Arducam OV5647 motorized lens won't focus manually via script on Pi 5 (other unit fine)

Raspberry Pi Cameras
1

Having a weird issue with an Arducam OV5647 Motorized Focus Camera (the 5MP/1080P one) on a Raspberry Pi 5. I can’t get the lens to focus manually using FocuserExample.py at all.

What’s strange is I have two of these cameras — one focuses fine with the same script, the other just does nothing. Same Pi, same setup, same code. So I’m wondering if there’s some hardware variance between units, or maybe I got a dud?

I’ve already gone through all the documentation I could find:

Everything seems set up correctly. The camera itself streams video just fine — it’s only the motorized focus that’s unresponsive. FocuserExample.py runs without errors but the lens doesn’t move at all. Anyone run into this before?

2

Thanks for reaching out. Let’s start by making sure you’re running through the correct setup steps for that specific model.

Please go through the official OV5647 Motorized Focus Camera quick start guide step by step here:

https://docs.arducam.com/Raspberry-Pi-Camera/Motorized-Focus-Camera/Quick-Start-Guide/OV5647-Motorized-Focus-Camera/

Double-check that the camera ribbon cable is seated properly on both ends (camera side and Pi side) and that the focus motor connector hasn’t come loose from the camera board — that’s caught a few people out before. Let me know how it goes.

3

Yeah, already did that. Went through the whole quick start guide again just to be sure. Re-seated the ribbon cable and checked the motor connector on the camera board — everything looks solid.

Still the same result. FocuserExample.py runs, no errors in the terminal, but the lens doesn’t budge. The working unit responds immediately to the same script. So it doesn’t seem like a software or setup issue at this point.

4

Since the documentation and basic troubleshooting haven’t resolved this, and given that one of your units works while the other doesn’t on the exact same setup, we’ll need to dig a bit deeper.

I’ve sent you a private message with details for scheduling a remote debugging session so we can take a closer look at what’s happening on your Pi. Please check your inbox here on the forum when you get a chance.

Just a heads up — our support team operates on UTC+8, so keep the timezone in mind when picking a slot. For now, the working theory is either a hardware fault on the motor driver side of that specific camera module, or a low-level I2C communication issue that isn’t throwing visible errors. We’ll know more once we can poke around live.