#ARDUINO CAMERA OUTDOORS CODE#

This circuit works best with low-Vf Schottky diodes that can tolerate a reverse voltage at least 2x the highest possible voltage in your circuit. Note that the 4N37 diode side circuit goes from GPIO13 to the anode, the cathode goes to R3, and R3 goes back to the GND pin on the ESP – NOT the ground rail from the power supply! Why the 4N37? Because the ESP is not connected to the ground rail when the MOSFET is turned off, so GPIO13 does a very noisy “high-ish” float which leads to unpredictable results. They keep the MOSFET gate from momentarily pulling a large amount of current which could damage the PIR or ESP. R1 and R2 are necessary, particularly if you have a MOSFET with a high input capacitance. Or… if your PIR will remain on while motion is present, you can just wave your hand above the sensor until programming is done. You can also just move the ESP GND pin from the MOSFET drain to ground while programming. The block labelled “OPTIONAL” is there if you want a switch that will keep the MOSFET (and ESP) turned on while programming. Same with those long-life lithium batteries – they’re 1.2V too. Remember that if you want to power it from rechargeable NiCd or NiMH batteries, those are 1.2V, not 1.5V, so you’d probably want to use five of them, instead of four alkalines. Even 9 or 12V should be OK, but check the regulator on your board first to make sure. The absolute maximum input voltage is 15V, so powering it from 4xAA/4xC/4xD alkaline batteries (6V) is fine. The output is 3.3V, so it should be able to run down to 4.3V. According to the AMS1117 datasheet, it will run to where the input is only 1V higher than the output. Power for the ESP32 first goes to an AMS1117-3.3 regulator. +V on the schematic is the power supply you want to use.

Looking into the various ESP libraries for the SD card, using a FAT32 filesystem, the camera, and the on-board EEPROM took a while but after I figured one or two of them out, the others were easier.Īfter going through my various parts bins, I cobbled together a circuit that seems to reliably work.

I tried a bunch of things and didn’t have much luck, and when I looked around for information, there were lots of links but I couldn’t find any information that quite fit what I was doing.įinally, I found a link to some ESP documentation, which got me started. One of them (D4) seems to be used by BOTH the camera (camera flash) and the uSD card slot (data line). Turns out some of the GPIO pins are used by the camera, and the rest are used by the uSD card slot that’s on the board. I figured it wouldn’t be too tough – after all, the ESP32-CAM AI-Thinker modules I use have several GPIO pins broken out. Unfortunately, it was just an idea at the time and I hadn’t actually tried to do it. His response was to immediately ask me how many I could make for him and how quickly I could do it. Sure, I told him – I didn’t see any reason why not. When I mentioned this to a buddy of mine, he immediately wanted to know if they could be used to watch for motion and take pictures in case someone was trying to break into his shed or cabin. One of the things I want to do with them is put a couple outside and get pictures of the different kinds of animals that wander through the yard and leave footprints in the snow. It doesn’t produce the best pictures I’ve seen, but for the cost (I’ve found them for $9, including the OV2640 camera!) and the number of features and horsepower, they’re tough to beat. I went on to create a bedside module, which only woke me with a beep if certain groups or double-trigger conditions were met and squeezed the arduino into the receiver case.ĭa-600-tiny.jpg (113.I’ve been spending a lot of time lately working with the ESP32-CAM module.

#ARDUINO CAMERA OUTDOORS CODE#

Happy to post Arduino decode code if anyone wants, though I am aware i have reinvented some similar stuff done before. I would have preferred to have used the GCE protocol but I couldn't find any complete documentation. The comms between the RF and the pic ICs proved too chatty to interpret, but the comms between the PIC and the sound chip was easier, and so long as you set each PIR to trigger a different melody, you can establish which PIR has tripped on the Arduino, and mark the correct video stream accordingly via the arduino single character option in BI. So then i wanted BI to mark the video streams when an alert occurred, so I opened up a receiver and tried tapping into various lines using the chip datasheets and my oscilloscope. I have to admit i gave up trying to use camera motion detection outdoors due to false triggers. They're really effective, good range to receiver and being PIR not triggered by wind movement etc. I had installed a few of these about my place.

Arduino camera outdoors