Interfacing with the C328RS Camera

[jgillick]

I just got the C328RS serial JPEG camera (http://www.electronics123.com/s.nl/it.A/id.2027/.f?sc=8&category=241) and am wondering if anybody here has used it before and has example code. This is the first time I've done this level of serial communication and I could use some examples to get me started.

Thanks.

 

[Texy]

I suspect that a picaxe will not work fast enough to capture jpeg from the camera - the spec's are talking about running at 115.2khz baudrate, much faster than a picaxe can operate at.

Texy

 

[jgillick]

I suspect that a picaxe will not work fast enough to capture jpeg from the camera - the spec's are talking about running at 115.2khz baudrate, much faster than a picaxe can operate at.

Texy

Actually it says it has a "UART interface of up to 115.2Kbps". Section 5.2 of the user manual lists the supported baudrates, which go as low as 7200 bps. So I believe a picaxe will work for it.

 

[BCJKiwi]

serin/out run to a max of 19200 baud on the chips supporting 16Mhz external resonator.

Hserin/out/setup provide for 115200 baud on 28X1 and above. For faster serial suggest only a chip with external resonator be used as timing issues can arise with internal resonator. The internal resonator speed can be tweaked but is not always sufficient.

 

[hippy]

I think you're on an uphill struggle to both communicate and use the data returned. The User Manual describes the protocol.

 

[jgillick]

I think you're on an uphill struggle to both communicate and use the data returned. The User Manual describes the protocol.

Why is that? Is there anything you recommend? I'm going to be directly sending the data to an SD card so the PICAxe wont be doing any processing or storing the image in memory.

 

[hippy]

It's not so much it cannot be done but that you're likely going to have to learn how to as you go along. As you say you haven't done this level of serial programming before and I don't recall seeing anyone saying they'd used this camera themselves with a PICAXE so there's probably not going to be a lot of help to be had.

There's apparently a PC application written which allows the camera's command set to be evaluated and experimented with and that's where I'd probably start. Get to understand what needs to be sent and is recieved then port that over to the PICAXE.

Not storing the image in memory will make things easier. You hadn't mentioned exactly what you were doing and the PICAXE only has limited memory. With the right choice of packet size for camera comms you should be able to store and forward the data to an SD card.

The only thing I'd recommend is studying the manual and Googling for example code. It may be simpler than a quick read of the User Manual suggests; it's always hard to get a feel for exactly how complicated things are just from the manual.

 

[stocky6409]

Interesting - been looking for something similar to take an incoming serial command via radio to picaxe, have the picaxe send commands to camera then camera to send image back via radio....let us know how you go!!