The Breathecam project deploys cameras for monitoring smoke emissions at industrial sites. These cameras take time lapse images at high resolution, and the backend software supports image mosaic across multiple cameras to give highly zoomable images. I was the engineer for a redesign to replace older cameras that were failing and could no longer be repaired due to use of a discontinued point-and-shoot camera. Camera technology had also progressed considerably since that design.

The new design is based on Raspberry Pi for better long term maintainability. Board cameras with fixed focus M12 lenses are cheaper and more reliable than consumer cameras. The old design had only a single camera in a much larger enclosure, while the new one has four cameras in a single enclosure.

I did mechanical design for all of the internal components and packaging, selected the components, and assembled the cameras.

And also created arrangements for field installation.

I created a collimator setup which is used to test and adjust the focus of camera/lens combination on the benchtop, creating an image of a test target at infinity.

We are using 3D printed aluminum camera mounts to get the dimensional stability needed for image mosaicing. We have found that the print quality is variable and that touchup machining of the mount angle insures proper image overlap.