How do you hook up the camera?

Technical Programming
1

How do you exactly connect the camera to the board, there must be some type of input you need to hook it up to. And then how do you connect it to the Computer with and without the controller board. We have the servos and stuff already mounted.

My team and I find the instructions in other places confusing and I dont want to plug in the power through the wrong place -_-

Thanks in advance.

2

Follow the instruction in “[size=2]GETTING STARTED, (and finished), WITH THE CMUCam2 VISION SENSOR” (filename: Start_Here-CMUcam2_fe.pdf).[/size]

3

I meant exactly, I already knew about that. I dont understand them.

4

Would photos like those posted here help? I could take a few more showing additional components like the RC and servos connected.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=330338&postcount=2

5

That helps some… where does the TTL on the R232 go? into the TTL of the camera board?

And how do you hook it up to calibrate it and/or on the robot?

6

How do I hook up the camera exactly ? Do I connect it directly to the servos or should I connect the servos to the RC ? should I allow the camera to be move by a servo left and right or should I try to mount it without a servo and let the robot motors control it’s left-right movement? what is the best way to do this?

Does it make sense to connect the servos header from the CMUCam into the RC analog inputs and send the signal to the servos using the PWM outputs on the RC so i control and monitor the camera’s movement?

Please help me, I’m really confused . :confused: :confused: :confused:

7

I guess im not the only one -_-

8

Did either of you read the file I referenced in my last post?

9

And I meant exactly… What page and paragraph do you not understand… I will try and help if I can…

Excuse me for being curt but I really don’t beilive you have read the documentation…

10

I have, and I find them confusing. Like I stated to begin with.

11

Here are a couple of other photos to help. The servos are driven by the camera by those wires at the top. We had to reverse how the camera drove the servos, but you cannot quite see the jumper used in the photo.

There are two different ways we hookup the CMU camera:

  1. to a PC to run the CMU GUI to get the calibration numbers and to test the camera. At the regional events the FIRST staff will give you the calibration numbers. These numbers have to be typed into the CMU camera code (v2.4). The GUI is in the IFI Robotics download
    http://www.ifirobotics.com/docs/cmucam2-documents-and-software1.zip
    You’ll find the GUI under the folders Software\CMUcam2GUI_fe\stand_alone and is called CMUcam2GUI_fe.jar

  2. to the RC to drive the robot.

You cannot have the camera hooked up to both the PC and the RC at the same time or it just won’t work.

CMU_Hookup.jpg
CMU_TTL.jpg


CMU_Hookup.jpg
CMU_TTL.jpg

12

Alright, that anwsers everything. Thanks!

13

Image I made for my Team, (might be helpful)

How to connect TTL
http://franklin.f2o.org/franklinteam_files/camdiagram.gif

14

Seems to be a dumb question, but i’ll do it:

your camera are working? (to the teams that have posted the photos)

15

Yes, our camera is working.

16

if i dont hook up the ttl port and the pwm cord to the rc controller then i dont get any pwer, why is this?

17

The camera draws power through the cable connected to the RC pwm output.
The PWM output power is only supplied by the small backup battery attached to the RC.
Only the center red wire of the PWM cable is actually used. The camera doesn’t care what the PWM is set to in the code.

18

Yea i noticed that too, the cam wouldnt work without the battery, i read over the manual again to see if it provided that we needed anything else, and there it was… you need the back up. Hooked it up and the lights went on I was happy :slight_smile: .

Couldnt have done it without you Mark

19

i realized that i had put the pwm cord backwards and thats why it wasnt getting any power. lol.