I’m trying to get an Arducam 12MP IMX708 working on a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, following the official docs at 12MP IMX708 - Arducam Wiki. I’ve connected the camera using a 22-pin 0.5mm pitch 150mm FPC/FFC flexible ribbon cable, but with the camera attached the Pi doesn’t boot at all. No activity, nothing.
Welcome to the forum. When a Pi refuses to boot with a camera connected, that’s often a cabling or pinout problem causing a short. Can you tell me the exact cable you’re using between the Zero 2 W and the IMX708, and which connector it’s plugged into on the camera side?
It’s a generic 22-pin 0.5mm pitch 150mm FPC FFC flexible ribbon cable. I’ve already tried a couple of different power supplies and flipping the ribbon cable around, and nothing changes.
That cable is most likely your problem. The generic 22-pin 0.5mm FFC isn’t compatible for the Pi Zero to Arducam IMX708 connection and it can short the Pi, which is exactly why it won’t boot. Please replace it with the Arducam Raspberry Pi Camera Interface Flexible cable. I wouldn’t power the Pi up again with the old cable attached.
Quick update: I got the Arducam Raspberry Pi Camera Interface Flexible cable and swapped it in. The Pi now boots normally, so that part is fixed. But the IMX708 still isn’t being recognized after I re-did the setup steps from the docs. It’s never worked end to end.
Good progress. Since the Pi boots now, the short is resolved, and we’re on to detection. Which OS image are you running? Could you run libcamera-hello --list-cameras and paste the output here? Also check dmesg | grep -i imx708 (and grep -i camera) and the camera-related lines in /boot/config.txt.
I haven’t grabbed the logs yet, but I’ll run those commands and post back. Just wanted to confirm the new cable lets the Pi boot while the camera still doesn’t show up.
To sum up so far: the original 22-pin 0.5mm pitch FFC cable was the wrong cable for this setup and was shorting the Pi, which is why it wouldn’t boot at all. With the Arducam Raspberry Pi Camera Interface Flexible cable, the Pi boots normally. The remaining issue is that the IMX708 isn’t detected, and we’ll need the libcamera-hello --list-cameras output, the relevant dmesg lines, and the config.txt camera settings to continue troubleshooting.