Home made bear box for trail cam

OK guys.

I have a bear problem at my mineral plot that are rather rough with my trail cam's.







And a view from the inside of a bears mouth while it's chomping on the old camera :evil:



So, I'm taking MikeD's advice and building a bear box from an old electrical panel to protect my gear.

I know that I'm going to have to cut a hole in the door so the sensor and lens and flash will work, but I'm unsure how to make the inside so the camera doesn't move around.

I am considering simply screwing a piece of 2x4 stud in the box and then screwing the back of the camera to the wood.

That sounds like the easiest solution, or do you folks have a different or easier method?

Any other tips or advice is welcome too.

Anyway, here is the box so far.



Since the panel is larger than I need, I am going to remove the existing external camera battery pack that houses the 6v lantern batteries so I can place them in the bottom section and protect them too and naturally would have everything together.



I installed a u-bolt so I can slide it over the fence post to mount it on the pole that's already up there to make my life easier.

The build that you have come up with sounds like the best way to go John...good idea !

Nice. My stuff is buried somewhere in my basement, I'll try to dig it out and get some pics of how I did it.

Can't find mine amongst my stuff. I may have left it up at my cabin. Not to many bears down here. LOL

Man that's a big bear! I wouldn't hunt that stand lol

KentuckyWindage said:

Man that's a big bear! I wouldn't hunt that stand lol

Click to expand...

Bear should be plural since there are more than one unfortunately.

I don't mind hunting the stand. I just don't want them around when I do

I would build a box that slides into the box. then you can attach it to it and still be removable. the reason being is that it would have more stability to it than just the screws attaching the "shelving" inside the box.


Also...idk what the flash panel looks like (square/round) but if you have a hole saw you could use that to make the flash hole/ lens hole....

https://www.google.com/search?q=hole+sa ... 80&bih=548

disregard that last sentence if the hole needs to be 1/2" or less....then that would be just a regular ol drill bit... :roll:

No rip, I'll have to cut out a piece of the panel for the flash, sensor and lens.

I have drilled a half inch hole in each corner where the hole will be, and will cut out the rectangle with a jig saw.

I am cutting it about an 1/8 of an inch larger than it needs to be so the box doesn't interfere with picking up movement, or flash or what-not.

If you look at the black part on the face of the camera, that's basically what I'm cutting out on the panel.



Here is the front of the panel now. The cutout is going to be in a recessed area on the panel door, I think even further protecting the camera itself.



And this is the wood that I have in there to attach the camera to so it will stay stationary.



And here is what it'll look like when everything is done and the door is open.



And the access to the camera controls and memory card with the camera door swung open

I got the window cut out, and ran a bead of gasket maker/permatex around the inside of the hole to kind of seal the rain when the lid is closed.



And how it looks from the front



All I need to do now is get it back in the field. [happy dance]

Hey look! it's r2d2's brother! r5d4...

looks interesting....if water does get inside,(i see you said kinda seal it) is able to drain out? i would guess it would at the bottom where the cover closes?

good luck! and bring home a bigun!

Yeah, there's a few 3/32 holes in the bottom corners besides the gap in the lid.

I sealed off most of the factory screw holes with tape from the inside though to keep yellow jackets and waspers out of it because they can ruin a day in a hurry.

Oh man...you know it! Those b******s bite n stung me last year when I was sittin on my front porch. I have an old old old grinding wheel as a front stoop/door entrance thing. and on the end towards the sidewalk is a hole...big enough for a whole bunch of em to live...and well..I was bite quite a few times....but...they're dead now.
I win.

OK this thread got me thinking, My boxes are all up at the cabin but the last camera I bought does not have a box so I decided to put oone together last night.

Here is the box I used and the camera. I had picked the box up a few years ago for another camera and never used it.


I cut a piece of foam for backing to hold the camera in place inside the box.


Fitting the foam. The camera will sit in front and the foam will act as a spring to push it into the front of the box as well as keep it from sliding around.


Making a template for the necessary holes


Template transferred to the box. Yes I know it's a little lopsided but I'm not going for perfection here.


Drilling a starter hole. Took some time I really need a new drill bit, this one os pretty much shot.


Cutting out the hole


Finished project.


I added some bigger screws so that if the bears are persistent, they will be unable to remove it. For attachment I normally will just remove a knockout on either side of the box and use a ratchet strap. Nothing fancy but effective.

Looking at Johns box, I definitely want to make one big enough to add additional power cells in the future. I don't know why I never thought of doing that. Thanks John.

You must spread your reputation point to other users before giving to the same user

Click to expand...

sooooo,



That's a good looking box MD.

As for the extra battery storage, that's just the way it worked out.

The box I had was about 3x as big as I needed, so that's what I used.

My main battery is a rechargable that I have to bring home occasionally to recharge, and in the meantime, I use the backup battery so I don't have any unnecessary down time or trips to the camera.

I am seriously considering buying a small solar panel to run to the battery so I won't ever have to recharge the battery myself at all because in cold weather, usually zaps a battery in no time flat, so I can eliminate any surprises.

http://www.walmart.com/ip/American-Hunt ... y/14678473

Since my camera setup is on private property and there is no foot traffic there, I could run the leads from 50 or 100 foot of speaker wire and bury them to the camera and mount the panel to a nearby tree so it wouldn't bother the critters, or keep tangling their feet up as they're walking around

I don't think I'd even attempt it on public property anymore. Too many thieves.

Sadly, I even considered running a chain or bicycle lock through the knockouts down to a hole poured with quikrete and the free ends locked inside the panel behind the locked door even though it is on private property.

It wouldn't hurt anything to do that, and would just take a little time with a post hole digger and dropping the chain in the hole and pour some quickrete mix in it. No mixing or pouring water is needed. That stuff will set up by itself the first time it comes a good rain.

Then again, that mineral plot is permanent, so no reason why I couldn't/shouldn't take precautions to safeguard my stuff from sticky fingers and I don't want to make it easy for them if it did happen.

next time I go up there, I'll try to remember to take a camera and snap a few pics of it set up.

John A said:

Sadly, I even considered running a chain or bicycle lock through the knockouts down to a hole poured with quikrete and the free ends locked inside the panel behind the locked door even though it is on private property.

It wouldn't hurt anything to do that, and would just take a little time with a post hole digger and dropping the chain in the hole and pour some quickrete mix in it. No mixing or pouring water is needed. That stuff will set up by itself the first time it comes a good rain.

Click to expand...

On the property I hunt locally chains and cables are no deterrent for theives. That's why i rarely leave anything longer then weekend I'm hunting.

Up at my cabin, I've never had a problem leaving bungied or strapped to a tree.


I like the solar panel idea. I may work on that. One more thing i want to do is paint the box to make it less obvious. My buddy recommended hunter orange seeing as how it seems that so may hunters are blind to it. LOL

I just shot some random krylon camo colors on mine and let it air out 3 or 4 days before I took it up there, but I also like that realtree duct tape too.

The duct tape would probably have less scent than paint too.

And at $4 a roll, is cheaper than several different cans of krylon to make camo, and would probably blend in better too but they didn't have any tape at the store when I was doing it, so I just used what I had at home.

The first 2 days I had the camera back out, I got 74 pictures consisting of 2 young bucks, a doe, and 2 spotted fawns, so they don't seem to mind the krylon too bad

But being OCD about how my projects turn out, I still prefer the camo duct tape just because.

DOH!! I never thought of using duct tape.

MikeD said:

DOH!! I never thought of using duct tape.

Click to expand...

I picked some up last night. I hope to get it wrapped up later today.

I also have another idea to help stabilize it on the tree.

wrapping it with tape is easy. The pattern doesn't even have to line up. Just one bit of advice, don't forget which tree you attached it to or you'll have a very fun time finding it again

Looking forward to hearing your idea to attach it to a tree.

John A. said:

wrapping it with tape is easy. The pattern doesn't even have to line up. Just one bit of advice, don't forget which tree you attached it to or you'll have a very fun time finding it again

Looking forward to hearing your idea to attach it to a tree.

Click to expand...

My idea was simply to attack two verticle rails to the back of the box so it will fit more squarely against the curvature of a tree. The more I thought about it, I thought the flat back of the box would be a bit wobbly, it definitely is with my other box. There are 4 holes in the box already for mounting so I think I wil utilize those to attatch a couple of firring strips.