@wmoecke sorry I was away from internet for a while. Here are the basic steps I would try before giving up on the cam. The cam must have drivers installed from the included installation disc or it will not work regardless if windows sees the usb adapter. Charge the cam 2 hours prior to trying these steps...

1Plug in the usb adapter, ignore and close any pop ups.

2 place 2.4ghz cam driver disc in your cd drive

3 it may autorun at this point and install window pop up. If not go to your disc drive under computer / cd-dvd drive , then select install or autorun

4 once the drivers are installed you may power on the camera and it will pair up with the usb receiver. To turn the cam on by pressing the power button for 3 to 5 seconds. The power light will now stay on and video should be available from the cam..

Also, I found a simple viewer that helps me test cameras without any other fancy purposes that might complicate the results... Try this from Bustatech.com WebCamViewer

If your camera is still having issues outside of ARC (and after Josh's suggestions), then it might be faulty after-all... contact EZ-Robot via email for options.

It all depends on wha's being planned.

Brazil's federal government is extremely greedy and bureaucratic. They did not waste any time in learning that EMS parcels may potentially contain goods that can be taxed and thus they enforce the '60% law' which says anything labeled 'EMS' must first be routed through customs for inspection. So the border officials automatically sort EMS packages for further storage and taxing.

That means, what once was a faster, more secure shipping option, has now become the slowest (due to the extra waiting time) and guaranteed to be charged extra. Every time.

On the other hand, a discretely labeled, small(ish) package shipped via regular air mail (what USPS calls 'first class air mail') stands a much greater chance of being routed directly to the recipient - due to the high volume of parcels entering the country every day against the low staff working at customs, they can only afford to sample a certain number of parcels from the processing batch. And it is still traceable.

All I suggested is that the option to ship via regular air mail be made available for orders not exceeding certain weight and size criteria, as it it done by a great number of asian sellers, who already became aware of these regulations and want to stay in business.

When I placed my order with EZ-Robot, I actually was offered this option in my checkout (which instantly made me smile), but when I got the confirmation e-mail I was disappointed to learn that EZ-Robot would only ship EMS and the option I selected was presented to me by some mistake. stress

@jstarne1: what 'included installation disc'? There was no such thing included in my kit - perhaps this is yet another matter for QA...?

If you kindly read my posts #8 and #9 on page 1, you'll learn that I've already sorted out the problem with the camera and that the issue wasn't related to the batteries or drivers.

If you are an EZ-Robot employee, may I ask that you also read and forward to your colleagues my further suggestions regarding QA and shipping? As I do believe these could prove extremely benefitial to everyone, not only myself?

[Edit] I just wanted to communicate I was contacted by Alan by e-mail and he did a wonderful job in making sure I would not be left unassisted with my issues. I really do appreciate @Alan and @jstarne1 putting on their time and effort to try and help customers such as myself.

As I've stated in an earlier post, I am a strong supporter of EZ-Robot and I do not believe the issues I encountered and reported are in any way related to their own products. I have great plans in my mind for future robot projects and I hope I can still depend on EZ-Robot's and DJ Sure's ongoing support. I certainly aim to do more business with EZ-Robot.

(I realize I may have sounded a bit 'grumpy' in some of my earlier posts, and I honestly offer my apologies to anyone who felt hit a bit harder than they are used to. I am truely embarassed by that and I promise to try harder to adjust my attitude in the future.)

Jstarne1 is not an employee, just a very helpful (and I'll add generous) user. The driver disk used to come with the camera, but I recall a post from DJ saying he was thinking about not including it since it caused more problems than it solved. Windows 7 (should' recognize the camera and work with native drivers. It did for me on two different computers.

Alan (not the Alan who works for EZ Robots).

@thetechguru thanks alan I appreciate the compliment.

@wmoecke glad the cam issue was resolved im not an employee im just "always around" to help. Have fun with your kit. We would love for you to post your progress for others to learn. Have a great day!

@thetechguru: It is true, you shouldn't need any additional drivers if you're on Vista or higher - most problems occur when a 'cowboy' manufacturer provides a driver without the WDM signature required for any drivers to be securely run under Windows.

W7 is packed with a load of native drivers addressing most essential hardware functionalities for a variety of hardware devices. So most things work out of the box in W7 and Vista. Custom manufacturer drivers still may be required under XP and older O/Ss though.