Camera Incident

Technical Control System
1

We may have killed our sole vision camera and I’m interested to know if anyone else has had this problem.

I am the lead programmer, and when I arrived today to do some vision tuning, I realized that the outputs from our coprocessor weren’t showing up. I traced the problem back to the fact that our camera didn’t seem to be working, and the light on the back of it (Axis M1013) wasn’t glowing when I turned off the lights in the room. Upon examining the VRM to check the connections, I realized that at some point, someone had plugged the camera power supply into the 12V 2A part of the VRM. This looked suspicious to me, and a quick google search confirmed that the camera should be running off of a 5V supply. I think the person who plugged it in just didn’t know any better/heard some false information, but I’m now very concerned that our camera has been fried.

I plugged the wires into the proper (5V 2A) ports on the VRM, and tried again, to no avail. The power cord from the VRM to the camera shows around 5V when measured with a voltmeter.

Has anyone else had this happen? What else can I test to figure out if it’s beyond hope?

2

We did the exact same thing in 2015. The camera was done for since the protective circuits inside it probably can only handle so many volts over 5.

3

we did that our rookie year. we commemorate it by labeling every camera we have “Not 12V.”

The camera is toast. Hopefully you guys can get a new one in time for your comp

4

Does anyone know if it’s even still possible to buy an Axis M1013? I know Axis has discontinued them, but I haven’t seen them anywhere else. However, FIRST doesn’t list any newer IP cameras as being compatible with their software.

If it’s not possible, has anyone had experience with a different IP camera (similar in size/cost/ease of use to the Axis one)? It technically doesn’t need to be compatible with the WPILIB because it’s only communicating with a Raspberry Pi over ethernet. The ability to control brightness, exposure, compression and frame size are all a must, ideally via a web interface.

5

One thing you may want to consider is running with a USB Camera connected to your pi. We have been using a Logitech cable and control it with http://www.linux-commands-examples.com/uvcdynctrl. We have the pi setup to run a script when it boots up so the exposure can be set (I think we have it at something like -1), and then it runs the python script.

6

You could try the M1013’s successor, the Axis M1004-W.

I would not expect the FRC Axis setup tool to work with it, but I would be surprised if it didn’t use the same URL/configuration for MJPEG streaming.

I believe it has a built-in wireless connection so you would need to be sure to disable that before using it at an FRC event.

https://www.axis.com/dk/en/products/axis-m1004-w

7

Yes, a student fried all of our cameras in 2014 (at least three) in a space of a few minutes by applying 12V to them. He was looking for one that worked… I was so glad to see a less expensive, less easy to burn out USB camera become the new standard.

8

Sorry to say, but it’s probably fried :frowning:

I would recommend getting into contact with local teams attending your next event, and asking them if you can borrow the camera you need.

Good luck,

Mo