I was wondering had anyone any success with interfacing the Linksprite camera to an arduino
For what purpose?
The camera is a 160 * 120 color pixel resolution camera. How much data is there per pixel? How much data is there for all 19,200 pixels?
How much memory do you have on your Arduino?
I'm not far progressed yet.
At the moment I'm trying to send hex signals to the camera via the arduino
I'll keep you updated
The point is you will not get very far with this project because you haven't got enough memory in the arduino to store a picture. As it is JPEG you can't even think about storing part of a picture because of the compression needing at least a frame buffer.
I'm using a external SD card to store the picture
Will that be fast enough?
yeah should work
I'll let you know
I hope you get it working. I see far too often people discouraging experimentation. It cannot always be known what is and is not possible. Have a look at what this guy did with a camera and an ATmega8..
"...88 x 144 pixels (at 30 frames/second)"
That's tracking 8 different colors with an ATMEGA8!!
This project came in 2nd place in the 2004 AVR Design Contest.
I'm sure your hardware is different, but I'm just saying that there is always room for ingenuity.
pat
It cannot always be known what is and is not possible.
True but when you have spent 40 years in electronics and education you get a fairly good idea of what is possible at what skill level.
Richard's observations are spot on.
What happens is that someone wants to do something and is told it can't be done. Then some one else says "it can just look here" and when you do the specification is so far degraded that it is often practically worthless. Like a video interface to an arduino, yes you can do it if you accept an 8 by 8 pixel resolution.
Often beginners will tackle something that to them seems simple but in fact is very complex. A case in point is making and arduino look like a USB device. Surrounded by USB devices they assume anything with the correct socket will simply work. Yes you can do it but writing the drivers is a complex and normally project breaking task.
The people who push back the boundaries of what is possible are not the same people asking how to do something. Advice and help is on offer here and there are lots of us willing to pitch in with experience and guidance, but there are some projects where you think, if you have to ask that, you can't do it.
Wait hold on - the camera has:
"VGA/QVGA/160*120 resolution"
That means 160x120 is the lowest possible setting. 640x480 being the high value (aka VGA).
Tweak I think most folks responded without looking at the webpage and certainly not the datasheet.
todd.
OK I had to post one message before I could add links - here's the second part of my message...
I'm sure the original poster isn't thinking of creating the next Nikon D3x, but something more along the lines of this (commercial item):
http://bit.ly/bayn7n
or this (hobby project - Witnesscam):
http://www.riccibitti.com/witnesscam/entry/witnesscam.htm
Now the Witnesscam as designed uses an Atmega32 - so why won't an Arduino with a Atmega328 do just as well?
And no the Witnesscam didn't try to store the images on the atmega that would be silly, it does use an SD card - here's a quote from the article:
"For most typical domestic environments, it can store more than one month of images at a maximum rate of a colour picture every 2 seconds (320x200 pixels, comparable to VHS-CCTV recorders), or 3 seconds (VGA, 640x480 pixels)."
The linksprite camera will take a picture and do the JPEG encoding, then let you pull the image over in chunks. You don't need to do it in real time. It looks very similar to the popular (but discontinued) C328 serial cameras, which A LOT of folks have used with Arduino.
So yes tweak, it is possible, unfortunately most of the work (an libraries) are for the C328 cameras currently.
I was looking for a replacement for the C328, so I'll pickup a linksprite and give it a try, and maybe we'll get some more helpful responses.
todd
OK Richard, I think you read my post too quickly (and skipped a few parts). The witnesscam is an implementation of a security camera using several pieces of hardware.
- a UART camera (that's what the linksprite is)
- an atmega32
- a PIR (this is optional)
- an SD card.
If you read the link you would have seen that. The original post was asking about interfacing the UART camera with an arduino. Some quickly said it can't be done - so I gave you an example to point tweak in the right direction and to explain to the rest how it could be implemented.
Here AGAIN is the link to the implementation I just described:
"or this (hobby project - Witnesscam):
http://www.riccibitti.com/witnesscam/entry/witnesscam.htm"
So yes it can be done, and yes you have to use a few more pieces of hardware.
Hi
My first question was to simply ask if anyone had used the Linksprite camera with an Arduino.
I am aware of the many projects that have used the C328 camera
for example Projects – Make: DIY Projects and Ideas for Makers
This module is now discontinued and I am experimenting with different modules that could be possible replacements
eventually my intention is to make something similar to the link above.
but at the moment I'm simply experimenting with camera modules.
Richard,
Hey I'm not trying to give you a hard time - you're right he didn't explain in detail what he was intending to do (though he didn't really need to he was just asking if anyone had interfaced the two), but it just seemed a few folks (you being one of them) jumped down his throat when he asked a very legit question.
You are right that it requires more hardware than just an arduino, but really that would have been a more helpful suggestion to someone (and as it turned out he already was a step ahead of you there).
There are simple libraries around for interfacing with an SD card to an arduino. My point was this forum might be more useful for folks if replies contained useful information, less negative attitude.
Your post where you listed that you knew the hard limits on the hardware so his quest was futile :
"1) There are hard limits on what an Arduino can do. In terms of clock speed, and in terms of memory available. We CAN know what is or is not possible because of these limits. There is no point encouraging someone to experiment with something that is simply way beyond the theoretical limits of the platform."
That was wrong since tweak already mentioned in a previous post he was going to interface with an SD card as well, and those 3 components can work.
Tweak - If you're trying to connect the linksprite camera to the arduino you'll either need a MAX232 (or similar) to convert from the RS-232 output by the camera OR if you don't plan on using it with your PC as a really bad webcam you can do the following.
-
Carefully remove the MAX3232 IC (or just clip it off since you won't be using it again, but don't damage the other components).
-
Under the chip you'll find two sets of pads.
-
Add jumpers across them (connecting the TTL and RS232 sides)
Now you can use a very simple sketch that listens for serial data at 38400 baud (you can later send commands to increase the rate) - And on powering up the camera you will hear:
VC0703 1.00
Ctrl infr exist
User-defined sensor
625
Init end
Hope that helps.
Hey Richard - sorry if I misunderstood.
LinkSprite posted Arduino sample code for this camera:
http://www.linksprite.com/download/showdownload.php?id=70&lang=en