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===Hacking a 3com homeconnect webcam===
The motivation for this has to do with the fact that these cameras image quality degraded considerably after time. I was interested to see if I could find the reason.  So I took one apart.  New cameras will probably not suffer this issue, and I would not recommend it to anyone.  But I thought I would share my experience with this camera.
[[Image:pre_modification.jpg|thumb|right|one bad and one good camera]]



As you can see the image on the left is fuzzy.  I have 3 cameras, the camera on the right is my best one.  The third camera was worse, but instead of throwing it away, I took it apart to see what was the problem.


[[Image:redshifted.jpg|thumb|right|bad camera modified by removing blurry blue lens]]


The results of removing this filter was an overexposed, red shifted image, but the image quality was much sharper.  I believe many of the materials used for electronics and {{w|charge-coupled device}} are more sensitive to the red and infrared wavelengths.  That is why there are so many "night vision" toys on the market.  It was interesting to see more pragmatic solution of adding a physical blue glass filter to balance the camera instead of software.  Now that the camera is red shifted, and over exposed - we can deal with that in software.  Anyway it might be better for the robot at night.


[[Image:bothmod.jpg|thumb|right|two "bad" cameras after modification]]
[[Image:hack1.jpg|thumb|left|hack1]]
[[Image:hack2.jpg|thumb|left|hack2]]
[[Image:hack3.jpg|thumb|left|hack3]]
[[Image:hack4.jpg|thumb|left|hack4]]
[[Image:hack5.jpg|thumb|left|hack5]]
[[Image:hack6.jpg|thumb|left|hack6]]
[[Image:hack7.jpg|thumb|left|hack7]]


{| width="100%" cellspacing="0" border="1" style="background: lightblue none repeat scroll 0%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;"
|-
! camera
! description 
! rating 
! sample 
|-
| 38
| glass filter removed, completely dead - re-assembled incorrectly?
| 
| [[Image:sample_c1.jpg]]
|-
| C2 - 40
| glass filter removed, blue film added, clear
| ****
| [[Image:sample_c2.jpg]]
|-
| C3 - 37
| glass filter removed, blue film added, clear, fairly good color balance, although florescent lights will still overexpose in vidcap
| ***
| [[Image:sample_c3.jpg]]
|-
| C4 - 39
| glass filter removed, no film - not bad - glare induces dark lines it seems
| ***
| [[Image:sample_c4.jpg]]
|}