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/mrGood238]

One idea to get snapshot of a car later on, when its closer:

Whatever is your trigger to start measuring speed, use it to take the 1st picture so you have definitive “evidence” of speeding car. Now start taking pictures as some interval, lets say each second for 10 or 15 seconds. Since you know speed and distance, calculate when was the car at optimal distance from camera. Take the snap what is closest to the calculated time.

x x D - - - - - - - T - - - C

X = no vehicle and images D = detected vehicle/initial image

• = snapshots at x interval

T = best photo C = camera

Or hook up another, better camera as “evidence” camera. This can record 24/7, just trigger some kind of event on NVR/CMS so its marked on its UI and during playback. We use this logic with ANPR cameras - evidence camera/system receives trigger from ANPR camera when plate is read or vehicle without plate is detected. Since ANPR camera is set up and directed so it gets best possible plate images, context is missing - you can see front of the vehicle and color during the day but at night, with headlights on, you can barely identify anything - this is when evidence camera (nice one, 5mpx+ with color night mode and additional IR) steps in.

Not commenting of legal side of anything related to this since laws and rules are different everywere but this wouldn’t fly in EU without many, many permits…