All it takes is time. And a Stanley knife.

I posted about my timelapse camera back in March, when I'd got it working after modifying the battery compartment such that the batteries would make contact.

I bought the device for £39.99 from Maplin (it doesn't seem to be available at the moment). At the time I wondered about taking it back as there were two problems. First, the battery connections, as mentioned, and, second, the fact that the 12V lead didn't work. This seemed to be a poor connection between plug and socket, i.e. too loose. I decided not to take it back as I suspected that any replacement would probably suffer from the same faults.

I have since further modified the camera with two wires soldered to the battery terminals which I have connected to a 3V power supply taken from a rechargeable battery (from a video camera). Having it connected up to this battery means that I can run the camera for more than 24 hours without having to worry about mains or other power.

Now I've got it working I'm pleased with the results, some of which you can see by clicking on the "timelapse" label on the right. Or just click here. I bought an 8 GB memory card for it, enough for a few months' continuous operation at one image every three minutes!

The actual camera part seems to be similar to that used in a mobile phone: 1.3 megapixel.

I will install it on the boat for our next cruise, next month, when we might do the LLangollen Canal.