webcam and cat5 usb connection

Hi... I'm new to the site.. Looks great and hope you guys can help me out...

It has to do with using a cat5 cable with a usb long range extension cable adapter and what I need to do to make the cat5 cable weather/waterproof... ????

Or, if I am using the wrong approach, please suggest something else that is equally cost effective. The cable is for providing power between the web cam and a laptop.

I would really appreciate the help.

Here is more details.

I want to take underwater pics/movies from various fishing piers without having to go into the water - especially since it is getting rather cold out there... My photography trip is slated for Long Island, NY, over Thanksgiving - which is only a couple of weeks away.

I have a digital camera and web cam (1.3 mb pixels) and have built a housing contraption that utilizes 6" schedule C PVC with (2) 1/2" acrylic plate windows. I face out each camera in either direction.

Within the housing, I have added a circuit board using 5V that runs a timer for the digital camera. It shoots pictures every so often and works great.

I have also included a bunch of LCD lights for the strobe effect.

Since I have more than enough space, I now want to add a web cam to the housing so that I can also preview what is "down there".

I plan on connecting the housing to a nylon rope (with the cat5 cable attached) which I will then lower to the bottom of the channel. I believe it is around 10-20 feet. I will drill a hole into the 6" pvc pipe for the cat5 cable.

I plan on using using a USB long range extension cable adapter with some cat5 cable. (website = http://www.pccables.com/cgi-bin/orders6.cg...;rsite=f.70553).

I would assume that the sheathing of the CAT5 is waterproof, so the only problem that you would have would be the ends of the system. One end is out of the water, so shouldn't be a huge problem, however, the end that is connected to the camera has to go through the bulkhead of your housing. You will need to seal this hole extremely well as there will be about 30 psi of pressure on this seal. If it leaks, your cameras are toast. I would do a fair bit of testing with various caulking, sealing materials before putting your cameras in the housing.

Thanks for answering... I'll have to think about something clever. Perhaps some sort of junction...

Any other ideas or thoughts I should consider would be appreciated..

I see underwater video cameras on eBay all the time. A friend bought one and uses it for fishing. He loves it.

Here is an example (listing expires 11/15/06):

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/UNDERWATER-...047027555QQrdZ1

There is no complicated housing and the maximum recommended depth is 60'. There is 66' of cable included. This model has a color camera but others I have seen are black and white.

This particular seller offers an optional video grabber package (at the bottom of the eBay listing) for connection to a laptop. It includes a USB port adapter.

It seems like in shallow water you could control this type of unit better if you mounted it to a telescoping pole.

Have fun, and keep us posted on what you decide.

The above suggestion would also prevent you from nicking the CAT5 cable on a rusty piece of metal and flooding your entire rig as well. Also of note, most CAT5 cable has solid core conductors that really do not like to continually flexed back and forth which would happen in general handling over time.