Where in the world is the new 2007 cmu camera docs?!?!?

[xrabohrok]

We have been messing around with this new camera and we are utterly confounded, how does one wire the thing to the controller, much less configure it?

We are in the dark here.

[JBotAlan]

http://kevin.org/frc/

Kevin Watson (the amazing soul he is) compiled all the info you request.

Good luck
JBot

[xrabohrok]

The camera described in the documentation here (page 17 for the diagram), is vastly different from the one our team got this year, as described on the ifi robotics page. The one from last year has pins for the servos to plug into, and the new one has no servo pins at all, the things at the bottom of this year's camera are solderable jumper settings (I think).

Help!

[JBotAlan]

Originally Posted by xrabohrok

The one from last year has pins for the servos to plug into, and the new one has no servo pins at all, the things at the bottom of this year's camera are solderable jumper settings (I think).

Wow, I didn't even look at the camera yet, so I haven't seen the missing servo outs. However, Kevin's code doesn't use them, rather, it uses PWM outputs from the RC itself to drive the two servos. You will have to open some of his code, I believe, to figure out which to plug into. Your programmer needs this info (if you're not the programmer).

Those docs should still be valid with this year's camera; it just sounds like they short-cutted and skipped the servo outputs that we weren't supposed to use anyway. I'll post back tomorrow after I've had a chance to look at the camera in person and make sure it is the same.

JBot

[Inverted]

I'm probably completely wrong here, but I'm just curious. I thought I heard somewhere about a new, standalone CMUcamGUI that was just released, but the one I just downloaded still uses Java. Does anyone know where the new one is, or did I just make all of this up?

[JBotAlan]

I tried to verify this, but usfirst.org is timing out--probably looks like a distributed denial of service attack from their end...I'd hate to be on the IT staff there!

When the site is accessible again, I will try to confirm this for you.

The old CMUcamGUI app (yes, the one in Java) should work fine; it looks like it's the same camera as last year minus some connectors (probably cost-reducing in effect here).

JBot

[xrabohrok]

I guess the question now remains on how to connect the camera to labview for configuration, a labview was dependant on those servo connectors, or maybe one doesn't? Maybe we have to do it through mplab, which would be somewhat painful.

[Kingofl337]

2007 Camera function 100% the same as the 2005/2006 camera. I headers for the servos have just been removed. The camera should work the same in JavaApp and Labview. The only change is anything that mentions the servos no longer does anything.

This fixes two issues.

1.) You don't have to stop the camera to change servo posistions.
2.) You can't run victors off you camera anymore which was kind of a saftey
hazard as the camera doesn't know about being disabled. I'm pretty sure
this is why they were removed.

To make it work just run a PWM cable from the Analog or Digital port of the RC to the connector next to the switch. This will run your camera off the 12v supply instead of the backup battery. On the CMU board it has a "B" that is where the black wire goes. Then just run a serial cable from your computer into the CMUCAM.

[darist]

Documentation for this year's camera is available here:

http://www.ifirobotics.com/camera.shtml

To use it with LabView, last year, we used a serial cable directly connected between the camera and the computer, and we used the CMUCAM demo LabView application that was posted by NI (I think I found the link somewhere on this forum).

By the way, does anyone know if there is a new LabVIEW application this year?

Also, what's this Java application people are talking about? I haven't seen it. Can anyone post a link?

Thanks!

[darist]

Originally Posted by Kingofl337

To make it work just run a PWM cable from the Analog or Digital port of the RC to the connector next to the switch. This will run your camera off the 12v supply instead of the backup battery.

One of the diagrams says that you should connect it to the PWM header of the Robot Controller. If I remember correctly, this was the same last year as well. And if I'm still not wrong, I think the PWM header is powered by the backup battery at 7.5V.
Kingofl337, do you know for sure if the CMU Cam can handle 12V?
I think it might be a good thing to run off the main battery, and that way you don't really have to worry about discharging your backup battery.
On the other side, the power supply from the main battery will be very noisy (compared to the backup battery) because you will have motors, etc, running off it. Do you know if this is a potential problem?

[DanDon]

The servos are also powered off of the backup battery, so you would still need to worry about having a fully charged backup battery.

[Kevin Watson]

Originally Posted by Kingofl337

2007 Camera function 100% the same as the 2005/2006 camera. I headers for the servos have just been removed. The camera should work the same in JavaApp and Labview. The only change is anything that mentions the servos no longer does anything.

This fixes two issues.

1.) You don't have to stop the camera to change servo posistions.
2.) You can't run victors off you camera anymore which was kind of a saftey
hazard as the camera doesn't know about being disabled. I'm pretty sure
this is why they were removed.

To make it work just run a PWM cable from the Analog or Digital port of the RC to the connector next to the switch. This will run your camera off the 12v supply instead of the backup battery. On the CMU board it has a "B" that is where the black wire goes. Then just run a serial cable from your computer into the CMUCAM.

Um, the servo PWM headers went away because the Ubicom SX52 microcontroller is no longer available and IFI was forced to transition to the SX48, which has fewer I/O pins. As it doesn't make sense to use the on-board PWM outputs for our application anyway, they were removed to aid in the transition to the SX48.

Using the camera PWM outputs to drive a victor would be strictly illegal under FRC rules, so I have no idea why this would be a problem that needed to be fixed.

The camera *must* be powered from a RC PWM header. Using power from any other header -- which supply 5 volts, not 12 -- won't work because the camera has its own voltage regulator and it needs an input voltage of at least 6.25 volts to function correctly.

-Kevin

[bear24rw]

So does this mean that there is a was a firmware update aswell?

Any new features?

[xrabohrok]

The camera works perfectly now, though the picture comes out kind of dark...
It even tracks the light! Now I have to make this feature meaningful...