Tuesday 19 June 2012

D500x - it's arrived

After a slightly delayed trip from Sweden via several courier depots and my neighbour, my D500x has arrived. First impressions are that it's small and well built. The menu is quite user friendly, and it's pretty easy to set up. Unlike the older versions with the previous firmwear, this one just needs Windows FAT32 formatted CF cards in it, not the specially formatted ones that the D1000x needs.
As the device is not totally weatherproof, and looks rather high-tech and appealing dangling from a tree, I set about maiking an enclosure to keep the weather off, and make it more discrete.
I started off with an plastic electronics enclosure box and cut a hole for the microphone. I then used that cut-off section as a shield above the microphone. The external power lead annoyingly comes out the front of the device which means you have to bend the lead back in to the battery pack.
For batteries I made a pack up from a 6xAA holder I got from Maplins. That should give about 7.2 V at 2500 mAH. The device only needs about 4 V to work, but six batteries should give some margin if a battery or two fails, which seems to be quite common for NiMH batteries, for me anyway.

The D500x with a 6 AA battery pack wired into the external power socket.

Packed inside the box, the external power cable has to come out and then be net back around again.

All done up inside the box and sprayed a nice drab olive colour.

The microphone is shielded from rain by the cut-out section which has been bolted to the lid.

Deployed for testing in my garden.



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