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USA
Asked — Edited

Wireless Camera Problem

I have one of the cameras that DJ sells, and it is not turning on in EZ-B. I have noticed that the little blue LED is not coming on; on the reciever when I plug it in. I tried to remove the camera from my devices and printers however when I right click on the icon I do not get "remove device" in the pop up menu. Has anyone else had this problem with the camera? Any suggestions?
Thanks

I solved that problem..................so; nevermind. I just needed to click on USB video device. One of those , duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh moments. However, I am having another problem. Tracking does not seem to be working. I will review the tutorials, I perhaps missed something; but I'm open to suggestions. I'll update this post later if I'm still having problems.

OK, a few hours later..........................I still do not have camera tracking! In DJ's newest video tutorial he mentions selecting "Auto Detect". When I open the camera configure window I do no see "Auto Detect" anywhere! So, first question. Do I need to download ARC again to find the Auto detect feature? Note: When ever I want to update ARC I have to delete EZ-Builder, then download it again. Is this normal? (I've had to do this ever since I first started using EZ-Builder)
I'm back to working on Gizmo but am being frustrated by several problems; (the L289N motor driver I have apparently was faulty, it only drove one motor, so I now have to wait to get another one which will most likely take 2 weeks or more and then the camera tracking problem! Very frustrating!!!!!! Any help greatly appreciated!

I just deleted ARC and downloaded it again, just to eliminate the possibility of that being the problem. Still, no "Auto Detect" option in camera configuration!
HELP!!!!!!!!!!


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PRO
USA
#1  
Hey what kind of lighting situation are you in when your using this , from what I understand there has to be good background illumination , IR LEDs could help , they have premade illuminators you could use. Try using he motion tracking in a brightly lit room or outside even and see if it picks up. I'm not near the computer at the moment. I would try opening up a we cam chat and make sure windows is seeing the camera before opening ARC , I bet after it sees that port the first time for the cam it will work fine from then forward.
PRO
USA
#2  
Make sure to charge up the camera , low batt it won't connect , charge it 2 to 4 hours the first time with USB charger or just.plug it into your pc. If you can open up a web chat program f some kind and see if you can get it to show and work just to see yourself. Then make sure drivers are installed from the included disc , bretts didn't work till he charged it through USB and installed drivers.
#3  
That's right Josh. Then I just removed the battery all together and wired my power right from the EZ-B as Winston60 showed how to do on an earlier post. It works great!
#4  
Thanks for the reply Josh. I made sure the battery was fully charged. Perhaps the lighting in the room where I tried it was to low. I will try it in a much brighter room. So, I guess the motion tracking function can;t be used at night without IR illumination, huh? I double checked and confirmed that I have the lastest version of ARC. I still don't see the "Auto Detect" function! Do you have it on your version? Did DJ perhaps rewrite the code so that Auto Detect is always on??? I am also getting a green color flare around objects. Any suggestions????
PRO
USA
#5  
To clarify my understanding how how the current motion tracking works , the camera must be able to see a noticeable difference between the object /person moving and foreground or back ground. If the lighting between the background and person are not significant it won't see anything move. The green halo while motion track from my understanding is suppose to mark edges the robot sees , I have no idea if dj built in a way to turn that off.

@dj want to chime in here? Can we turn off the coloration effect that everyone is seeing and is there , is there an auto detect option? Thanks
#6  
Update on the camera problem. Still no motion tracking. When I turn off, or uncheck,"Motion" the green flare goes away. I am still not finding "Auto detect" anywhere! I tried turning on all the lights in the room and had plenty of outside lighting coming into the room, no effect. When I once again turn on, ( check the box for motion) motion tracking, the robots head begins a twitching motion, almost as if the camera is attempting to find an object, and the green flaring comes back. I'm plum puzzled! I'm extremely frustrated as camera tracking and RSS feeds are not working, then my motor driver turned out to be defective and now I have to wait 2 or 3 weeks for a new one to arrive and on top of everything else some of the LEDs in his eyes are burning out! Seems as if everything is going wrong all at once! Just not my month for robot building I guess. It can only get better, right?????? Please, somebody tell me its gonna get better, LOL.
#7  
It will...eventually. I was flying on my B9 hack until motor controller problems, then arm issues, yadayadayada - it has ground to a halt. Very frustrating. But, like you said. If it was easy everyone would do it.
#8  
@ Bret:
Yep! Such is the plight of we robot builders. In the long run though I think every problem we encounter just expands our knowledge that much more. Hands on learning can be a cruel taskmaster at times. Have you had any problems with camera tracking, or that dreaded green flare? Have you found the elusive "Auto Detect" ?
United Kingdom
#9  
The Camera auto detect is a script function called CameraAutoDetect in ControlCommand list not available in a panel I don't think

One thing to try is the the camera on your laptop (if you are using one) and see how that performs. I had to mechanically damp (using a piece of foam that rubs against the moving bit) my robots head to stop it wobbling all over the place and how many FPS have you set the camera at try varying that
#10  
@ winstn60:
Thank you. I'll have to try using the script function. I'll also try testing the cam online. I'm still getting that weird green color flare! I've tried making all the adjustments I find in the cam config. window; all to no avail as of yet.

@DJ : any suggestions DJ?
#11  
Bret, sorry to hear that you have had some dificulties on your B9. Hope everything is back up and function soon for you.

My Leaf is in a coma. I don't know WHEN I will get him back. He lost two jetski batteries at around $200 cost. Outside of that he is fine, just won't function.

Mel
PRO
USA
#12  
@moviemaker , why buy such pricy batteries , we can get you power sonic batteries at 1/5 cost.
#13  
Josh, Thank you.

Are those Jet-Ski batteries? and are they Sealed?
#14  
UPDATE: ( you may want to read this DJ)
I played with the camera again today. I took it to the brighest room in the house.....even took it outside. What I discovered is that the GREEN color flare is ONLY there when the MOTION box is checked. It seems to work fine in all other modes. So, I'm thinking this might be a bug in the code, perhaps??. I also observed that checking the MOTION box when the camera is off, turns the camera viewing screen GREEN! I've noticed that a number of others have reported this same green flaring problem. Can you check this out perhaps ,DJ?
I'm going to try adding a ControlCommand for camera tracking later. I'll post the results.

Several hours later: I tried writing a script as follows:

ControlCommand("CameraAutoTracking: scriptstart)
Still no camera motion tracking!
If multiply people are reporting this same problem I think you (DJ) might want look into the code.
I know this is off subject for this thread, but, if you are reading this I want to comment on the motor driver (L289N) problem while I have your attention. I've tried multiply configurations and only one will work.
The following configuration is the ONLY one that will allow the motors to operate.
IN1 to D1
IN2 to D2
IN3 to D3
In4 to D4
I made a Y-shaped cable to attach the signal pin of D0 to ENA & ENB so both are controlled by the one PWM signal.The result is rather strange. The directional arrows in the H-bridge panel are 180 out. The forward and reverse arrows make the bot turn left/right; and the left/right arrows make the bot go forward/reverse.The same thing happens when trying to use the speech recognition movement controls. Again, I've seen a number of people reporting problems trying to use the L289N. So, you may want to look into this as well. I do hope that other users will post their experiences in the forum as well, so that you have even more info to work with. I would like to thank you in advance for looking into these problems and do hope that a resolution will be found for one and all.
Lloyd
#15  
I get the same green flare in motion tracking, it is the way ARC detects motion using low video quality, low video quality = color blobs, pretty sure this is normal unless DJ says otherwise. The green screen is a different story though.
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