Hi Devon,
I tried it out FSM with the trendnet camera. So far I can not get it to show anything. I have an IP address of: the camera set as 192.168.2.34 Not sure if I need anything more than this in your IP address. I have tried clicking the start feed and nothing shows up. Note: when I normally connect with an internet explorer window to this address I get prompted for admin name and password.
Once I get some connection this way I will then try having it go through the Lantronix…
Kurt
I just tried the program, it says I need several DLL and library files.
I had to go to task manager to kill the program, I couldn’t get out otherwise.
Alan KM6VV
Today I have been playing around with the actual web camera. I verified that I can see images properly with the camera (Trendnet) plugged into the net (i.e. not using the wireless part). It shows a complete web page with the image plus trendnets configuration page when I do: 192.168.2.34 . It also showed this same page if I embedded a web browser as part of my VB app…
Then I changed the configuration of the Matchport to be in Bridge mode. I then plugged the camera into the wired port on the matchport demo card, turned it on then turned the camera on.
In this configuration I could not connect to: 192.168.2.30 which was the matchport, but I could still connect to …34 and get to the camera. I was able to browse to the different web pages of the camera.
I then tried my test code to try to talk to the configurable pins on the matchport:
…34:77F0
But the connection failed with a timeout error.
So my first guesses is that when we are in bridge mode we can no longer talk over the wireless connection to the matchport. May be able to talk to the matchport from the wired side, by plugging in a portable on this side. This is probably pointless as the camera will not need to talk to the machport… Hopefully this is not a dead end…
Kurt
I don’t know if this might help out, but did everyone get the latest firmware and apply it to the matchport b/g yet? If not here is the link:
ltxfaq.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1375
Things have been really crazy for me the past few weeks, but thankfully things have calmed down so I have been starting to work on this.
I will be running a bunch of tests this weekend and next week, I think that we should be able to use the matchport with an ethernet camera, but also I am looking at serial i.o based camera’s as well, trouble is that they are not very high resolution, have to get the specs…
I’d tend to agree.
What’s a portable?
Alan KM6VV
Firmware’s OK.
We can use the NET camera, but it shuts down the serial coms.
Let us know what serial cameras you find.
Alan KM6VV
okay,
So if we use a network camera using the rj45, it becomes useless basically, I just went through the setup and wired my camera, and your right, you lose the ability to use the ports, it would be nice if we only lost the use of one serial port…
So we are going to need a serial camera, right now I don’t see how we can get around that… I sent an Email to lantronix to see if there’s something else we can try with a wired ethernet camera.
I am researching serial cameras now…
About the library dll’s. I forgot to mention that flowstone uses an externa library for the video components. 
I haven’t the time right now but I’ll make sure to post a link to the library tomorrow.
Also I’m pretty sure the reason it wouldn’t connect to the camera would be the security. Flowstone doesn’t support any form of authentication as of now. Unless I’m overlooking it, I’ll talk to DSP about it.
Sounds good. I guess the other question is, how do I specify my Camera? That is, how to I specify an IP address where the camera is located?
Thanks again
Kurt
I guess the question will be, is there any serial cameras that make sense for this.
The CMU cams? The CMu3 is about $240 and the CMu2 is about $180 if you can get them. Probable a little high priced for this.
Blackfin? $200 + base or for about $350 you can have it with WIFI and servo board as well.
One camera that may be interesting for this would be: robotshop.com/4d-systems-mic … ttl-2.html
It is only $60. If my browsing of the guide is correct we may be able to run it’s serial port at the highest speed of the lantronix: 921000
Almost worth trying to order one to see how well it will work.
Kurt
Yeah, that looks good.
I couldn’t get my hands on a CMu2 or CMu3.
What else do we need besides connecting it up to the Lantronix? Does the Blackfin do any protocol for it’s camera?
Sure, buy one!
Alan KM6VV
I ordered one (TTL) as it could be fun to try this out.
As for CMUCAM3… Robotshop appears to have them:
robotshop.com/CMUcam3-robot- … ystem.html
Kurt
Maybe they’ve started to sell again. I’ve got the Blackfin, so I’m covered for a while.
Alan KM6VV
Hi Kurt, I have one of these and works fine (similar h/w with c328r). The only problem is to get more then 2 FPS from it 
Let me know if you can find a way to make it run faster. Cheers!
Ok this is a sad series of events. lol
Do they have a better module that would run the network plug AND a serial port?
If we have a network plug on the bot, could we connect a 4 or 5 port hub and connect other devices to it? Would it be possible to convert one of these ports to a serial or usb port?
Good Questions:
There is the matchport B/G Pro, that may support this, but it looks like you might be able to do so, but the UG looks pretty complicated: At GridConnect these go for: $119 each. I have not done a complete read of the document. You can easily get to the document up at www.lantronix.com\downloads.
I am not sure that the Matchport B/G will support having multiple things plugged into it as it does things like to do a directly route through itself to the whatever is plugged into it… (i.e. it appears like it’s own IP address does not exist anymore…) I could be completely wrong though…
I also think the 4D camera will be too slow as well, it mentioned about a .75 frames per second at 115200, but it also sounded like the interface may be able to run at a higher speed. The Matchport can run up to 921000, so at 8 times faster we may get up to 4ppm. Not very fast but we will see… Just got confirmation that it shipped so we may find out soon.
Kurt
If I’m not wrong, the 0.75 fps is the speed the camera can do jpeg compression and not the transfer rate (is somewhere in the doc). However, you can get it run fine at 600kbps in low resolution (128x128) raw mode, pretty stable with around 1.5-2 fps.
That camera is kinda slow, but worth a look. I thought I remembered a spec for the Blackfin camera, but I can’t find it. How fast is needed?
The Matchport B/G PRO has more RAM/ROM, and can provide a more secure web server, but I’m not seeing much more then that. But I haven’t read the UG or IG.
Alan KM6VV
I have the blackfin camera, and I know you can load a custom firmware on the matchport b/g that will get you 2304000 baud, but don’t forget the blackfin camera is an image processor, kinda expensive for just a camera . I think the max frame rate is around 15-20fps, iternally it get’s up to 60fps. I have also been able to hookup the second port on the matchport at the same time and send/receive commands to another robotics controller at a much slower baudrate(9600).
Has anyone hooked up their Matchport to an atom pro and try to progrram it yet(I have to get another atom pro as mine is toast)?? It should work without any problems. I know I was able to program a parallax propeller this way without any issues. If you are going to try this, make sure to get the comport redirector from lantronix, it sets up a comport that connects to the Matchport via WiFi, works pretty good.
There was a dicussion a while back somewhere, there was an idea floating around to convert a cheap usb camera to work via WiFi but I can’t seem to find it now…
I also ordered that serial camera this morning, so we will see how that goes…
Yeah, I did read that the Blackfin could go up to 2.3Mb. Fast!
I’m not yet familiar with what all the Blackfin processor does for the video. I think it even runs the 'bot!
15fps is what I’d remembered, but I have yet to find it again in the docs. Maybe we can buy just the camera that it uses? Is that a JPEG stream?
And you say you’ve already ran the 2nd serial at 9600. It didn’t sound like that from what I’d read. That’s good to know! What did you have to do to “steal” the 2nd com port from the Blackfin processor? It seems to be connected to the Blackfin via a pair of resistors. Maybe they intend for the resistors to be pulled? What coms go through the 2nd port, just 'bot controls? I want to do the same thing!
I’ve only one BAP, I need to order another (thought I was buying one from a friend).
I’m interested in that serial camera as well. But I’d spring for another OV9655 if it can work directly.
Alan KM6VV
