Wyze V3 Cam Mount for Round Elect. Box Cover by davebpix

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

I recently got some of the newer Wyze Cam V3's and their Wyze Spotlight add-ons that are rated for outdoor use. I have existing outdoor floodlights (without cams) mounted on conventional round electrical boxes and I wanted to replace those old defunct floodlights with new cams and lights. Although the Wyze Spotlights are in no way equivalent to a 2000 lumen flood, the new V3 cameras are extremely light sensitive, so I thought I'd give it a shot. So this project is an attempt at making a round cover plate for an outside electric box that supports a (purchased) camera mount, and includes a wire conduit channel for an (again purchased) power cable for the Wyze Cam V3 and its spotlight.
Here is the list of parts I used in this project:
(Amazon part numbers are given as examples but many other parts would work as well)
Wyze Cam V3 (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08R59YH7W)
Wyze V3 Spotlight Accessory kit (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B092KTX41F)
Camera Mount (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DLXWMCV)
Short USB cable (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0779656FZ)
USB power block
2X Mounting screws to attach cover plate onto electrical box
3X M4-10 Screw & washer to attach camera mount onto new cover plate
Misc: Shrink tubing, #18 stranded insulated wire, wire nuts
This design is an adaptation of an existing parametric (openscad) design made by Egil. I've modified Egil's https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1101207 openscad source to shift the wire conduit position away from center, and I've added three new mounting holes to accommodate the camera mount. I do not have extensive experience with openscad, so my apologies if the mods I made look a bit odd.
The parameter values have been adjusted to accommodate the mating electrical box dimensions and the plate thickness I wanted to support the mount. The camera mount is offset away from the wire conduit position to improve the bend radius needed on the power cable.
There are two design versions posted here. The first is what I thought I needed. The second is what I discovered was actually needed in my situation. Turned out that although the electrical boxes were indeed round, a fascia over them had a small (vertically oriented) rectangular access way, and the cover plate's 2 mounting screws were at the top and bottom not side to side. I shifted the wire conduit position to avoid water ingress, and also repositioned the camera pylon mount and hole size. Using M4 machine screws worked perfectly to secure the camera pylon mount without requiring any nuts.