GPIO pins used by MCA V2.2

I recently purchased 4 ch MCA V2.2 and it works all fine as expected except one problem.

It is taking most of gpio pins on Raspberry pi board. I am trying to sort it out exactly what gpio pins are used by MCA so I can manually wire them.

Besides 7,11, 12,15,16,21,22, any other gpio are used by MCA? Thanks in advance~!

Hello,

It need 7 11 12 and i2c signal which is 2 and 3

Thank you so much!

So 2,3,7,11, 12,15,16,21,22 are used by MCA?

According to the example demo file, it seems MCA uses 15,16,21,22 as well. No?

 

import RPi.GPIO as gp
import os

gp.setwarnings(False)
gp.setmode(gp.BOARD)

gp.setup(7, gp.OUT)
gp.setup(11, gp.OUT)
gp.setup(12, gp.OUT)

gp.setup(15, gp.OUT)
gp.setup(16, gp.OUT)
gp.setup(21, gp.OUT)
gp.setup(22, gp.OUT)

gp.output(11, True)
gp.output(12, True)
gp.output(15, True)
gp.output(16, True)
gp.output(21, True)
gp.output(22, True)

def main():
gp.output(7, False)
gp.output(11, False)
gp.output(12, True)
capture(1)

gp.output(7, True)
gp.output(11, False)
gp.output(12, True)
capture(2)

gp.output(7, False)
gp.output(11, True)
gp.output(12, False)
capture(3)

gp.output(7, True)
gp.output(11, True)
gp.output(12, False)
capture(4)

def capture(cam):
cmd = “raspistill -o capture_%d.jpg” % cam
os.system(cmd)

if name == “main”:
main()

gp.output(7, False)
gp.output(11, False)
gp.output(12, True)

Hello,

Just ignore others pins. In fact we have not use those pins in our new version board.

 

Thank you so much!

You are welcome. Let me know if you need more help.

Just one more question on this subject. Does MCA uses any power gpio pins like 3.3v or 5v?

The reason I am asking is because recently I am getting images like below or freezes while taking photo.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fraspberrypi.stackexchange.com%2Fquestions%2F108213%2Fhorizontal-lines-on-video-capture&psig=AOvVaw0zL5YoTOdjn2eRlWU6fFky&ust=1604339024996000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCODYrt_y4ewCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD

I am just trying to figure out what causes these artifacts. These artifacts and freezing issues are sporadic so it is difficult to troubleshoot.

FYI, I am using 5v3a for power supply and other than MCA, nothing is attached to pi board. Thanks!

 

Hello,

The MCA use the 3.3V power pin from Pi. I have get the image you attached. Have you open the VNC? What the length of your ribbon cable? It seems the signal is poor. Please close the VNC and change another ribbon cable to retry.

I have detached the mca from the main board and connected minimum pins required. So I do I need to connect 3.3v pin and ground as well? or is 3.3v power coming from camera cable? If I have to connect 3.3v pin and ground. Can you specify the exact bcm pin numbers that I need to connect? Thanks!
FYI, I have used 4x 1m long cables with 4 hq cameras. Now, I have switched to shorter length cable for testing and it is better but once awhile I am still getting some fault images. Btw, if longer cable causes some issues, it should have been mentioned on the mca specifications. I would have designed my project differently if I know all the limitations.

Hello,

Have you watched our test demo here https://www.arducam.com/docs/cameras-for-raspberry-pi/multi-camera-adapter-board/multi-camera-adapter-board-v2-1/

The MCA board should be directly connected to the PI.

I know I should have directly connected to the Pi but as I mentioned in my first post, I ran out of gpio pins if I connect MCA directly to the Pi. So I am trying to figure out exact gpio pins that MCA uses so I can make some room for other parts. Btw, since it is keep crashing and taking fault images, I directly connected the mca to the pi, but still not stable at all. FYI, I am using 4x15cm cables,4 hq cameras,5v3a power supply and directly connected mca to the pi. I need to take about 200 photos continuously but it fails even before it reaches 100 photos and out of 100 photos, 20% are fault images.

@macross27

Sorry for the trouble. The Raspberry Pi multi-camera adapter board is a nascent product which may have some stability issues and limitations because of the cable’s signal integrity and RPi’s closed source video core libraries.

The new HQ cameras might require more power consumption than the 5MP or 8MP cameras. We are not really sure about the 3.3V power from the RPI’s 40pin connector can source enough or stable 3.3V.

You might add some delay between each capture to avoid the faulty images, like this:

cmd = “raspistill -t 1000 -o capture_%d.jpg” % cam