Hello, I have a robot I'm working on that will be used two separate camera feeds that are fed into a short range radio transmitter. My issue is I need a small board that can take an input from the Arduino Mega to allow only one camera feed to be pushed through at a time. If working properly this system would allow me to press a button and change between camera feeds that I'm receiving from the transmitter on my phone. Below is a simple diagram to help explain what I'm getting at.
Note that the camera's I'm using have SCL and SDA connections, so they don't use the thin/flat looking connectors that I see most ArduinoCams have. Think FPV drone cameras.
Thank you for that clarification, I didn't know what the name of the switch type was so I couldn't look it up. It seems the most popular digital one is the Adafruit STEMMA Analog SPDT Switch, but it says its meant for analog signals. Could it also work for the type of signals I'll be using?
It just occurred to me you are using I2C, so you want a DPDT switch, that just means there are 3 more tabs on the bottom in order to handle SCL and SDA. The middle goes to the I2C pins on the board, the outside pins go to the two cameras, one end is a SCL/SDA pair as is the other.
I’ll take a SWAG (Scientific Wild-Assumed Guess) since I couldn’t find all the detailed information you provided about the camera or its link. I²C works based on addresses, so assign a unique address to each camera and use the I²C bus to select the one you want to communicate with.
I see, would there be a digital version of this somewhere? Ideally I'd be able to press a button on a controller of some kind and the camera feed would switch on the robot, so the physical switch wouldn't work in this case.
These are the two camera's I'm using, sorry I didn't include them earlier. And I don't think it would be possible to isolate the exact I2C signal I want between the cameras and the transmitter. As it stands now, one of the camera's is directly wired to the transmitter, it doesn't go through the Arduino at all. The board I'm looking for would be able to take an input from the Arduino to then tell the board which signal(s) to allow through.
It seems you've identified an issue with your vendor; the critical information you need isn’t readily available. This is frustrating but also an opportunity to take control of the situation.
A practical first step is to use an I²C scanner to determine the address of your devices. Once you have the address, visit the manufacturer’s website to locate the detailed manual and any other supporting documentation. Most manufacturers provide this information online, and it will give you the clarity you need to move forward effectively.
I highly recommend doing this kind of research before making future purchases. Without proper documentation, a device can easily turn into a paperweight if you can’t figure out how to use it. Investing a little time upfront to verify a product’s support and compatibility can save you significant effort and frustration later.
I think we may be talking about different issues here. I know how to check the I2C address for devices, I've had to do it for PWM boards before to check if they were fully connect or not. My issue isn't with using the cameras, I just don't know the best type of switch to use to get either one or the other's signals to my radio transmitter. sonofcy has been offering good manual switches that would work, but ideally this switching of the signals would happen without physical contact needing to be made with the robot so I'm trying to see if there's a board that can do that.
I guess that would give the same results, yeah. It seems like dougp's diagram does that. Signal relays to control the power to each camera, assuming that's what they're doing anyways.
