#20 Camera

The #20 is one version of the 808 car keys micro camera.  It takes 720p video in H.264, AVI or MOV.  It is similar to the #16 and #18.   It has an OV9712 1280x800 image sensor, a Novatek processor and composite video output.  It can record audio without video.  It has multiple colored LEDs to indicate the mode. eBay sellers include beetleonline and others. RCGroups has an 808 #20 aerial photography thread at New 808 #20 HD Key Fob Camera. There are some #20 files in the C20 folder of the vault.

140209 - The 808 #20 UART and diagnostic protocol

"emu" in Germany has made a discovery about the 808 C20 camera.  There is a UART serial port (Gnd, RX, TX, 115200 baud) on the 808 #20 motherboard that supports a diagnostic protocol (shell).   There is no documentation provided about the protocol, but emu has been able to dump the #20 memory and find command strings, and experiment.   The protocol can be used to make the camera take a picture.  This opens the possibility of an external device like an Arduino to operate the camera.  As far as I know, the #20 is being replaced with the HQ30, so I don't know how much longer the #20 will be available.   The dump file is in the vault in the C20 folder. The 808 #16 also uses a Novatek processor and information about the UART is here. http://www.mictronics.de/2012/02/ ========== ========== i managed to dump the memory with r 0x0 1fffff this stands for read from 0x0 with length 1fffff i send you the file with this mail. but i am not really sure where the data ends, there may be some wrong bytes at the end of the file. if you are searching in this file for "memory" you can see the help string which comes up on the shell if you write h for help (as you can see in one of the fotos from my first mail) i am searching for other funny things like additional commands ("li" on the shell stands for lens init..) ========== found some more interesting things. you can switch the leds on and off with some commands lgh -> GPIOMAP_LED_GREEN (blue led on) lgl -> GPIOMAP_LED_GREEN (blue led off) lrh -> GPIOMAP_LED_RED ? lrl -> GPIOMAP_LED_RED ? lfh -> GPIOMAP_LED_FCS ? lfl -> GPIOMAP_LED_FCS ? lr -> Lens retract ? li -> Lens Init ? laf -> ERR: Get Variation FP is null!! ? lcd bl -> ERR: GPIOMap_TurnOffLCDBacklight() ? mode photo -> Photo Mode  s2 -> Single Capture (shoots a photo! so you can control the cam by uart! this is very comfortable on a rc plane or something like that ;) mode eng -> Engineering Mode time -> 2012/10/15 2:48:47  ... puh, there are so many commands... :) ==========

130919 - Notes

It seems that the 808 #20 is still available on eBay.  The producers next model is the 808 HQ30, sold by BestDVR and others. Dan B. sent me the following comments about his 808 #20 and the 8-pin connector that it uses. I had seen the pinoutsguide.com page and there's sure an extensive list of devices that use this particular connector. I did find a post in the forum where a guy listed what he had that worked for his #20 camera, so I compared his list to what I had physically and it matched up, even though all I have from the supplier (BestDVR) is a 2-wire cable. GND and video, then he also had GND connected on the other side of the connector to pin 8. At first I did not see these connectors on eBay then did a little more looking and believe I did find the right thing. Some have a group of 5, others have 10, 30, and someone else has 100 pieces. They sure look to be the correct connector based on all the photos and even the dimensions seem to match up. It's only costing me $8 or so for 30 of them so lets hope it's the correct one. Otherwise I might be turning them loose myself though I am not much of a seller on ebay (or buyer for that matter). My initial tests last evening with the two individual wires from the camera connected to video in and GND (on the 200mw vtx) worked as I had hoped for FPV. The only thing so far that is kind of detrimental is the current time/date stamp in large white characters in the lower left portion of the video frame. I don't know if the modified config file BestDVR.txt will have any effect on the time/date stamp. I believe that is only related to the actual recorded video file and not the display screen. A quick test will determine that. In the right corner is the memory card icon which is not horrible really, but for FPV use it would be nice to have a clear screen view. The cameras (#20 and HQ30) stay powered as long as they are doing something i.e. recording to memory in driving mode or standard mode. I recorded for 20 minutes then the file closed and started a new file and kept going. I've never had longer than a 8 or 10 minute flight on my R/C batteries so this works just fine in my case to use the camera battery. One nice thing is while recording and watching on the receiver/monitor screen, you see the recorded seconds and minutes timer plus the battery level indicator. When not using it for FPV you can tell where you are aiming the camera which is a little tricky just pointing it at whatever. Let's hope the connectors I get are the right ones that will mate to the camera, and that we'll be able to wire them as needed to do what we want. All that's left really is to add a wire for one of the audio channels and then figure out a 90 degree housing (either potted or resin cast etc.) to make it fit a little nicer.