CVS Camera


  1. About the camera
  2. Hacking the camera
    1. Attaching a USB cable
    2. Software
  3. Power
  4. Our assembly
  5. Useful Links

 

About the camera

 

The CVS camera is a small, light (1.0 oz for just the camera with no case or battery), cheap ($20) "one time use" video camera. The idea is that once you fill up the internal flash, you bring it back to the store and have them "develop" it into a CD. People quickly discovered that it is extremely easy to hack these cameras and get the data off of them yourself, therefore eliminating the designed "one time use".

 

We are using a CVS camera pointed straight down to record the first 20 minutes (or so, until it runs out of space) of the launch.

 

Hacking the camera

 

Attaching a USB cable

 

Here's the pinout:

 

 

Software

 

Once you have a working USB cable, the camera should show up as a "Saturn" device. The camera we have has version 52.12 of the firmware. So far the only software I have found that successfully unlocked and retreived data from the camera is this *specific* copy of "OPS" for windows, available at:

http://freelowell.com/downloads/camcorderpage/OPSWITHCRONUS.zip

 

Power

 

We are powering the camera with a single CR123 battery, connected to the camera's battery terminals.

 

Our assembly

 

 

Useful Links