Trailcam Not Picking up Like it Used to

kel

New member
Seems the sensor is not picking up movement like when it was new. Of course it's just over a year old and out of warranty I think. On the most sensitive position it will only pick me up from about 15-20 feet away when I'm moving. Has anyone tried to clean the motion sensor before? It's a Bushnell, not sure which one but I bought it from Wallyworld for $147.
 
The sensor is a PIR (passive infra-red) motion detector. The PIR detects something moving that is hotter in temperature than its surroundings. As the days get warmer, the temperature difference is less between animals and the surroundings. Some cameras have various PIR sensitivity settings in their setup menu. Don't know if your Bushnell model camera has this sensitivity setting that you can adjust.
Sometimes the sensitivity adjustments work "backwards" to our way of thinking. Perhaps you have the PIR setting on "high". Try the "low" setting. Low could mean that it triggers with a low temperature difference between animal and surroundings.
 
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I have the setting and had read in the manual that it may work like you described. I played around a bit with that setting last year and didn't see any improvement. I tried it again the other night and actually had the camera get down to about 5 feet away and that was on a target the size of me. The Bushnell has a red light that when you go into the setup menu it will flash when the sensor gets triggered so you can check distances. I may try to open it up and clean everything as a last resort otherwise it's time for a new camera.

Love the Bushnell using AA batteries as we have an endless supply at work. Wonder if any other makers use AA.
 
A nice surprise in the manual. The Bushnell has a 2 year warranty. I would've thought it was a year max. Guess I'll throw a set of their "recommended" Energizer batteries in and if I don't see any change I'll just send it in. I've used the Royovac batteries for over a year and have gotten about 1000 pics before I changed them out so I don't think the energizers will make a difference. This is a detection issue.
 


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