Electronic brick camera interface problem

End-Of-Life Products & Services Tech support before 2012
#1

Hi,

I bought this serial electronic brick camera recently. I connected it to a Spark Fun FT232R shield. I am able to open my virtual COM port but I am not able to capture any images.

This is what I did on the spark fun shield’s end.

  1. I removed the solder jumper and connected 5V to VccIO and GND to GND. I connected the Rx to Tx and vice versa. When I click on capture, the serial camera client just freezes. Can anyone throw some light where am I going wrong?
#2

Please make sure you are connecting like this:

Camera - FT232
VCC - 5V
GND - GND
TX - RX
RX -TX

You can refer to here: http://garden.seeedstudio.com/index.php?title=Electronic_brick_-_Serial_CCD_Camera

#3

I too am having a similar problem.

The serial camera client v2.0 does not seem to be working correctly. I have performed the following steps:

This has been done on both Windows 7 32-bit and 64-bit.
Connect brick CCD camera to pl2303 usb-uart interface cable.
connect cable to computer
run serialcameraclientv2.0
connect to correct serial port (verified by device manager): success!
request frame: LED on camera blinks faster, then program fails
swap RX and TX: LED does not change, program fails
Disconnect RX: LED does not change, program fails
Disconnect TX: LED does not change, program fails
Return to original configuration: LED on camera blinks faster, then program fails

I can conclude that I have connected the camera correctly, but the software appears to just fail at displaying the image. What version of windows was it written for? I have tried compatibility mode for vista and XP, but the same result.

#4

Trying it on a Windows XP computer worked. The program still crashes occaisionally, but I can get pictures to verify that the camera works.

If you are using a USB-Serial that registers higher than COM9, I suggest opening device manager, going to the Properties of your USB-Serial, changing the Advanced Port Settings. I had to pick a COM port that was ‘in use’ already, but it worked fine. I presume that the low numbered COM ports were reserved for previous USB-Serial adapters or as bluetooth serial adapters. Don’t pick a COM port that is currently listed in Device Manager, such as COM1 or 2.

#5

Hi, same problem here. SerialCameraClientV2.0.exe just does not work, even in Compatibility mode. The program just ceases to work, and in Task Manager, it says “Not Responding”

Has anyone managed to get this to work.

Also, the documentation is a bit light on - what is the baud rate it communicates at?

#6

fdixon,
I never got it to work in windows 7 (never tried Vista). No matter the compatibility mode options, windows 7 never worked. I haven’t tried a windows XP virtual machine, but I expect it would work.

I just dug around for the baud rate, and the example arduino code sets it to 115200.

#7

Thanks. I tried it on the laptop running Windows XP with a USB-serial adaptor but no luck - the program crashes. Open Com port works fine, but as soon as the Capture or Free Capture button is pressed, the program locks up. Not sure if you are supposed to wait for more than a minute.

Anyway, we have one more computer running Windows XP to try the program out on. This PC has a standard serial port on COM1 so fingers crossed, this should. Otherwise will have to try to write a serial program ourselves.

#8

I hope you are connecting it to a TTL level USB-Serial adapter. RS-232 levels (like what are on a standard 9-pin serial port) could fry the camera.

#9

TTL - yes, I have a MAX232 in between the PC and this device.

Now, some bad news and good news. The bad news is the program does not run on any of the computers - on the old Windows XP computer, it almost runs but comes back with an error message in Chinese.

Tried to talk to it, and this actually worked. Below is the 3 byte reply, and then some frame data. Note that the frame data comes back in JPEG format - so the FF D8 denotes the start of frame - not sure what the rest means.
00 14 AC

FF D8 FF E0 00 10 4A 46 49 46 00 01 01 01 01 2C 01 2C 00 00 FF DB 00 43 00 08 06 06 07
06 05 08 07 07 07 09 09 08 0A 0C 14 0D
0C 0B 0B 0C 19 12 13 0F 14 1D 1A 1F 1E 1D 1A 1C 1C 20 24 2E 27 20 22 2C 23 1C 1C 28 37 29 2C 30
31 34 34 34 1F 27 39 3D 38 32 3C 2E 33 34 32 FF DB 00 43 01 09 09 09 0C 0B 0C 18 0D
0D
18 32 21 1C 21 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32
32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 FF C0 00 11 08 00 F0 01 40
03 01 22 00 02 11 01 03 11 01 FF C4 00 1F 00 00 01 05 01 01 01 01 01 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B FF C4 00 B5 10 00 02 01 03 03 02 04 03 05 05 04 04 00 00 01 7D
01 02 03 00 04 11 05 12 21 31 41 06 13 51 61 07 22 71 14 32 81 91 A1 08 23 42 B1 C1 15 52 D1 F0
24 33 62 72 82 09 0A 16 17 18 19 1A 25 26 27 28 29 2A 34 35 36 37 38 39 3A 43 44 45 46 47 48 49
4A 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 5A 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 6A 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 7A 83

So, basically, it looks like the hardware is good, and the program not so good. If anyone knows how to decode JPEG data easily, that would be very helpful.

#10

OK so here is some decoding:

first packet = FF D8 FF E0 00 10 4A 46 49 46 00 01 01 01 01 2C 01 2C 00 00 - second packet FF DB

FF D8 = SOI - start-of-image marker
FF E0 = APP0
00 10 = length (16bytes includes these two bytes)
4A 46 49 46 = ‘JFIF’
00 = 0
01 = version - always 1
01 = ver lo
01 = units
01 2C = x density
01 2C = y density
00 = x thumbnail - always 0
00 = y thumbnail - always 0
FF D8 = DQT packet - define-quantization-tables marker