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General suggestions or questions about the SparkFun Electronics website
By d4n1s
#112990
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/produc ... ts_id=8667

The datasheet is literally rubbish... I can't find anywhere anyone that would share how to use it and nobody here seems to help...
Could you please make a more detailed datasheet application notes and provide buyers with more info? Or am I supposed to buy 10 of them and roast the one after the other till I figure out how to use them?
User avatar
By thebecwar
#112991
Not sure what the specific problem you have with the camera, but the datasheet is better than the average datasheet for an asian market component. The timing diagrams are clear enough, the camera uses a standard bus for control, and implementing an 8bit parallel bus is easy. You may find the report from the US Army Research Laboratory interesting. Googling the item's name along with "application notes" is a wonderful thing.

A quote from the report I mentioned:
There is only one command that must be sent to the camera
for it to begin sending images—0x02. After issuing this command, the camera uses the vd, hd,
dout, and dclk pins to transmit frame data. A transition from low to high on the vd pin indicates
a new frame, while a transition from low to high on the hd pin indicates the beginning of a
scanline. For every square waveform on the dclk pin, while both the vd and hd pins are high,
there exist 8 bits of pixel data on the dout pins.
By d4n1s
#113011
Cant argue with that but it is not enough information. Also the diagrams are not understandable at least by me. Am I supposed to
have finished a university to be able to understand them(I am still student)? While looking at other camera products the documents
were enough to understand how to connect them to my board...

Because this product is sold in Sparkfun.com and not on sparkfun.jp could sparkfun create a detailed documents for this product?
User avatar
By phalanx
#113019
d4n1s wrote:Am I supposed to have finished a university to be able to understand them(I am still student)?
Unfortunately yes. These camera modules were never designed with the hobbiest in mind. They are intended to be used by larger companies with dedicated engineering resources. Sparkfun probably found an inexpensive source of the modules and decided to make it available for anyone willing to put in the effort to get them working.

I highly doubt that Sparkfun would invest the time to rewrite a 3rd party's datasheet on a $10 part, not to mention they could run into copyright issues for attempting to do so.

-Bill
By d4n1s
#113022
Is there anyone influenced by the altruistic ideas of our society willing to "waste" some minutes from his free time to explain me the info in the datasheet?
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By thebecwar
#113040
What don't you understand in the datasheet? Timing diagrams? Register descriptions? Interface?

Timing diagrams are easy. They show you a simplified view of what the communications bus would look like under an oscilloscope/logic analyzer. Look at Dclk and see how it compares to all the other signals.

I'm not sure how comfortable you are with C or embedded electronics, or what processor you want to use with this camera, so I can't really discuss the interface and registers. If you plan on processing the image on your micro, keep in mind that you will need something with some serious crunching power, and something capable of running a clock speed well above your parallel data bus clock. The report I linked to has a nice description of the image format, and other eccentricities of the datasheet, but if you want higher resolution/compression, I'd agree with the report in suggesting another camera module with built in compression.
By d4n1s
#113051
http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardMega2560
I have enough c++ knowledge to handle the incoming data.

What I don't understand from the datasheet is, what each pins does? Are all pins digital? While making a logic level converter I don't know where to put the resistors... Will I connect the camera on digital or analogue input on the board?

There is a table where it says YUV and RGB dataout pints description
below RGB there are some columns with names 1st and 2nd what are they supposed to mean?

I have already ordered the board and the camera..
Will I be able to handle pixel by pixel on the fly using this board? Meaning that I will send some current to the camera and than expect my board to be bombard with info.
By noptical
#113087
So you are a noob and you complain that you don't understand stuff and that's somehow sparkfun's fault. Maybe you should research more before trying to interface a cam module that wasn't built for noobs.
By d4n1s
#113088
the reason datasheets were created was to explain to noobs like me how to use their product. Or else they can keep the cameras for themselfs. There is no reason to sell a product without a manual or a manual that lacks of information. If you can understand what each pin of the camera does I would be glad to explain me. And if you can understand whether the camera output is digital or analogue be my guest to quote from the datasheet.

Toshiba sells TVs with manuals, fridges with manuals and even remote controls with manuals, things that even a retarded could use
without a manual, however they don't publish a complete manual, or an understandable manual for such complicated machine. You can claim that it is my ignorance of computing systems to understand how this manual works, but the problem of my understanding
skills exist only on the specific datasheet from all of the datasheets I have read so far on sparkfun.

I would rather see sparkfun or someone explain me (or even fill in missing information from the datasheet) the camera application than posting anti-arguments.

PS my questions were still not answered.
User avatar
By leon_heller
#113092
If you read the data sheet properly you will see that the signals are all digital. You will also see their exact electrical specifications.

Those two columns for the RGB data are obviously for consecutive reads of the parallel data bus, giving RGB565 (5 red levels, 6 green levels and 5 blue levels). The YUV data need four consecutive reads. Why couldn't you work that out for yourself?

Data sheets are written for experienced designers, not for someone who hasn't a clue about electronics. You say you are a student, some studying might be a good idea!
Last edited by leon_heller on Wed Nov 10, 2010 4:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
By noptical
#113094
d4n1s wrote:the reason datasheets were created was to explain to noobs like me how to use their product. Or else they can keep the cameras for themselfs. There is no reason to sell a product without a manual or a manual that lacks of information. If you can understand what each pin of the camera does I would be glad to explain me. And if you can understand whether the camera output is digital or analogue be my guest to quote from the datasheet.

Toshiba sells TVs with manuals, fridges with manuals and even remote controls with manuals, things that even a retarded could use
without a manual, however they don't publish a complete manual, or an understandable manual for such complicated machine. You can claim that it is my ignorance of computing systems to understand how this manual works, but the problem of my understanding
skills exist only on the specific datasheet from all of the datasheets I have read so far on sparkfun.

I would rather see sparkfun or someone explain me (or even fill in missing information from the datasheet) the camera application than posting anti-arguments.

PS my questions were still not answered.
You're confusing electronic components with consumer electronics. If you can't tell the difference, you shouldn't even be here. This is not a fridge or a washing machine, this is not made for "retards" as you say, this is not for everyone to use. It requires studying and research, do it. In the end as a reward you get a warm and fuzzy feeling of accomplishmed :D