Hello guys and gals!

Our team is currently working on an autonomous vehicle project.  We are using the Arduino Duemilanove to connect our color sensor, the CMUcam2, and we have a general powering question regarding this sensor.  We were wondering if such a sensor could possibly be powered, not from the standard power port but from only the TTL port.

In the manual, the CMUcam2 can take anywhere from 6 to 15 volts of DC power.  If power from the TTL port is used, only 5 volts are used, however, the camera seems to function normally.  Not to mention, when 9.6 volts was received from the battery using the standard power port, the CMUcam2 has a tendency to overheat.  Because of this, we are considering disconnecting the 9.6 volt battery from the camera and powering it through the TTL port connected to the 5V and GND pins on the Arduino.

Would there be any problems that might come up?
Any suggestions and inputs would be greatly appreciated!
Please and thank you!

Yes, you're right.  But I have a jumper on the CMUcam board that changes the baud rate to 9600, so that shouldn't be the issue.

I'm working on a project in which I would like to use the CMUcam2 with my Arduino Duemilanove.  I cannot get it to work, and I'm wondering if someone could help me out - I'm running out of ideas, and I can't find any information on how to set it up!

I hooked up the CMUcam2 and Arduino board to a 9.6V battery. I then connected the TTL serial from the CMUcam to pins 2 and 3 on the Arduino.  Then, I ran this code:

Code:

#include <NewSoftSerial.h>

NewSoftSerial camera = NewSoftSerial(2,3);

void setup()
{
  Serial.begin(9600);
  camera.begin(9600);
}

void loop()
{
  if(camera.available())
  {
    Serial.println("Ready!");
  } else {
    Serial.println("Not Ready!");
  }
}

This is the output:
ààà àà àþNot Ready!
Not Ready!
Not Ready!
Not Ready!
Not Ready!
...

Any ideas? Thank you!