July 10, 2009

10373 – Assembly 3-d Render

by Andrey Filippov

Spent couple days looking if the 10373 board layout can be connected as I hoped. There will be small board with 2 connectors on the back panel (103732) – micro USB and eSATA. In minimal configuration it will be a passive board with connectors only, but there should be some room to add USB hub and a couple internal 10-conductor flex cables for internal USB devices – same as on the 10369 board of the NC353L camera.

SATA and USB signals are split into separate connectors on the 10373 board – that allows to leave USB connected to the back panel adapter while connecting the SATA cable (with additional power) to the internal adapter for the SATA SSD. The image below shows both options, but actually 10373 has only one SATA port so only one SATA device can be connected.

While most functionality of the 10369 board is moved to the main 10373 there is no ports for the inter-camera synchronization – 10369 has 2 sets of oto-isolated synchronization ports – “external” with modular (like telephone) connector for frame-locking several individual cameras an “internal” (with flex cable connectors) for synchronizing multiple camera boards installed in the same enclosure. The synchronization will have to be handled by an extension board that has direct connection to the 18 FPGA I/O pins. The back panel will have holes (covered with plastic overlay when not used) for up to four 2.5mm TRS connectors (like small stereo audio ones). Unfortunately even small 2.5mm TRS plugs plastic bodies are rather large so 2 of them can fit only when connectors are diagonal.. Anyway – that part of the design is not finished yet, we’ll think of something.

Andrey

373_render


10 responses to “10373 – Assembly 3-d Render”

  1. Joseph says:

    Would it be at all possible to add HD-SDI to the output of this device? That would be great for live video applications.

  2. andrey says:

    Joseph, you mean – something like a viewfinder?
    Theoretically you can design/make an extension board that will provide such output (still difficult to find a place for the connector). That will also require additional FPGA code and software.
    I believe there is a less expensive way to achieve the same result – just add FPGA code to generate low resolution version of the video (in parallel with the main full-res one) and stream it so some low-power inexpensive device like a smartphone can render it on the screen. Or maybe in a year or two the new generation of the smartphones will be able to render the full resolution/frame rate of Elphel cameras so no additional code will be needed? Actually even the current 353 camera has 2 DMA channels from the FPGA, just nobody cared to write that FPGA code to support it.

    Andrey

  3. Kind of curious were the big heat producing chips will be placed facing an exterior wall of the camera or another PC board. Some of the software guys here like your camera alot (too bad you got to fight discontinued Axis products) but I need to modify it to be happy with no cooling air. http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/01/st_roboweather/ So with only using an Gige interface and HD chips hope it will be possible for us to add a slug of aluminum to the can to act as an heat sink. Also, do you have any idea what temperture range your boards likley to go down to before the ball Grid arrays start to pop off the boards? -40C would be good for aircraft and after those cold Uintas nights when the power failed. Hope it has H264 accessible by some ways other than a high bandwidth uplink browser. Cheers.
    Btw Netcams are poping up all sorts of interesting places now.
    http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/gallery_np.html. Do not show this one to your kids (its where Santa’s house supposed to be)

  4. Kind of curious were the big heat producing chips will be placed facing an exterior wall of the camera or another PC board. Some of the software guys here like your camera alot (too bad you got to fight discontinued Axis products) but I need to modify it to be happy with no cooling air. http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/01/st_roboweather/ So with only using an Gige interface and HD chips hope it will be possible for us to add a slug of aluminum to the can to act as an heat sink. Also, do you have any idea what temperture range your boards likley to go down to before the ball Grid arrays start to pop off the boards? -40C would be good for aircraft and after those cold Uintas nights when the power failed. Hope it has H264 accessible by some ways other than a high bandwidth uplink browser. Cheers.
    Btw Netcams are poping up all sorts of interesting places now.
    http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/gallery_np.html. Do not show this one to your kids (its where Santa\’s house supposed to be)

  5. andrey says:

    Patrick,

    Good question. I did not show that heat sink part yet – I was not sure on the exact height of the components, but it turned out that both TI processor and Linear DC-DC converter module have exactly the same height, no step is needed on the heat sink between these two. I was planning to add aluminum part that will transfer heat from these two components (and probably the FPGA also — they all are placed on the same side) to the aluminum camera body. Currently on the prototype I just use a small fan to be on the safe side – there is thermal protection, but while software is not stable something can go wrong.

    Andrey

  6. Eliot says:

    Hi Andrey,

    What’s the current status of the availability of this design? It looks very useful.

  7. […] Apertus és un altre d’aquests projectes. Es tracta d’un grup d’usuaris que pretenen crear una càmera d’alta definició que permet enregistrar fins i tot, en resolució CinemaScope, un format un 40% més gran que el FullHD, i apta per a fer cinema. El nucli d’Apertus es basa en un altre projecte de codi obert: les càmeres Elphel, que comparteixen tot el programari i els seus dissenys perquè els seus usuaris les puguin adaptar a les seves necessitats. Però les cameres Elphel actualment, tenen un parell de defectes en la gravació de vídeo i no són totalment acceptables per a la producció professional. S’espera que la propera Elphel 373 haurà solucionat aquests problemes, però degut a altres projectes de la companyia aquesta càmera porta un any “casi acabada“. […]

  8. Micheal says:

    Is the 373 still going to be released? If so, any estimated time?

  9. Curtis says:

    Hi,
    Have to agree with Patrick Grant in regards to heat . Nice to have option to get heat out when running long hours in (stage lighting) perhaps vent/fin attachment with optional fan attached to fins?
    I have also seen some development in 2 CCD cameras to etend Dynamic range eg.120db (using semi mirror surface) is there options to allow a setuo of thi type.

    Regards
    Curtis

  10. Curtis says:

    is it to late to suggest Dual GigE output?
    to cope with 140+MB/Sec output (from Hi-Rez Chips)

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