Visual Field Augmentation
2nd Generation Device - Virtual Vision Sport - Wiring
This is not a good sign... I have the head unit ripped apart, in an effort to try and diagnose a blank screen initially, and then a sync issue once I found a minor issue with the original wiring.
After an hour and a half of swapping grounds and generally trying numerous methods of wiring things differently, I gave up... This was on Feb 9th as the last of week end was slipping away.
I concluded that the composite ground needed to float independent of the logic ground that is a common term from the B/W Camera. The other possibility is that the display actually needs the exact 5.33VDC not just 5.0VDC.
The easiest solution would be to rewire everything back to the original base unit and feed it from the camera.
A week has passed, and it's sunday night again. I opted to omit the audio terms for now. The key terms are the Composite (pin 5), Composite shield/grnd (pin 4), Vcc @ 5.33VDC (pin 6), logic Grnd (pin 7) and the Back Lit level (pin 8).
I was able to carefully trim off all of the rubber casing from the existing jack. The composite line was in fact broken, making intermittent contact on occasion.
As I guessed, this connector is a bugger to solder. Once I'm sure that all is connected properly, I will seal and support with silicon sealant.
After a couple of trial runs, I did notice that the Left eye dominance configuration would need some assistance.
Rather than paint the actual visor, I opted to cover the inside with flat black Electrical tape. This made a significant improvement in my ability to acquire and focus on the image.
The large area of the visor is useful, as any stray light almost draws the nearest eye to it.
Here the camera is pictured, mounted directly onto the face of the visor. Again, rather than donkey about trying to mount the camera with some complicated bracket type assembly I opted to just use black electrical tape.
The wiring harness from the camera does stick out the back approx 1/4" so I positioned the camera so that the cable lined-up with the nose bridge of the visor.
This configuration will have to be ripped apart quite soon as it's uncomfortable and looks quite goofy...
Here it is wired and working... My wife sets the "Panasonic" Video Camera on me, and I click the pre-positioned mouse to capture the image.
Before fixing the camera into place I did try it over the right eye, and noticed that there is a significant parallax distortion. In that items are not where you expect them to be, but offset relative to the left eye view with a right eye perspective.
The eyewear connector is set up with silicon rubber and will cure overnight. I'll make a simple base out of styrofoam to Left-mount the camera for a straight on view.
The next steps are to devise a simple series of tests to assess my original theory of field compression. Clean-up the cabling harness, and sever the camera from the grid and begin using the VFA for extended periods, pending the outcome of the field-compression tests.
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