Arducam 12MP IMX477 Motorized Focus camera not detected on Raspberry Pi 3 and 4

Raspberry Pi Cameras
1

Hi everyone, hoping someone can point me in the right direction. I’ve got an Arducam 12MP IMX477 Motorized Focus High Quality Camera (SKU B0369, the UC-517 Rev.D1 board) and it just won’t work when I follow the installation guide. The Pi doesn’t seem to see it at all. Not sure if I’m missing a step or if the board itself is bad.

2

Sorry you’re hitting this. Can you share a few details so we can narrow it down? Which Pi model and OS image are you running, which cable are you using, and what’s in /boot/config.txt? Also, if you can run dmesg | grep imx477 and paste the output, that would help a lot.

3

Sure, here’s my setup. I’ve been testing on two boards:

  • Raspberry Pi 3 Model B V1.2 (32-bit), Raspberry Pi OS Full (Bullseye) released 2022-09-22
  • Raspberry Pi 4 (64-bit), Raspberry Pi OS Full (Bullseye) released 2022-09-22
    Using the Arducam UC-693 cable. The camera board is getting 3.3V and /boot/config.txt has the entries from the guide. Same behavior on both.
4

Thanks. Could you post the dmesg output around the camera probe? That error will tell us whether the driver is even finding the sensor.

5

Here’s what I get:
[12.691284] imx477 10-001a: failed to read chip id 477, with error -5
[12.693558] imx477: probe of 10-001a failed with error -5

6

That’s the imx477 driver failing to talk to the sensor over I2C. Just to rule out a flaky connection, have you confirmed the same error on both Pis, or does it only happen on one of them?

7

Yeah, I tried it on both the Pi 3 and the Pi 4, same dmesg error every time. I reseated the cable too, no change.

8

Got it. Looking at the model you have — SKU B0369, the UC-517 Rev.D1 — this is the DepthAI OAK version of the IMX477, not the Raspberry Pi version. The Pi’s imx477 driver expects the RPi HQ camera board, so when it can’t read the chip ID it throws exactly that error -5 and the probe fails. The Raspberry Pi install guide doesn’t apply to this board, which is why it fails on both your Pis. If you need a camera that works on the Pi, the UCTRONICS Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera with Autofocus/Motorized Focus (IMX477) is the equivalent model designed for the Pi: IMX477 12MP Arducam Motorized Focus High Quality Camera for Raspberry Pi

9

Thanks, that explains the error. I actually do want to use this camera with DepthAI OAK though. I’m a bit confused about the connection. Should I be connecting it to the Raspberry Pi with the Arducam UC-693 cable, or do I need the Arducam IMX477 UVC Camera Adapter Board (for 12MP Raspberry Pi HQ Camera) in order to use the OAK functions? The docs I found aren’t clear. Reference: https://www.arducam.com/product/arducam-uvc-camera-adapter-board-for-12mp-imx477-raspberry-pi-hq-camera/

10

To summarize the main issue: the board you have (SKU B0369 / UC-517 Rev.D1) is the DepthAI OAK variant of the IMX477, not the Raspberry Pi variant. That’s why the Pi’s imx477 driver can’t read the chip ID (error -5) and the probe fails — the Pi’s CSI camera port isn’t the right interface for this camera. For OAK use, the camera needs to connect to the DepthAI OAK board, not the Raspberry Pi. As for the UVC adapter board you linked, that’s designed for the standard RPi HQ camera to use it as a UVC device, so it’s a different path than the OAK camera interface. If you can share which OAK board you have, we can go through the exact connection for that setup.