I realized my backplate was looking a tiny bit unrealistic in how barren it is so I went to the local
electronics recycling depot and salvaged a box full of broken computer parts for a couple bucks.
I'm thinking I'm going to fill some of the back plate space with some PCI card backs so it looks like HAL actually plugs into something. (Unless I can't make things fit well on the inside.)
I realize this will almost never be seen and that it's a bit of superfluous effort but that's just how I roll. Haha.
I picked up some grey ribbon to make a pull tab for the magnetic back too which I'll rivet in place.
Lens stuff
So once I realized from Flimzy's castings that there was a secondary lens behind the primary lens I started thing about what I could do for that on my HALs. I hunted and hunted for a lens that I thought I could stick behind the main lens and look good and I narrowed it down to 2 choices and then bought 2 of each.
Option 1 -
This door viewer (aka peephole) off of Amazon. This is a VERY non-standard peephole. Much larger than your average peephole and a RIDICULOUSLY amazing field of vew.
Option 2 -
This cheap fish eye lens off of AliExpress that's meant for cellphone cameras. So cheap it was worth a shot to try.
Miraculously both arrived on the same day and I compared them side by side. They're both large enough to fit well in the opening of the main lens with very little gap.
The cellphone lens is much lower quality than the peephole but actually looks much better in person than it does in its product photos.
The peephole's center was much more frosted white looking than pictured which was disappointing.
The next thing I tested was what a red LED looked like shining through them both. The cellphone lens was nice and bright and looked... good.
The peephole the light was diffused to an almost pink shade of light and it illuminated the frosted white looking lenses within giving it a very un-HAL-like look. Doh.
So overall the cheap cellphone lens is the winner and will likely be going into my HALs behind the glass lenses.
The peephole... Not good enough for HAL but holy cow as a peephole?... I'm 100% installing this on my front door! Thing is amazing. Holding it up to your eye you can easily see things beside you and if it had any wider of a FOV you'd be seeing stuff behind you! I highly recommend it as a peephole for sure, but not for HAL.
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