Night Vision Phone

[Dvorhagen]

Ha!! That robot's got nothing on my goggles, though, Photonaholic -- I don't even see any duct tape!

So, I bought a few high intensity IR LEDs (annoyingly, their wavelength wasn't indicated) and wired them up in parallel on my breadboard...Not particularly good results. No sir. Either they're not a great wavelength for the iPhone's CCD or it does have a significant IR filter. I'm certainly not going to crack open my phone, but I think I'll try to remove the filter from an old digital camera I have, and see if it works better.

 

[photonaholic]

first off, wiring those leds in parallel is not a good idea, unless you have an individual resistor on each led.

they are all competing for the juice.

just thought you would want to know that. (if they are lighting up, its at a significantly lower than normal output.)

3 leds in a series with a 100-120 ohm resistor for 12 volts should work nice.

 

[charliebruce]

My friend did this - he used a few high-brightness IR LEDs which provided a decent picture of the immediate area, but not much beyond a couple of meters. The iPhone has no IR filters, the IR shows up as purple-white light.

 

[Dvorhagen]

Tried them in series - much better, thanks! I'm still pretty stupid when it comes to electronics...

 

[HaloBlu]

In case you haven't run across them DX has some high power IR LEDs. They would need a heatsink. A couple of 3W 850nm IR LEDs with reflectors should light a decent area. Dim red glow should be visible from 850nm tho.

 

[photonaholic]

Tried them in series - much better, thanks! I'm still pretty stupid when it comes to electronics...

That's the one field I do OK in, never hesitate to ask.