Overview

The camera is a core sensor and a good portion of our monitoring device's size is dedicated towards getting good images underwater without external light interference.

This page assumes you already have your Raspberry Pi up and running. It will show you how install and configure the IMX462 camera and how to wire up your LEDs.

Install and Configure the IMX462 Camera

Follow the official Arducam guide to fully configure and test your camera installation. Remember that we use Pi 4 on Bullseye.

Tools Needed to Build and Install LEDs

• Electrical tape
• Wire cutters / wire stripper
• Scissors
• Optional painters masking tape

Parts Needed

• Two white LEDs with 0.25 watt resistors and diffused plastic (can be purchased separately)
• One Raspberry Pi camera + camera ribbon cable
• One diffusor material (regular paper)
• wires with female pin heads.

Instructions

1. Create the light diffusor by cutting the shape of your photo chamber entry out of a blank, white sheet of paper.
2. Cut and strip casing of LED and female pin head wires to appropriate length from where your camera will be to where the Raspberry Pi is in your enclosure.
3. Line up the two ground (black) LED wires opposite the black female pin head wire. Do the same for the three white wires
4. With your fingers, twist the three wires together so that there is plenty of contact between all three wires.
5. Cover the exposed wire up with electrical wire.
6. Position the two LEDs on the underside of the diffuser. Space them so there is enough room for the camera to fit between the two LEDs.
7. User painters tape (it forgives mistakes best) to secure the LEDs in place.
8. Flip the diffuser over, place and secure the camera in between the two LEDs.

You should now have a diffuser with wiring for the LEDs and camera hanging out. Connect them to your Raspberry Pi.

9. For the white LED wire, connect it to pin 17 on your Raspberry Pi's GPIO pins. Connect the black wire to one of your available ground pins on your GPIO pins.
10. Connect the camera ribbon wire to the camera ribbon wire receptacle on the Raspberry Pi.
11. Attach your diffuser / camera unit to your enclosure (painters tape is recommended).
12. Attach the photo chamber so that the opening aligns with the diffuser.
13. Secure the photo chamber to your waterproof electronics enclosure.