Second life for a webcam from a laptop lid (CN-04P5V9 from DELL Precision M6500)

[RoGeorge]

Spotted a few days ago some interesting looking wires near a dumpster bin.  They proved to be the U.FL antennas' cables from the cover lid of a former laptop.




Together with the antennas and the cables, there was also a PCB with a webcam and two mics on the side.





Searching for the numbers from the small sticker, the camera module model, 04P5V9, was from the DELL Precision M6500 laptops, a model from around year 2010.  First thought was to find the specs of the camera, so looked up for the laptop's specs, and it was a 3.2 MP camera, format 4:3, true resolution 2048x1536 pixels.  Not bad.

Second thought was to identify the pinout of the camera module connector.  The schematic for Dell M6500 can be found online, and surprise, the webcam was in fact connected by a USB bus, so it's a USB webcam.  Nice!




From the schematic, the pinout can be easily identified, so it turned out the USB signals GND, D+ and D- are not only on the connector, but also on the test points near the connector.

In the schematic there are two zero ohm resistors, R97 and R101, used as jumpers to set the camera Vdd to either 3.3V or 5V.  I didn't know if this camera is a 3.3V or a 5V camera.  Started with a 3.3V first, and slowly increased the Vdd voltage up to 5V, watching the current.  Somewhere between 150-250mA.  The camera was working at either +3.3V or +5V, but at 5V it got really hot after a few minutes, so I decided to put 2 diodes in series with the +5V coming from the USB cable, so the camera will see about 3.3V for its Vdd.  Any other Si diodes, e.g. 1N4148, would probably work too, but just o be sure the diodes won't get hot inside the heat-shrink tube, I used two 1N4007.








The webcam can do 1024x768 (or lower) at 30 FPS and higher resolutions (up to 2048x1536) at 15 FPS.  Tested with Linux and Windows.  No drivers required.  From the USB ID it's seen as a Ricoh device.

Code: [Select]

~$ lsusb | grep "ID 05ca:1815"
Bus 003 Device 009: ID 05ca:1815 Ricoh Co., Ltd 

~$ ffplay -f video4linux2 -list_formats all /dev/video0
[video4linux2,v4l2 @ 0x7fb114000b80] Raw       :     yuyv422 :           YUYV 4:2:2 : 640x480 352x288 320x240 176x144 160x120 1024x768 1280x720 1280x1024 1600x1200 1920x1080 2048x1536
[video4linux2,v4l2 @ 0x7fb114000b80] Compressed:       mjpeg :          Motion-JPEG : 640x480 352x288 320x240 176x144 160x120 1024x768 1280x720 1280x1024 1600x1200 1920x1080 2048x1536

And it works flawless! 





Later edit:
Replaced tynipic.com broken links with local pics uploads.