I work with cameras in the film and TV industry. A project I have just started tinkering around with is building an Arduino Uno-based box that would automatically collect the metadata (settings, etc.) via the camera's built-in web server (over Ethernet, at least at the moment). Specifically the Arri Alexa camera.
Like I said, this camera already has a web server and the functionality built in for somebody to hook their computer directly up to the camera with an Ethernet cord (it actually uses an RJ45 - Lemo proprietary cable system in order to support some accessories that draw more power than RJ45 is capable of). Then when you navigate to the camera's IP address in a web browser it serves up a web page to you with all the camera settings and other things displayed.
I found that my test computer connected perfectly to the camera without fiddling with any network settings as the manufacturer's documentation seemed to indicate. Here are the basic network settings my computer had when connected directly to the camera over ethernet (no Arduino yet):
Notice the IP Address and subnet mask: 169.254.106.46 and 255.255.0.0 respectively.
Just to note, these are the manufacturer recommended settings I found in some literature:
Since that was working I tested the Arduino using the same settings. I am using an Arduino Uno combined with a Seeed Ethernet Shield (v2.0) which utilizes a Wiznet 5200 processor (not the 5100 normally used). Because of this you have to use the Ethernetv2_0 library that Seeed provides rather than the normal Ethernet library.
Here is my code, basically an adapted version of the WebClientRepeating example. I got this code working when I was just connecting to say arduino.cc and was going through the hub of my router (auto-assigned IP address). However when I attempt to connect to the camera with the Arduino sans Hub / Switch with a manually assigned IP address and subnet mask and all that I can never make the client (object) to connect. Basically this code is printing out "connection failed" to the serial monitor indicating and connection was never established.
#include <SPI.h>
#include <EthernetV2_0.h>
// assign a MAC address for the ethernet controller.
// fill in your address here:
byte mac[] = {
0xDE, 0xAD, 0xBE, 0xEF, 0xFE, 0xED
};
// fill in an available IP address on your network here,
// for manual configuration:
//IPAddress ip(169, 254, 106, 46); //Address that worked on my computer
IPAddress ip(169, 254, 1, 2); //Manufacturer recommended address
// fill in your Domain Name Server address here:
IPAddress myDns(1, 1, 1, 1); //Random, not sure if I need to do anything specific here
// subnet mask that manufacturer recommends and what worked on my computer
IPAddress subnet(255, 255, 0, 0);
// initialize the library instance:
EthernetClient client;
//IPAddress server(64,131,82,241); //arduino.cc IPAddress
IPAddress server(169, 254, 184, 143); //Arri Alexa (Camera) IPAddress
unsigned long lastConnectionTime = 0; // last time you connected to the server, in milliseconds
const unsigned long postingInterval = 10L * 1000L; // delay between updates, in milliseconds
// the "L" is needed to use long type numbers
#define W5200_CS 10
#define SDCARD_CS 4
void setup() {
// start serial port:
Serial.begin(9600);
while (!Serial) {
; // wait for serial port to connect. Needed for native USB port only
}
pinMode(SDCARD_CS,OUTPUT);
digitalWrite(SDCARD_CS,HIGH);//Deselect the SD card
// give the ethernet module time to boot up:
delay(1000);
// start the Ethernet connection using a fixed IP address and DNS server:
Ethernet.begin(mac, ip, myDns, subnet);
// print the Ethernet board/shield's IP address:
Serial.print("My IP address: ");
Serial.println(Ethernet.localIP());
}
void loop() {
// if there's incoming data from the net connection.
// send it out the serial port. This is for debugging
// purposes only:
if (client.available()) {
char c = client.read();
Serial.write(c);
}
// if ten seconds have passed since your last connection,
// then connect again and send data:
if (millis() - lastConnectionTime > postingInterval) {
httpRequest();
}
}
// this method makes a HTTP connection to the server:
void httpRequest() {
// close any connection before send a new request.
// This will free the socket on the WiFi shield
client.stop();
// if there's a successful connection:
if (client.connect(server, 80)) {
Serial.println("connecting...");
// send the HTTP GET request:
client.println("GET /webremote/index.html HTTP/1.1");
client.println("Host: 169.254.184.143");
client.println("User-Agent: arduino-ethernet");
client.println("Connection: close");
client.println();
// note the time that the connection was made:
lastConnectionTime = millis();
} else {
// if you couldn't make a connection:
Serial.println("connection failed");
}
}
I guess my question is, if I'm using the exact same network settings that worked for my computer connecting to the camera, why aren't they working for the Arduino? I know this is somewhat of an obscure situation but I'll appreciate any ideas you can give me. Thanks!
ncornetcatis a really useful tool for debugging this sort of thing.