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Hack a Canon camera and controll it with an Arduino
For our Z-Pan-&Tilt-System I needed to controll a camera with an Arduino. My first plan was to use a servo motor to switch the snapshot button of the camera. But this approach would be very complex. So I thought of bypassing the snapshot button with an electronic hack.
At first I disassembled the camera (Canon Ixus 70). A disassmebly video can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsJAYNCPWng
At the switch there are two points we need to solder a wire to, the ground and signal terminal. They are marked in the picture below:
I used a very thin enamelled copper wire because the terminals are very thin.
I extended the enamelled copper wire with normal wire and bond it there, where the damaged lcd once was.
[Update] I found out, that the metal sheet on the back of the lcd must not be removed from the camera, otherwise the CMOS sensor is not correctly shielded and produces noise on the captured image.
So this setup will cause noise on your images:
Add the metall sheet, and the noise is gone:
For the cable feedthrough I filed a small hole in the enclosure:
Finally the fully assembled system with the camera and the pan&tilt system.
The circuit can be found here:
The Arduino connects the switch signal to GND via a npn-transistor. With the signal to GND, the camera takes a picture.
Note in the code, that the transistor is inverting.
Code for the Arduino:
//-----------------------------------------------------
int CamPin = 8; // Cam trigger connected to digital pin 8
// The setup() method runs once, when the sketch starts
void setup() {
// initialize the digital pin as an output:
pinMode(CamPin, OUTPUT);
digitalWrite(CamPin, LOW); // set the CAM trigger off
}
// the loop() method runs over and over again,
// as long as the Arduino has power
void loop()
{
digitalWrite(CamPin, HIGH); // set the CAM trigger on, capture image
delay(1000); // wait for a second
digitalWrite(CamPin, LOW); // set the CAM trigger off
delay(4000); // wait for 4 seconds
}
//-----------------------------------------------------
Finally the video, don’t mind the lcd, it was broken before. The camera captures an image every five seconds.
Please note: These instructions need quite a lot of skills in mechanics, soldering and electronics. Don’t use this project to start with electronics. You may use an old or partly damaged camera, instead of an expensive new one. Use at your own risk.
Hello, nice work, from the technical side of view. But why do you not use CHDK with an timelaps script instead?
@net:
could you also use the chdk in connection to an arduino?
@SES:
sure you can. Use an usb remote:
http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/USB_Remote_Cable
With scripts on the Canon cam you can do everthing you want to.