ronniesherard - 
So, I’m working on setting up a backyard weather station, complete with a Webcam. The problem? The camera I have is a Linksys WVC54GCA, which is NOT an outdoor camera. I looked at several other cameras, but I just couldn’t see forking out the money for them. Granted, it would be GREAT to have better visibility at night, but it’s night. Is there really much to see at night anyway? I then realized, I had some die cast cases in the garage. Problem solved!
I started with a standard, clear die cast case. On the first attempt, I tried to drill a hole through the back, which cracked a big chunk of the case out. I thought about it overnight and the next day, before I realized what I needed to do. Using the grinding bit on my Dremmel, I made an opening for the power cord in the bottom of the case. I then used double-sided tape to secure the base of the camera to the base of the case. For testing, I taped the top and bottom of the case and let the camera run for a full day.
The housing worked great, even with a few heavy rain showers and thunderstorms we had move through. So, I decided it was time to move on to the next step: painting the case to provide shade and reduce reflection. Last night, I painted the back and sides of the case with primer, hoping it would help to reduce the slight bit of glare I had and provide some shade for the camera. However, when I painted it, I could not get a signal to the camera from my router (in the garage on the opposite side of the house). I then removed the painted cover, put on another clear one, and the signal once again improved. Content with my setup, I decided today was the day to mount it in the backyard.
First, it took me about 30 minutes to tweak the alignment of the camera, as not to capture the house next door, too much fence, or any of the gutter. Once I had the alignment set, I put silicone sealant around the edge of the base and slid the top of the case on. Next, I mounted the camera to one of the pillars on my lanai using nothing more than heavy duty zip ties. I then ran the power cord along the lanai, into an extension cord, and then dropped the extension cord down to the power outlet. I used S hooks to hang the cords and used Velcro to keep the plug connection high enough to not get wet. The end result is what you see here! I am pretty happy with the setup, but time will tell if it is really a good housing for the camera. One thing that I noticed on the time lapse video yesterday was a bit of reflection from the sun later in the afternoon. However, the position it is in now has changed a bit from where I was testing it, so we’ll see. The camera faces to the NNW and is tilted just enough to get over the fence, but not quite enough to get the bottom edge of the gutter.
