My DIY radar speed camera: Mullet Edition—Business in the front, party in the back.

[u/nutstobutts]

I've found a nice way to hide my radar speed camera on the street so I can start testing it. From the front, it just looks like every other slow down sign. In the back, is where the party is at.

I cut a small hole in the sign for the camera and attached it all (radar, camera, wifi, and solar panel) to the back. Of course the solar panel looks way out of place. Without it no one would ever see the radar unit, so I think I will power it with a long cable instead. Right now I'm using a second sign to hide it from the rear.

Performance wise, it's working far better than I expected. The radar has a range of about 130ft-180ft (about 40-55 meters).

Attached are 2 photos it took automatically. One is of a white SUV driving from left to right which is about 180ft away.

The second is a white sedan driving towards the camera, this car registered 14 MPH when the photo was taken.

I still need to figure out the best speed and timing for the photos to get the car much closer to the camera. A video would be nice but I think images will be easier to manage.

Of course this thing is nowhere near ready and still needs quite a bit more work. I'll open source everything in a few weeks once I fix some glaring problems. I'm also combining all the dev boards into one board, so it'll be about 3 times smaller than what you see in the photos.

[u/fart_huffer-]

What a hero! I can see it now. OP patrolling the neighborhood with his bright yellow sash displaying with an authoritative font “HOA ENFORCER”. As he patrols the streets residents quake in fear of any potential violations they might possibly be committing. They begin closing garage doors, moving trash bins behind the house, pulling weeds, shutting off water, etc. The children run inside of their homes for they know the consequences of playing outside. Uh oh! What’s this? A vehicle parked in the driveway but the front right wheel partially in the grass!! Not on OPs watch! He whips out his ink stick from his pocket protector vest and promptly begins issuing an HOA citation. He thinks to himself “a caterpillar can only move forward when all the legs move as one”. But just as he slides the intimidating citation under the windshield wiper blades…a car goes zooming by! Going so fast the hair on his receding hairline dances as if in the wind. His phone begins buzzing, critical alerts frantically trying to alert him to a vehicle traveling at a neck breaking 26 MPH in 25 MPH zone! He will pay this road rule breaking Fonzie a visit tomorrow. And thank god for his automation system because these alerts were also sent to the city council members to prove how dangerous this road is. He thinks to himself “what if kids had been in the street? And what if the HOA didn’t have rules banning child play outside? I don’t even want to know the outcome. They better thank me for my service!”