Buckeye MultiBase SE
Managing camera settings through Buckeye's GUI
Launching app & logging in
Buckeye MultiBase SE is a self-hosted web app, which means you access it through a browser, but it’s only accessible on the computer it’s being served on (the Base Station computer). To open it, open a new browser window on the remote computer, then enter http://localhost:8888 in the URL bar. The Admin username and PW are in the password document.
Manage the network
Almost all of the useful network administrative tools can be found by clicking on/expanding the bar that says “B8301D8F - Valley Peak - X80 PCBase…” (this may differ if you are trying to manage a network other that Valley Peak) and then clicking the Admin button in the panel that gets revealed. This should bring you to the network tree view:
Checking a camera/repeater's status
To check the battery health and signal strength of a camera/repeater (also referred to here as node), click on the node in the network tree diagram, and then click Check Status in the sidebar that pops up.
Changing camera settings
To change camera settings, click on one of the cameras or repeaters, and click Settings in the side panel. Most of these settings are self explanatory. Be sure to click Update when you are done with configuration. We are using the following settings for most of our Santa Cruz island biosecurity cameras:
Text 1: secret exposure and gain codes. This is not intuitive and we wouldn’t have known this had we not contacted Buckeye support because we found that when the cameras are close to and pointed at a large physical object (i.e. a tree trunk, the ground, a wall), the IR flash is too strong bounces off the surface, causing the image to be blown out. However, you can adjust the exposure by entering a secret code with the following format:
#E30 #G20where E = exposure and G = gain. The lower the exposure, the darker the image, with#E2appearing to be the lowest the exposure will go (#E1and#E0don’t seem to work for some reason). The default/baseline is#E75 #G20.Text 2: name of camera (and check “show on pictures”)
Image format: 1 Megapixel Picture
Delay between motion triggers: 1 second
Pictures per motion trigger: 3 pictures
Motion sensor: 100%
Blink LED when motion detected: no
Camera schedule: this can be useful, e.g., if a camera is firing too much during the day you can turn down it’s sensitivity or the # of pictures it takes per motion trigger, but keep it maxed out at night, or if you need to turn the exposure down at night, but keep it at its default during the day, there is a setting to “enable/disable hash codes” for a given camera schedule
Triggered cameras: Triggered cameras (likely none - we don’t really use this feature)
Transmit last picture first: no
Use IR flash at night: yes
Enhance night images: no
Power down camera when battery is low: no
Define GPS coordinates: Yes, please define GPS coordinates! Azimuth and altitude aren’t as important
Automatically delete files: Never
Disable motion sensors on Echos
Buckeye Echos (the repeaters) can also serve as remote triggers for other cameras in the network. However, if you don’t need the the motion sensor functionality, you can disable it by clicking on each Echo, then selecting Settings > Motion Sensor > Off.
Change camera routing
To change which upstream repeater / camera a given node is routed to, select the hamburger menu (three horizontal lines) in the upper right hand corner, click Change Routing, select the node you want to re-route, then allow it to search for alternative routes and select from the available options.
Adding new cameras/repeaters to the network
There are three ways to add a new camera to the network:
Manually: if you are physically close to or have the camera/repeater (node) you’d like to connect in hand, and the node is:
within radio range/line of site of an existing registered node in the network or the base station,
is not currently registered to another network,
and you have a computer with internet access (and thus can access the Base Station computer and MulitBase SE app)
you can manually pair it to the network by (1) turning on the camera/repeater, (2) clicking Add/Remove device in the upper left hand corner of the MulitBase SE app (Note: the camera settings sidebar must be closed for this button to appear), and (3) selecting the type of device you want to add, thus initiating a search for unregistered devices to add to the network. (4) Once your new device appears, select it, and it will be paired with the network. If your device does not appear, try “restoring the network” (see instructions below).
Automatically through “Search and registration” mode: Alternatively, if you do not have radio signal where you are, but you do have access to a computer with internet, you can set the base and/or any of the nodes in the network to “Search and registration mode” for a configurable amount of time, during which the nodes will search for new devices to add to the network on an interval (every 2 mins, I believe). Once out in the field with the device and within signal range, if your new node has been “found” by a node in “Search and registration” mode, it will prompt you and ask if you want to join the network.
To activate Search and Registration mode, click. Add/Remove device, then more… in the upper right corner, and follow the instructions (select a start time, duration, add a “reference name”, and select a node to broadcast the search message from, and click Activate). Note: once a node has been registered to any node in the network, it can be moved around and re-routed as needed from the physical node itself (either via the LCD screen interface or the Buckeye X80 Remote phone app, depending on which generation of the cameras you have), or remotely via the MultiBase SE web app, as described above.
Targeted registration: An important limitation of both of the above approaches is that you have to have the new camera/repeater in hand in order to complete the registration with the network. If you are in a situation in which you need to pair a node to a new network but aren’t physically close to it, a work-around is to follow the above steps to activate “Search and Registration” mode, but be sure to enter the serial number of the node you are trying to connect to preceded by “#” as the “reference name” (e.g. “#X8115CBC”) in the Search and Registration form. Then select a node that you know is within line of sight to the one you’re trying to pair to broadcast from, select Activate, and wait a few minutes. If successful, the node you’ve targeted should appear in your network tree diagram.
Restoring the network
In rare circumstances, the base may have trouble finding devices that were previously registered to the base and need to be re-registered (e.g., I’ve had to do this when re-configuring the base station computers from scratch but using a PC Base Receiver that had previously been in use and had had cameras registered to it). If this happens, try restoring the network by clicking on the hamburger menu in the upper right > Restore Network
Note
“Restoring” is a bit misleading. This does not reset the network to some previous state and override all of your current settings. I’m not entirely sure what’s going on under the hood when you click Restore Network, but in essence it just seems to find old cameras that were previously paired with the base but are now not being found.
Removing (unregistering) cameras/repeaters from a network
There are two ways to remove/unregister a camera from a network:
Via the Buckeye Multibase SE software: You can remove a device from the network by logging into the Multibase SE software, selecting Add/Remove device in the upper left hand corner of the MultiBase SE app (Note: the camera settings sidebar must be closed for this button to appear), and (3) selecting the device in the network tree diagram you want to remove, and accepting the “are you sure you want to remove this device from the network” prompt.
Hard reset from the physical device: If you are, for example, in the field and do not have the ability for whatever reason to connect to the Buckeye Multibase SE software to remove the device, you can perform a hard reset on the device itself, which will unregister it from a currently paired network. To perform a hard reset on one of the older (non-bluetooth) models:
open up the device housing and press the Next button,
hold Next for 1 second, and while holding Next, also press and hold the Change button,
you will be prompted to unregister the device - press Enter to do so
To perform a hard reset on one of the newer bluetooth enabled models:
Connect to the device via the mobile app,
swipe between to the left of the space to the right of where it says "camera",
An unregister option should appear
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