Glamo camera interface (Was: Weird hardware mod ???)

[Ian Stirling]

Rask Ingemann Lambertsen wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 02:44:50AM -0800, scholbert wrote:
>> after having a deeper look into the schematics of freerunner, i realized
>> that most of the pins of the Glamo camera interface are physically
>> accessible at the resistor networks RP1801..1804.
>>
>> This led me to a wicked idea:
>> Solder some thin wires to the dedicated signals and use this interface for a
>> camera module.
>> I thought about ripping it off from another phone (e.g. Nokia 6600 or 6680)
>> and attach it to the freerunner.
>> Of course a kernel driver would also be needed.
>>
>> Are there any details known about this interface of the Glamo?
> 
<snip>

>    The reason I'm asking is that I opened the two web cameras I have and
> concluded that fitting the optics will be a challenge and fitting the PCB will
> be impossible. A custom PCB without the USB stuff and hopefully with fewer
> voltage regulators seems to be the only hope.

there are single chip cameras available - 
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8667 is a 
typical example.

In bulk, VGA cameras of this form are around a dollar.

Essentially all of these interface in one way.
There have as inputs:
Clock signal - 6-20MHz or so depending.

As outputs - D0-7 - a data bus that outputs all of the pixels.

And 2 pins as an I2C bus, to setup registers and streaming.
They may also have a couple of pins of GPIO, a chip enable, and a flash 
output.

None can output video over I2C, you have to read it from the parallel 
bus at 6-20MHz - enough to readout  the frame in 1/60th of a second or so.

In short - you need a specialised camera input, with 8 parallel bits, 
and an I2C bus. You cannot use this form of camera without that.