Society of Robots - Robot Forum
Electronics => Electronics => Topic started by: vonlark on December 17, 2007, 05:26:09 PM
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Hey guys. I'm looking for a small camera that would be easy to interface with a micro. I've found a few on this site that have a lot of processing hardware on them but I just want a basic camera with a serial or maybe an 8-bit interface without any extra tracking ware.
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How do you plan to interface with the camera?
Both the AVRcam and the CMUcam use the same Omnivision OV6620 CMOS camera (http://www.google.com/search?q=Omnivision+OV6620+CMOS&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a) (~$60). You can just buy that separately from the extra hardware.
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Ideally I'd just wire it to a port on my micro. What I'm really looking for is a camera chip like the OV6620 mounted on a board with a lens and pins or a connector that I can solder to.
If you can help me find something like this I'd be grateful : )
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You just need make a wire connector and attach headers.
notice the row of holes at the top:
(http://www.electronics123.net/amazon/pictures/c3088.jpg)
stick this male header into those holes and solder it on:
(http://www.societyofrobots.com/images/sbs_breakaway_header.JPG)
and finally, make your wire connector:
http://www.societyofrobots.com/electronics_wire_connector.shtml
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(http://www.electronics123.net/amazon/pictures/c3088.jpg)
Ah ha! ^That's what I've been looking for. Would you recommend getting one from Electronics 123 as you got the picture?
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I have never bought the camera alone. Make sure the one you buy was made after 2005, as they had a large batch of cameras with badly angled lenses.
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Ive got one of the cheapish camera modules coming from spark fun, it seems quite easy to interface its got a pulse line, 8 bit data bus, hsynch and vsynch (and an i2c control interface).
basically when the vsych pulses high, it signal a new frame. When the hsynch pulses high, it signal a new line. when the pulse line pulses, it signal a new byte available on the 8 bit data bus.
I'll probably slow its clock down and use a dedicated pic at 20mhz to interface to it and send the data to ram. Maybe another pic to reduce image size/ convert it to a smaller image for ease of use, and act as a go between.