Low cost camera for Prop?

Rayman

I just got a couple of these cheap camera modules:
http://www.primelec.com/Electronic-Components/Other/Samsung-14-Inch-VGA-CIS-p4826731.html

I actually think they could work pretty well with the Propeller. It's got an 8-bit bus, so maybe it'd need 12 or so pins.

It also has a white LED next to it.

I've looked into extracting the camera from it's plastic mount, but I don't see an easy way to handle it outside the enclosure.

It has a funny 30-pin connector, but I've seen over at Mikrocontroller.com that you can buy a mating connector.

I'm not 100% sure the Prop would be fast enough to capture at VGA resolution, but I think it might...

It would be a lot of work to come up with a driver for this, but maybe I'll take a stab at it someday...

Tubular

Very interesting, Ray. The PDF link seems broken so here's another
http://soft.laogu.com/datasheet/60/SX5433M14X_SAMSUNG_267067.pdf

ericball

Unfortunately, the datasheet is from May 2004 and marked Preliminary. I haven't been able to find a more recent datasheet.

I think the problem is going to be PCLK, because the pixel data needs to be latched on the falling edge. The first problem is the datasheet doesn't specify how it's generated. I bet it's based on MCLK, but it might be internally generated. The question is whether PCLK can be made low enough for the Prop to sync to PCLK, latch the pixel (before the rising edge of PCLK), do something with the data, then latch the next pixel (assuming no further synchronization is required).

There's also an I2C bus to control image processing and the output, but the addresses and registers aren't specified.

I once smoked a chip using a Preliminary datasheet. Between Preliminary and Production they swapped several of the power and ground pins!

Rayman

I agree that there are challenges here... But, that's what makes it fun Sorta like hacking...

Here's the thread in a different forum where they give a lot of details about it:
http://www.mikrocontroller.net/topic/161749

It's in German...