Cameras in Engine Room

For the size and type vessel mydauphin is talking about there is no regulation or requirement.

I agree that unless someone is looking at the display they are of limited use, my point is, with the cost of these camera's being so low and with no need for a dedicated display, there is no really good reason not to install them. They may be of limited use, but when an alarm or idiot light goes off the ability to instantly see the engine room could be very valuable.

Steve

 

I agree that without anybody watching the display, cameras don't do much good.
But instead of sitting in front of the display day and night, you could use an old laptop and run frame grabber software that compares changes in the picture and warn you if more than a certain number of pixels have changed. Intrusion alarm system with video cameras work that way without supervision.

 

That is idea

 

The open-source world has been developing frame-grabbing and image differencing software for some time now. The hardware is low cost (depending on what you want, of course). It's all possible.

However, if you're that worried about leaks, and machinery condition, you're probably missing something on maintenance (how often do you check your car engine to make sure it won't explode?).

I see cameras in the engine room as a useful security and safety feature (to determine if anyone is in the engine room), or perhaps as an aid to maintenance (as in an endoscope), not as a fault-detection system.

Cheers,

Tim B.

 

Agreed, camera is not there to reduce daily maintenance checks. The one thought I am developing here is, I think I am going to need three cameras.

Two infrared looking at the rear engine fixed on shaft, tranny and exhaust, and another with lighting, zoom and controls that I can use to see other places... lol

Or may be 1 good camera or may be 2 fixed, or may be 3 ... or may I get an R2d2

 

I fully agree with you, like I also said in thread 14. However where does one get the grabber software from. I am not running unix or linix but Windows7, thus the command comp cannot be used by me or any of the other Unix differential software. Do you have a name and a web address for us. ?
Bert

 

For the exhaust , Practical Boat Owner June 2012 issue page 67 has an inexpensive DIY heat alarm system, to build it yourself. (If everything else fails) Bert

 

When I bought a few Chinese wireless cameras last year there was a package called Easycap included. It works with a USB stick that converts composite video and audio to MPEG-1. The software has a lot of options to grab single picture frames, both manual and automatic.

I installed it on an old Compaq laptop that was supposed to monitor two cameras, one near the front gate, the other one watching our boat. It didn't work because the usb port of the laptop was too slow (USB1.0) for the camera signals, so I discarded the whole project.

 

Thanks CDK, I googled and apparantly it is a free download. I will see whether I will have time before I fly and play around with it. Thanks for the info.
Bert

 

This is a very old thread, but I wanted to hear what solutions people have come up with over the years.
I am actually running some anomaly detection tests at the moment for my own projects (I put some result in the link below for inspiration).
I would like to design something meaningful and if possible, not just for my self but to benefit more boaters.

I’ve put together a very short 5-question survey (takes about 1 minute). Even a handful of responses would really help me understand what actually matters in practice. Also and any lessons learned would be greatly appreciated.

Survey: Engine Room Camera Questionnaire https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd9KaLZ4Fp7SmCm3TFfeCB9Jq97m_smzE0xcLCVSP-zWEFMvQ/viewform?usp=header

 

All the camera(s) do is save you a trip to the engine room.
If alarms have already triggered, prompting you to look at the images, then you already know you have an issue.
The nature of the alarm should be enough to know what the problem is without the need for cameras.

Your survey is a marketing questionnaire, no?

 

We built a series of ferryboats where the engines are "unmanned" and "unattended most of the time|. The engine manufacturer claims that at any given time they can pull out the data showing the engine RPM, temperature, exhaust emmisions, ect. The sensors and the alarm is connected to the pilothouse control panel and its two wiring harness has more than a dozen wires in it. At a glance the pilot can see how the engine is behaving and if anything is off, the alarm sounds.

We installed a small cheap camera because we have to comply with the statutory rules. Though redundant, we have to comply.