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I bought ArduCam ESP8266 and a OV2640 Module. However it is not the mini-version. At the time it didn't seem like it was necessary.

I might have made a big mistake here.

The board has 8 female pins specifically for the camera module. But the OV2640 module has 20 male pins. A mini-version of the same camera leaves 8 pins, and has a nice interface.

I might have to send this back and get that one, but I want to know if it's possible to simply use this one and wire it up with certain pins instead?

Links to the two products to be specific: http://www.arducam.com/camera-modules/2mp-ov2640/ (Camera) http://www.arducam.com/arducam-esp8266-uno-board-arduino-camera/ (Board)

Thanks for your help,

Fred

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No, you can't "mix and match" like that. The 8-pin header has I2C and SPI on it for a "cooked" video interface. The 20-pin interface has the "raw" camera CSI interface.

The difference is, the mini version has its own small video processor and FIFO chip on it which processes and buffers the video image allowing you to take a picture then slowly stream that data back through to the slow Arduino at a speed it is comfortable with. The non-mini version doesn't have that and relies on the host controller board having enough power to process a live CSI video signal, which the Arduino cannot do.

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  • Okay. Thanks for the info. From the data sheets I understand what you mean now. I'm going to have to send this back then... I was wondering about the rest of the pins of the board. I see they are linked to certain elements of the 8-pin header. Would the board still have some pins (say 3) free for extra PWM motor controllers? It seems pins such as D4 D3 may not be used, but I'm not 100%... Thanks, Fred
    – Fred
    Dec 29, 2016 at 12:04
  • It looks like they have a lot of pins doubled up on that board. I'd be surprised if you could really use the Uno-format headers for anything much TBH. That's the problem when you choose the wrong chip for the job. That board should have been made with a completely different chip on it so that it had enough pins to actually provide the GPIO it purports to provide. It's really not clear from their pinout diagram which pins can be used for PWM, and quite unclear that you only have a fraction of the actual GPIOs that it looks like you have. Even within the Uno footprint headers themselves ...
    – Majenko ♦
    Dec 29, 2016 at 12:10
  • ... there is a massive amount of pin duplication. You would probably be better off interfacing the Arducam Mini manually with a more capable board, such as a Mega2560, which has more pins available so you don't have any doubling up. After all, it's only 8 wires to route, and that 8-pin header isn't anything special.
    – Majenko ♦
    Dec 29, 2016 at 12:11
  • I have just done a count: you have a massive 11 GPIO in total on that board. 6 are used by the 8 pin header. 1 is used by the SD card. That leaves a grand total of 4 GPIOs that are of any possible use - GPIO0 or GPIO1 (depending on board version), GPIO2, GPIO3 and GPIO15. That's less than useful really - and only one analog input as well. As I say, better off using a more capable board and interfacing things like the camera, WiFi, etc manually.
    – Majenko ♦
    Dec 29, 2016 at 12:22
  • Lets say I didn't use the SD card. And that I wanted to two 3 servos and two motors. Doesn't that require 5 GPIOs left? Aren't all GPIO's PWMs? What would happen if I tried to use the GPIOs for something? Another options is to just get another small ESP8266 Dev board like Wemos, which is relatively cheap. Another battery I guess but maybe easier?
    – Fred
    Dec 29, 2016 at 12:28

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