Acquire Hardware
After a bit of Googling here is the parts list I came up with, where I had to buy things I have included links.- Raspberry Pi Model A + Pi NoIR Camera Board
- Acrylic case for Pi + Camera
- 4 extra nylon nuts for Acrylic case
- USB Hub, Keyboard, HDMI Cable (Initial setup only)
- SD Card (I used 16GB however 4GB would be plenty)
- 2 Metre Micro USB cable
- 2 Amp USB phone charger
- Bag of IR LEDs (1.25v)
- 64x95 hole stripboard
- USB Wifi Module (RTL8188 chipset)
- Power LED cable from old PC case
- 4mm Drill
Put the hardware together
- Solder LEDs to stripboard, 4 LED series sets, in parallel.
- Solder Power LED cable to the stripboard (I used this as the connectors fit onto the GPIO port).
- Drill holes in stripboard to fit the camera case, and Pi case.
- Cut out corner to leave space for the GPIO cables.
- Assemble camera into case and bolt to the stripboard.
- Connect 5v to the GPIO (pin 2 and 6)
- Assemble Pi and Camera into their cases, bolt it all together.
- Trim bolts down.
The Software
While setting up the software I plugged the Pi into a monitor, using a hub to connect the keyboard and wifi at the same time. My hub seemed to be having a good time ;) I'm no Linux Guru, this setup is the result of 3 evenings of trial and error. I'd welcome any suggestions to improve efficiency (there is roughly a 2 second lag on the video output)
- Install Raspbian - http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads
- On the installer screen:
- Expand filesystem
- Enable camera
- Enable SSH
- Finish!
- Get the Wifi working
- wpa_cli
- > add_network (it will return a number which we'll refer to as 'x')
- > set_network x ssid "Your Network SSID"
- > set_network x psk "Your Network Key"
- > enable_network x (it will then connect to the network)
- > save_config
- ctrl+c
- Wifi is now configured to auto connect with DHCP, I use my broadband router to reserve IP addresses so I can now connect to the Pi knowing the IP.
- Make sure everything is up to date..
- sudo apt-get update
- sudo apt-get upgrade
- Install Screen and VLC
- sudo apt-get install screen vlc
- Disable the camera activity LED:
- sudo nano /boot/config.txt
- add : disable_camera_led=1
- Save/exit
- Launch the camera streaming at startup. After a lot of experimenting this uses raspivid and VLC to stream the video. These parameters provide nice performance with a good frame rate. Experiment with the startup string to suit your own needs.
- sudo nano /etc/rc.local
- insert this line before 'exit 0'
- screen -dmS webcam bash -c "su -l pi -c 'raspivid -w 440 -h 240 -hf -vf -t 0 -o - | cvlc -vvv stream:///dev/stdin --sout \"#rtp{sdp=rtsp://:8554/pi.sdp}\" :demux=h264'"
- Save/exit
- Reboot, camera should auto start..
- From VLC on your tablet/PC, load the following URL:
- rtsp://IPOFYOURPI:8554/pi.sdp
- I also found the software 'anPlayer' useful as VLC does not store/bookmark URLs
