Cumulus Support

now to get the camera fixed

All fixed! Pi Camera MkII is now installed.

I've replaced the SD-CARD that the Pi normally uses with a 2.5" 160GB USB hard disk. Only USB 2.0 speeds but that's faster than SD, more reliable too.
I also added a USB connection for a serial console. If the WIFI fails to come up, as has happened in the past, I can at least log into the camera to find out why. This will be handy after software updates that sometime require a little post installation tweaking. I also replaced the camera module itself as the one in use seemd to have a red bloom across the centre of the image. Hope it's not broken.
Connection is via a single CAT5 cable which handles the power (4 wires) and USB (4 wires). While the cable is over the USB spec, it's only low speed and after testing it for a week or so with a 20 metre cable, I've had no problems.
The one oops I made was when I installed the camera module to its mount, I didn't check that it was square (it looked OK). Now it's back in the housing and back on the shed wall, the image shows it's a little tilted to the left, hence the sloping horizon. As I've had enough of ladders today, you'll just have to live with it for a while longer

EDIT: It was really bugging me so I chanced the ladder again and adjusted the camera.

Hi Geoff,

How is the webcam going?

Cheers
Ian

howesij wrote:Hi Geoff,

How is the webcam going?

Cheers
Ian

Ian,
It's a sad (and long) story.

It stopped working early in July and for a number of reasons, I didn't get around to looking at it until last week. (you can't trust ladders!)
The Raspberry Pi wasn't booting from the SD card so a replacement card was installed and all was well. The hard disk had gotten a bit confused in that the first (OS ) partition was ok but the second, image store partition was corrupt. I reformatted and restored the data (regular backups!) and was able to get it up and running.
I then had an internet issue and borrowed a replacement ADSL modem (fixed the problem) but the wireless settings in the modem weren't something that the Raspberry Pi WIFI dongle could handle so it was back up the ladder to remove it once again.
Wireless issue sorted out, all was working again until Sunday morning. No amount of power cycling could get a console response (I have a long USB console cables connected). Took the camera down again today and a bit of testing shows that the Raspberry Pi has died, won't boot from any SD card.
New Pi installed and testing happening now. After a cup of tea, it's back up the ladder.

It's just one of those things I guess as it's been operating without a problem for the last 6 months. I'd expected the hard disk to fail if anything. First Pi failure I've had with the 20 or so I've bought.

Regards
Geoff

Hi Geoff,

Sorry to hear of you troubles. hopefully that will be the last

Does the RasberyPi have any Warranty?

Cheers

Ian

howesij wrote: Does the RasberyPi have any Warranty?

It's sold as a development board rather than a consumer product so I doubt it has any warranty,
Of the Pi I have left, one is destined for use a a controller in a 3D printer so that leaves 3 to play around with.
I have a spare camera housing so I might make another camera, the view to the west is pretty good too.

Hi Geoff,

Not sure if you have seen this but there is a special binary of Motion software with support for the Raspberry Pi Camera Module.

See http://embeddedday.com/projects/raspber ... tion-mmal/
and
https://github.com/dozencrows/motion/tree/mmal-test

I have only just received my RaspberryPI B+ so have not tested this yet.

I have used the motion software on the Pi and it works well. It can generate a lot of image files and video if you don't get it tuned properly. This much writing can have an impact on SD card life, one of the reasons I switched to a hard disk.

For my weather camera (must get up and fix it tomorrow), I didn't need motion detection so went with a python library that suppoerts the Raspberry Pi camera module.

DO you intend using yours with a web camera or the Pi camera module?

I am going to try with the a web cam first.

and write the file to a network share to save the SD card