12 VDC can be connected to the two screw terminals on the rear panel.  Since these same terminals accept AC the polarity of the DC does not matter.  The DC & Video Siamese cable that's used with the PC164 will not work with this camera directly since this camera does not have a 2.1x5.5mm DC power socket.  The screw terminals are much more reliable than the plug which can get pulled apart.

Rather than use a screwdriver every time the camera needs be brought inside I've added a pigtail with a 2.1x5.5 mm DC power Jack.  That way it's compatible with the other cameras that have the same jack.

24 VAC can be connected to the two screw terminals on the rear panel.  This option has some advantages.

• The same 3 watts of power can be carried using wire with half the area as is needed for 12 volts lowering the cost or extending the reach of the power wiring.
• Vertical sync can come from one of three sources:
• The internal crystal oscillator
• An external Vertical Blanking Signal (BNCf connector top right) (this also should work with 12 VDC)
  
• AC power input

I've mounted the Mintron 63V5 in a Super Circuits ENCOD weatherproof housing since it's starting to get cloudy in mid Sep 2007.  Since this is not a security camera I mounted it low so I can sit in a chair to do any work needed.  The camera attaches to a sheet metal mounting plate using a supplied 1/4-20x1/4" stubby screw.  For the 3-8 mm Varifocal DC auto iris lens the front of the lens needs to be flush with the front of the plate.  You can just eyeball the left right rotation of the camera to get it pointing straight out the window.  The sliding sunshade can only be out a small amount and stay out of the field of view.  Maybe a long telephoto lens would allow for more extension.

The rear black plastic end cap has two places to bring in wires, but the holes are too small for a BNC connector or an RCA connector so you can not easily install a ready made cable.  I just cut a notch at the bottom center to just clear the Siamese DC/Video cable (black) and the CAT5 remote control cable (blue).  This allows removing the end cap completely which is  good since you don't want any weight on the cables trying to pull the camera and it's mounting plate out of the housing.

When opening the rear cap it's easy to drop a screw into the dirt/plants and loose it. 

Also be sure to start turning the screw CCW until it drops into the thread then turn clockwise.  This has been working and the threads in the housing are still fine after many cycles of the cap.

The mounting plate may be shorter than the slot allowing it to move once the rear cap is installed.  This can be a problem when a wide angle lens is used since you will see the edges of the window if the camera moves back.  Also if there's any movement the RS-232 cable may unplug.



This is the maximum up angle you can get with the housing square to the wall without inverting the mount.  Notice that the cable pass through nuts are straddling the mount arm so if the camera is panned to the left or right the elevation will need to be lowered maybe 5 degrees.  If the camera is panned past the cable nuts then it might tip up another 10 degrees.

I used a twist & tie to hold the video, DC and Remote cables together and to the base plate.  Otherwise any pull on the remote cable will unplug it since it's a DIN type push in with no locking.   A single twist & tie was not good enough.  It's necessary to tie the remote cable to the mounting plate in maybe at least 3 places so that there's no way it can move and so that there's pressure pushing the connector into the socket.

The Mintron 63V5 (Super Circuits PC-38) is sitting below the centerline of the window.  That's probably a good thing, but not sure depending on the lens used.
17 Sep 2007 - After taking the above photo and starting to measure the bracket and housing to see what adjustments can be made the key adjustment was found.  That's the rail under the housing allowing it to be positioned anywhere along the length between the two end caps.  Now it's all the way forward and so can be tipped up whereas now the housing is against the house wall.

The camera mounting plate may have 1/2" of fore and aft slop.  To keep the plate up front so the lens does not get vignetted by the window I used two tooth picks, one on each side, wedged between the mounting plate and the groove it slips into.

Housing looks the same as the 3.5" x 3.5" x 13.5" DOTWORKZ SCH-13. $49 at 123 Security Products, $35 at Super Circuits (no label), $49 at WebCamProShop

ENCOD2 Mini Outdoor Security Camera 6.75 X 3.5 H X 4.25 W Housing  $40 @ Super Circuits - I wonder if the longer ENCOD/DOTWORKZ SCH-13 can just be cut to length with a hacksaw?

This camera has a very large number of settings that are possible and they all can be accessed by either the On Screen Display or by the RS-232 remote interface.
An advantage of this camera is it's great flexibility, but that's also a problem since you need to know how to drive it.

My goal is to have a 24/7 web cam and hopefully with no adjustments.  In order to see stars at night the Sense Up needs to be at the max of 128X.  In order to work in the daytime an auto iris lens that has a very wide range like f1.4 to f360 helps a lot.  Also using what on other cameras is called Automatic Electronic Shutter helps with daytime which is very bright for a sense up type camera. 

When AGC is OFF the daytime images are good but when it gets very dark the screen turns solid black.  AGC needs to be ON, but it's not clear how to manually set Automatic AGC vs. setting a fixed Gain level.  In the remote programming commands it's straight forward to enable Automatic Gain Control and that's what's wanted here.  The default is supposed to be Shutter priority AGC, not iris priority.  The latter is used for things like traffic cams or where there's a lot of motion and you want the fastest shutter speed.  For astronomy where there is no fast movement and in general using shutter priority is much better in terms of quality of image.  Once Sense Up X128 is selected, no sense up is used for bright scenes.  As it gets darker the shutter speed is slowed down until it gets to 1/60 second and if more light is needed the AGC starts using more and more Sense Up until it gets to 128X.  I think after this the lens gets opened up, but that's not clear.

While working on the remote control the AGC is ON and the LEVEL is at half way.  This may mean the camera iris DC voltage is at mid range?  I don't think so.
Some nights moving the AGC-ON Max slider results in not detectable change in the image (after waiting 3 to 5 minutes for the camera to recover from a black screen).

In the daytime switching the AGC between OFF and ON does not seem to change anything.

The remote software confirms that there are three AGC settings:

• OFF
• AGC ON - The "Max" slider does not seem to do anything.
  
• MANUAL - level sets the brightness of the scene - this always works the same way.
  

It may be that Sense really means Shutter and AGC means Iris, but I'm still working on that.

?#1 Testing  at night shows that with AGC ON the slider when full left products a mostly black image.  With the slider fully to the right the image contains a lot of red fluffy artifacts.  These may be clouds since that's the appearance of clouds at night, or it may be seeing related.  In any case full up doesn't look that good.  But in the center gave the most pleasing to the eye result.

There are many hot pixels and in a still photo it's impossible to tell which is a hot pixel and which is not.  But in a time lapse movie it's very clear since the stars are circling Polaris and the hot pixels are just sitting there.  It may be possible to make an overlay for the VisionGS software that posts to the web that would black out the hot pixels?

Satellites show up doubled, i.e. you see what appears to be two satellites and a line drawn between them is on the path of movement caused by the x128 (2 second) integration.  In other cases a bright dot appears and then goes away.  Maybe caused by trees.