 days is possible, but I always replace the 6 D when they go dead and use the 4 internal batteries like a “back up generator” – thus I never have down time. But keep in mind the more pictures taken the shorter battery life will be. I have 1 camera running on solar power since June 2016 – amazingly this camera ran all winter on a few hours of sunlight per day and temps down to -30 (this is in north Wisconsin).

Images are thumb nails as that is needed to maximize image throughput which is up to 1000 images per day. CuddeLink is designed to be a hunter’s tool and not get you frame worthy images. Full resolution images are still on the remote camera’s SD card if you desire. See sample images attached.

Cost is much lower than similar products for a number of reasons. First, we designed the radio so we don’t have to pay royalties or buy them from a source that marks up the price. Second, we sell up to 200,000 cameras per year so we can leverage this to greatly lower price. While $270 is certainly an expensive trail camera, the Dual Flash is a no-compromise design with both IR and BLACK illumination built it. It also has an upgradeable flash and this camera will work with the forthcoming cellular modems.

Finally, as for sharing this technology with competitors. As someone correctly stated, not going to happen. We spent over 1 million dollars and 4 very difficult years developing this technology and we have no intentions of giving it away. However, we do intend to drive the price as low as possible because after 4 years of use, I think this is technology that every hunter should have.

I hope this helps and thanks a ton for discussing CuddeLink.

Mark Cuddeback

 

[willy]

Mark,

Welcome to the forum and thanks for your input. I am very interested in your product from hunter's use perspective and I think most who use trail cameras use them for this type of info.

Your website detailing cuddelink has been very interesting to read and watch.

I have 80 acres, 400 yards by 800 yards. The ground is rather hilly with changes in elevation of 50' spread throughout. Does your system work with a camera on the backside of a hill communicating to a camera on the opposite side of the hill or does their need to be a camera at the top of the hill to communicate between the two.

Again thanks for your input.

Willy

 

[yoderjac]

Mark,

Great info. Just a few more questions. The output power of the radio is not the final factor, it is the output power from the antenna when antenna gains and cable losses are accounted for. Typically Radios are rated in theoretical maximum distance and practical distances are quite less than that. What is the distance rating for the radio used in the cuddelink system? That would give us an apples to apples comparison. I believe the BEC X series are using 2 mile radios and practical distances are much shorter. The older Orion series I'm using uses 5 mile radios.

What frequency range is the cuddelink using? I believe the BECs use frequency hopper in the 900 MHz range. Different frequency bands are affected differently be vegetation and other attenuating factors.

Do you have a the contour topography lines you can overlay on the map you provided? I find that vegetation (pines are especially bad) have a huge impact on transmission distances in the 900 MHz band. Transmitting through a hardwood forest with a canopy above gives me much longer transmission distances than through young pines. Pines are essentially like transmitting through water when they are actively growing. I get very long transmission distances when I have line of sight or near-line of sight. So, smart camera placement (from an RF perspective) can really demonstrate some long distances. However, smart camera placement from a data collection standpoint (or scouting standpoint) is often in significant conflict with smart placement from an RF perspective so practical distances drop significantly.

Any chance the system will be upgraded to transmit full resolution images?

From a cost perspective, unfortunately, most folks only look at up front cost. A much better indication of actual cost is the total lifecycle cost of purchasing and operating a camera over its lifespan. Unfortunately, it takes a long time to establish the reliability and lifespan of a trail camera. I know in the early years before I got the Orion system, I was spending a lot of time returning cameras under warranty and buying new ones soon after the warranty failed. When I looked at the lifecycle costs of owning those cameras with lower price tags, I was actually spending more in the long run and spending a lot of time futzing with cameras and checking sd cards and swapping batteries that could have been better spent on QDM activities.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[bueller]

I must admit this product interests me but I can be a bit skeptical of new products and somewhat stingy with my cash so I likely won't be buying in just yet.

I hated using D cell batteries in my old camera. Any chance your system will eventually be run on AA's? Energizer lithium AA's last forever even in extreme cold temps.

 

[Mark Cuddeback]

We have found the best batteries are 6 D as they have 20 Amp Hours of capacity at 9 volts. 12 AA batteries have 5 amp hours of at 9 volts. Plus, overall operating cost is much lower with D batteries ($6 of D equals $14 of AA). Even in north Wisconsin the 6 D had no problem in temperatures down to -20.

 

[Mark Cuddeback]

Mark,

Welcome to the forum and thanks for your input. I am very interested in your product from hunter's use perspective and I think most who use trail cameras use them for this type of info.

Your website detailing cuddelink has been very interesting to read and watch.

I have 80 acres, 400 yards by 800 yards. The ground is rather hilly with changes in elevation of 50' spread throughout. Does your system work with a camera on the backside of a hill communicating to a camera on the opposite side of the hill or does their need to be a camera at the top of the hill to communicate between the two.

Again thanks for your input.

Willy

80 acres is 1/4 by 1/2 mile so this makes setting up a CuddeLink system easy as all cameras will be within 1/4 mile of at least one other camera - the perfect deployment scenario. However, radio waves don't travel through earth. So if you have hills you may need repeaters on top the hills. You can use a camera as a repeater or the upcoming Home Plus can be used as a repeater. The Home Plus should retail for under $130 so this make deploying repeaters a much more affordable option then using a camera as a repeater. We anticipate the Home Plus being available in early 2018.

 

[Mark Cuddeback]

Mark,

Great info. Just a few more questions. The output power of the radio is not the final factor, it is the output power from the antenna when antenna gains and cable losses are accounted for. Typically Radios are rated in theoretical maximum distance and practical distances are quite less than that. What is the distance rating for the radio used in the cuddelink system? That would give us an apples to apples comparison. I believe the BEC X series are using 2 mile radios and practical distances are much shorter. The older Orion series I'm using uses 5 mile radios.

What frequency range is the cuddelink using? I believe the BECs use frequency hopper in the 900 MHz range. Different frequency bands are affected differently be vegetation and other attenuating factors.

Do you have a the contour topography lines you can overlay on the map you provided? I find that vegetation (pines are especially bad) have a huge impact on transmission distances in the 900 MHz band. Transmitting through a hardwood forest with a canopy above gives me much longer transmission distances than through young pines. Pines are essentially like transmitting through water when they are actively growing. I get very long transmission distances when I have line of sight or near-line of sight. So, smart camera placement (from an RF perspective) can really demonstrate some long distances. However, smart camera placement from a data collection standpoint (or scouting standpoint) is often in significant conflict with smart placement from an RF perspective so practical distances drop significantly.

Any chance the system will be upgraded to transmit full resolution images?

From a cost perspective, unfortunately, most folks only look at up front cost. A much better indication of actual cost is the total lifecycle cost of purchasing and operating a camera over its lifespan. Unfortunately, it takes a long time to establish the reliability and lifespan of a trail camera. I know in the early years before I got the Orion system, I was spending a lot of time returning cameras under warranty and buying new ones soon after the warranty failed. When I looked at the lifecycle costs of owning those cameras with lower price tags, I was actually spending more in the long run and spending a lot of time futzing with cameras and checking sd cards and swapping batteries that could have been better spent on QDM activities.

Thanks,

Jack

By FCC rules CuddeLink must frequency hop, however the frequency hops are very small and stay within about 30 MHz, much like the BEC system. So this small MHz variation has minimal effect, if any, on range. Antennas are important and we tested many and selected a high gain antenna that has the omni-directional sensitivity we needed for a mesh network. A distance rating is meaningless as anyone who bought a 30 mile radio has learned it won't go 1/2 mile in the forest. The walkie-talkie people are lying and getting away with it. Clear line of sight transmission is easy - I got over 1-1/2 miles down a road and had plenty of signal until I ran out of road. In the open county of Nebraska I got over 2 miles and could of gone further. I could specify a 2 mile range but that would be misleading as most hunters are in the forest. My terrain is relatively flat but very thick - summer visibility is 10 feet due to foliage - yet I average about 1/4 mile but in some cases it may only be 1000 feet and other cases almost 1/2 mile. I think the variation is caused by how the signal interacts with the trees. The CuddeLink cameras have a level meter that makes it easy to see if the camera will connect before you deploy it. However, unless the user is on a 640+ acre property the connection range is typically not a concern as the radios will connect to the closest radio and daisy chain the image home.

We do not plan on transmitting full size image. Our thumb nail images average 20 KB at night and 50 KB day. A full size image is 1MB - or the equivalent of 20 thumbnail images. This reduction in image throughput would be detrimental to most users who want more images per day. The design philosophy is to get the users images to help them determine deer patterns and where to hunt without having to intrude upon the property. If user wants the full rez image they always can visit that camera to pull the card. The full rez image are not deleted from the SD card but saved for the user.

Operating cost is always a concern with multiple cameras deployed. We also want to prevent down time when batteries fail. For these reasons we selected D batteries as they have the most capacity (maHr) per dollar spent. We also recommend the CuddePower battery pack as that allow the camera to run from 6 D batteries and save the internal batteries for when the external fail. With this method I have never had a network go down because of dead batteries.

 

[yoderjac]

So are you in the 900 MHz band? Did you find an Omni greater than 8db, I have not.

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

That's pretty interesting. What would the total cost be for the home base that could be kept in the house and 4 cameras that would be placed around the property?

 

[Peplin Creek]

Right now it's about $270 per unit.