The bCNC doc shows how to use a USB camera for XY alignment and I want to try it out. The Box o’ USB Cameras emitted a likely candidate with a focusing lens, six (!) white LEDs, and a ball mount attached to an aggressive spring clip, but its thick USB cable included a lumpy brightness pot for the LEDs and sprouted a mic plug (apparently, it predated cheap USB audio):
The Box o’ USB Cables emitted a surprisingly long cable amputated from some random hunk of consumer electronics.
The LED brightness won’t need much adjustment after the first few minutes. I found a little 2 kΩ trimpot to fit the PCB holes:
Miracle of miracles, the dial ended up almost centered behind the original mic pore. A few minutes of gentle filing embiggened the pore and moved it over the trimpot:
Yeah, the hole may need a plug or tape to keep the dust out, but there’s an even bigger gap around the lens.
It produces a 640×480 picture with pretty much the expected quality, which should suffice for its intended purpose.
Next step: stick it somewhere on the MPCNC.
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 
Comments
7 responses to “USB Camera Re-Cabling”
[…] USB camera originally mounted on a spring clip, with a 10 mm ball at the end of a 6 mm OD × 6 mm long stalk. […]
I am impressed by your ability to find a USB camera that will talk to anything – my Box ‘o USB Cameras has several that apparently function, attach but refuse to operate – mostly because I cannot manage to match the camera with a driver from a source that I am prepared to download from…..
The V4L Linux drivers handle (most of) the cheap USB cameras from Long Ago, although the Raspberry Pi 3 doesn’t have enough oomph to produce a real-time display through VLC with any of them.
The situation in Windows might be entirely different …
“The situation in Windows might be entirely different …”
The situation in Windows “IS” entirely different….and I wish it was otherwise – but I run a multiple Windows environment for my sins and its unlikely to change… :-(
It’s easier when you stop resisting the inevitable :)
Though they do tend to make them worse with every new release
On the upside, you’re obviously working off a powerful karma burden: your next iteration should be pretty good. [grin]
[…] USB camera lurks in the upper […]