As I mentioned in my previous post, I had only had limited success with the Caspa VL and Logitech UVC cameras. While both cameras work with the Gumstix, the Caspa seems to take poor images while the Logitech USB camera performance is limited by low USB bandwidth. Therefore, I have decided to try my luck with cameras from e-Con Systems.
I decided to try the e-CAM32 3.2 mega pixel and the e-CAM50 5 mega pixel camera modules designed for the Gumstix Overo with OMAP3530 processors. I chose the e-CAM50 with the custom lens configuration, which will allow me to experiment with different lenses. According to the product page it takes S-mount lens and as I understand it is quite standard – a Google search gives many hits.
As you can see on the web page the minimum order quantity for the 3.2 mega pixel camera is 2. With $69 per piece this is not a problem. As you can see on the first photo, the package also includes a CD-ROM containing user manuals and software, and a microSD with bootable Linux images including the camera drivers.
The e-CAM32 is a single board unit with the same size as the Gumstix Overo. The holes are aligned so that camera board can be placed directly on top of the Overo board.
The e-CAM50 on the other hand is a kit consisting of a “main board” and a sensor board that is mounted on top of it.
Both cameras use the dedicated camera input on the OMAP3530 and come with their own flex ribbon cable included. I believe this cable is different from the one supplied with the Caspa camera by Gumstix, although as I understand it the Gumstix cable can be used with the e-Con cameras too. The e-CAM32 comes with binary driver and source code, while the e-CAM50 comes with binary driver only. Up until now I have only used the binary driver with the e-CAM32 and it works well. More about that in the next post.