Cuddeback's Cuddelink

[12point]

Looks like I'll have to bring one of my G series to the house and call Cuddeback. I've had problems before with this camera just taking pictures over and over all day and night like it's in surveillance mode and then it just works fine. Yesterday it took pictures for 18 hours straight but with a new twist. Every other picture during the day was black and white and the next was color. It's been a couple weeks since it last acted up and I was hoping it was a fluke but since I'm getting ready to activate a cell plan I really don't want one camera trying to send 1000 pictures a day.

My units will do the same thing when the batteries are almost dead.

 

[JLemon]

My units will do the same thing when the batteries are almost dead.

That's not the case with this camera. It's still running off the 3358 Cuddepower and has done this randomly since I put it out at the end of April. I called customer service yesterday and it's boxed and getting shipped back to Cuddeback today. She said possibly a faulty heat sensor or motion detector.

 

[Potter co notill]

That's not the case with this camera. It's still running off the 3358 Cuddepower and has done this randomly since I put it out at the end of April. I called customer service yesterday and it's boxed and getting shipped back to Cuddeback today. She said possibly a faulty heat sensor or motion detector.

Mine did the same thing and they sent me a brand new camera

 

[12point]

I sure hate to see that John has been run off. This thread and his insight is the reason I joined this forum. He has been nothing but helpful to me and is an invaluable resource to Cuddelink users. Cant have anything nice without somebody ruining it.

My high gain antennas showed up today. Going to install on my lunch break tomorrow. I'll give an update on them once I see how they do.

They worked for me, had to have them last year to make one of my
cell homes work

 

[crenshawco]

Well after 9 hours I feel confident in saying that the high gain antennas work. After the summer green up my cell home started operating very sporadically. It rarely sent pics, but it would send the daily report most of the time. After talking to John Volkman and Cuddeback CS we diagnosed it as a service issue. With the new antennas, my cameras are back to sending pics every couple of hours like I'd expect

 

[Bpressley]

Well after 9 hours I feel confident in saying that the high gain antennas work. After the summer green up my cell home started operating very sporadically. It rarely sent pics, but it would send the daily report most of the time. After talking to John Volkman and Cuddeback CS we diagnosed it as a service issue. With the new antennas, my cameras are back to sending pics every couple of hours like I'd expect

That's good to hear. I purchased some from digi-key in anticipation of needing them in a certain area this summer. I'm putting them out next week. I hope my results are as good as yours.

 

[JLemon]

Thanks to John I have my Dual Cell up and running. The instructions that come with it as well as the ones on the Cuddeback support page lists a step during the camera setup that doesn't need to be done anymore. It says to enter the email address you want your pictures in the CC DEST menu. This no longer gets done on the camera and the option isn't available.
Now that it's running and my 3 cameras (4th is in for repairs) are sending pictures every 6 hours I'm very happy. The setup other than the above issue was a breeze. This is the only thing I can't figure out. I've switched my Home camera that I was using to get my pictures to a repeater as I had to move the new Dual Cell to a different location to get a good LTE signal. When I was just using the Home all 4 cameras had a signal between 50-80 and now it's 16-24. The repeater (old Home), which is in the same spot it always was, has a signal of 60 to the Dual cell.

 

[12point]

Well after 9 hours I feel confident in saying that the high gain antennas work. After the summer green up my cell home started operating very sporadically. It rarely sent pics, but it would send the daily report most of the time. After talking to John Volkman and Cuddeback CS we diagnosed it as a service issue. With the new antennas, my cameras are back to sending pics every couple of hours like I'd expect

They did the same for me last winter. They are a problem solver

 

[Booner21]

Booner, what are the "single extenders" to speak of? I assume you are using G-series cams and that is the external 6-D battery CuddePower (#3358) accessory?

I would like to know the same thing and what type of batteries were used. If it was the 3358, what the temperature were. I'm in southern middle TN and my batteries didn't have to deal with extreme cold as up north, and they averaged lasting 17 days.

Yes that was it I have no idea why adding 1.5x the battery power lasts for 5x as long but it did on every cam I tested. I ranged from 4 days to 50 days on the internals with most lasting around the 20 day mark.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

 

[mx1alex]

Stumbled across this forum trying to search for how to get my Cuddebacks working.

I bought 4 of the K-5789 cams for work. What I need out of them work wise is to send me pictures a few times a day of some bean fields so I can try and monitor their growth stages. Each site is far enough away each one will need a cell plan.

I've got 2 of them powered up, updated the firmware, and according to cuddelink they are both activated. The next step in the manual says to do the "cc test". Every time I've run the cc test I've gotten a failure. I read on this thread where it said to set the cam to "home" in the link menu. I've tried that but still no luck. So that's my first issue.

Secondly I have yet to get either cam to take a pic yet. When I go to arm the camera "cell tx" flashes on the screen after the 30sec timer counts down. I can't find anywhere where in the manual or online what this means. I've left them both running for a while and when I load the SD card on the computer the file structure is there but no pictures other than the status pic.

One more question. Once I'm done with these for work I'd like to use them here on my farm but I don't want to have to pay for 4 cell plans. Can these cams also act as a "remote" and send pics to the one cam I set as the home cam with the cell plan? I called Cuddeback before I purchased these and the lady on the phone said they can't do that but I got the impression she didn't know what she was talking about.

 

[spaniel]

Just added two black flash cameras to my system of 4 IR cameras. Is it just me or does the black flash take much blurrier photos at night?

 

[12point]

Just added two black flash cameras to my system of 4 IR cameras. Is it just me or does the black flash take much blurrier photos at night?

It's not just , they do take a blurrier picture

 

[FredG]

12point is correct spaniel, it's not just you! A CMOS picture sensor is only about 1/3 as sensitive to 940nm black flash as it is to red flash at 850nm, so the shutter speed has to be longer to get a good exposure when using black flash. A longer shutter speed equals more time for the animal's motion to cause blurry results. There are a few things you can do to try to help minimize motion blur so if you would like a couple of suggestions post up one or two of you night images with blur and we can we can discuss some techniques.

 

[spaniel]

12point is correct spaniel, it's not just you! A CMOS picture sensor is only about 1/3 as sensitive to 940nm black flash as it is to red flash at 850nm, so the shutter speed has to be longer to get a good exposure when using black flash. A longer shutter speed equals more time for the animal's motion to cause blurry results. There are a few things you can do to try to help minimize motion blur so if you would like a couple of suggestions post up one or two of you night images with blur and we can we can discuss some techniques.

Well I guess we're in the lesser of two evils space now. Posting pics won't help, if deer motion and shutter speed is the root of the issue then it is what it is. I guess it comes down to whether I believe the IR causes the deer to avoid locations, and really that is all that matters and I don't have the data to form an opinion on that. All I know thus far is every black flash night photo is of disappointing quality, unless I become convinced deer are avoiding IR I'm inclined to lean that direction.

 

[Bpressley]

Well I guess we're in the lesser of two evils space now. Posting pics won't help, if deer motion and shutter speed is the root of the issue then it is what it is. I guess it comes down to whether I believe the IR causes the deer to avoid locations, and really that is all that matters and I don't have the data to form an opinion on that. All I know thus far is every black flash night photo is of disappointing quality, unless I become convinced deer are avoiding IR I'm inclined to lean that direction.

There are some setting changes that can be made to reduce motion blur. See post 1484. FredG details some differences, it's an excellent post. BTW thanks FredG for relaying that info!
As far as the IR vs. Black flash debate goes....if I'm using video mode on any cam I use black flash. Picture mode I prefer IR. It's unfortunate I purchased all my Jseries in black flash. I did so with the understanding I could take a pic and video for each trigger event AND have both transmitted via cuddelink. I didn't realize until after I couldn't. But it's no biggie. They still take manageable pics and get me the info I need.

 

[PartsGuy]

John - any idea when the 3358 to J series cables will be out? I've got a camera reset scheduled for late July/early August (the recommended time for population surveys) and it doesn't sound like the new dual booster will be available then.

If I had an idea when the cable was available, I could schedule my trip and the folks I need to assist. Thanks

 

[spaniel]

There are some setting changes that can be made to reduce motion blur. See post 1484. FredG details some differences, it's an excellent post. BTW thanks FredG for relaying that info!
As far as the IR vs. Black flash debate goes....if I'm using video mode on any cam I use black flash. Picture mode I prefer IR. It's unfortunate I purchased all my Jseries in black flash. I did so with the understanding I could take a pic and video for each trigger event AND have both transmitted via cuddelink. I didn't realize until after I couldn't. But it's no biggie. They still take manageable pics and get me the info I need.

Thanks for the direction; I set my cameras to "close" so next stop I'll switch them to "far" and see if that helps with the blur a bit. My cams are on trails so the deer are almost always moving through the frame during shots.

 

[JLemon]

John - any idea when the 3358 to J series cables will be out? I've got a camera reset scheduled for late July/early August (the recommended time for population surveys) and it doesn't sound like the new dual booster will be available then.

If I had an idea when the cable was available, I could schedule my trip and the folks I need to assist. Thanks

He told me in a PM they should be available in July.

 

[spaniel]

He told me in a PM they should be available in July.

If someone sees these up for sale please post here. Cuddeback will make some more money off me once these are out....

 

[Pursuit Outdoors]

Stumbled across this forum trying to search for how to get my Cuddebacks working.

I bought 4 of the K-5789 cams for work. What I need out of them work wise is to send me pictures a few times a day of some bean fields so I can try and monitor their growth stages. Each site is far enough away each one will need a cell plan.

I've got 2 of them powered up, updated the firmware, and according to cuddelink they are both activated. The next step in the manual says to do the "cc test". Every time I've run the cc test I've gotten a failure. I read on this thread where it said to set the cam to "home" in the link menu. I've tried that but still no luck. So that's my first issue.

Secondly I have yet to get either cam to take a pic yet. When I go to arm the camera "cell tx" flashes on the screen after the 30sec timer counts down. I can't find anywhere where in the manual or online what this means. I've left them both running for a while and when I load the SD card on the computer the file structure is there but no pictures other than the status pic.

One more question. Once I'm done with these for work I'd like to use them here on my farm but I don't want to have to pay for 4 cell plans. Can these cams also act as a "remote" and send pics to the one cam I set as the home cam with the cell plan? I called Cuddeback before I purchased these and the lady on the phone said they can't do that but I got the impression she didn't know what she was talking about.

Pretty sure the K series dual flash has to have active service to even function. I could be wrong on that though.

I'm assuming you have good Verizon signal strength at the location you are trying to connect the cam at?