Problems with Arducam OV9281 1MP Mono Global Shutter MIPI Camera for Raspberry Pi 3

Help & Support Robot Parts
1

I am new to Raspberry Pi (3) but not new to hardware and software. I purchased the unit above and followed ArduCam’s website multiple times to get the camera working. I edited the config.txt file to add dtoverlay=ov9281 and I get multiple errors (eg. consider editing the camera…properties file) for example. I similarly followed the Picamera document to get the camera to work with zero luck. What am I missing doing as I expected this should have been so much easier to get functional!

I did reach to ArduCam support a few days ago and still waiting for any response. Yes I confirmed the ribbon cable was correctly connected to the Pi (confirmed voltage 3.3V on the camera to be 100% certain). I suspect there is something fundamentally wrong with the software setup or configuration that is not documented.

Thank you

1 Like
3

Hi @ABasacchi ,

Let us know if you don’t receive a reply from ArduCam support. In that case, we can connect you with them.

Thank you.

4

Hi Robotshop:

They just connected with me this morning and asked to run a diagnostic report. I just did that and sent it to them.

Now on hold pending their next action.

Very frustrating process to get something theoretically so simply to work per their and your website.

Thanks

1 Like
5

Hi @ABasacchi ,

Yes, we understand that you are not satisfied, but ArduCam support will find and solve the problem for sure.

Thank you.

6

Hi Robotshot: Here is a brief update on the cameras now. After spending many hours trying to get the camera to work by trying everything, including 1.5 hours with ArduCam support, the problem ended up being that I was using the current OS of Pi vs Legacy. Nowhere in any documentation nor your site that I can find, this limitation is described. No matter, I persevered with the Cameras (I ordered a second one when I had success). I was able to get ~130 FPS out of the camera in RAW mode - exactly what I needed the camera to perform. Unfortunately both cameras (on two different Pi’s) both started to hang in the middle of the program sequence. Reaching out to ArduCam with this ‘connect issue’ resulting in a ‘capture timeout’ and locked Pi - resulted in them in indicating that they no longer support the library - and recommended a second camera that should work on the current OS. Not a great answer! Does anyone know how to get the camera (OV9281) out of this hung mode? As an aside, I reached out to Omnivision to get their DataSheet on the camera a couple of weeks ago and no response from them either. For some reason, there is no Datasheet for this camera available on the net from all my searches. Would appreciate any assistance in this hung condition. Thanks