IR webcam

Today I got a bit bored and decided to convert my Philips Toucam Pro into an IR camera, hardly a complicated procedure when you get right down to it but still lots of fun. What follows is essentially how I converted my regular webcam into an IR webcam.

First I removed the optics which were luckily easily detachable, I just had to screw them off. After this was done I removed the small IR filter from the back using a small razor. At this point the camera would've let both IR and visible light through, not quite what I was going for..

For the last step I took a small piece of a completely black part of a color photo negative and put it where the IR filter was. At this point I decided to give my camera a try and put it back together.

The result so far was pretty good, it seemed to still let through a bit of visible light though so I disassembled the camera again and added another piece from the photo negative and put things back together. The end result can be seen above, it's my toy PC's keyboard being lit by my TV remote. It was definitely a fun little project for a boring afternoon, and easy to replicate if you happen to have a spare webcam. Now to find an affordable head-mounted display...