Hi, I’m trying to get two Arducam 2.3MP global shutter cameras working on an NVIDIA Orin Nano board, but the board only ever detects one of them. If I unplug the USB cable and plug it back in, the controller suddenly sees both cameras. These are the Arducam 2.3MP AR0234 Color Global Shutter USB 3.0 Camera Modules, connected via USB-C to USB 3.0 cables. Has anyone run into this? Also, can someone confirm the camera-side connector type and the right cable specs — recommended length, compatibility, and what to look for in a replacement cable?
Thanks for the details. Just to confirm: the board doesn’t see one of the two cameras until you physically re-seat the USB cable, and then both show up. Root cause isn’t determined yet — this could be a USB port contact issue, power delivery instability, or something about the USB connection sequence. When does this happen, at startup or during runtime? And is it consistently reproducible? For the cable, I’d strongly recommend using the USB 3.0 cable that came with the cameras — those have been tested with these modules. If you need a replacement, make sure it’s USB 3.0 spec compliant, keep the length at 3 meters (10 feet) or less, and use a good shielded cable to maintain signal integrity.
It happens during runtime, and most of the time when the NVIDIA controller powers up. It’s consistently reproducible — replugging the USB cable brings the video back. This is for an inspection application, using the Arducam with the Orin Nano to detect defects on mechanical parts.
Thanks. Can you run these commands when the camera drops and paste the output back here? sudo dmesg and lsusb -t. Also, does the disconnection happen immediately when you start your program, or only after it’s been running a while? And if you connect just one camera, does it still drop? One more thing to try: the Orin Nano has two stacked USB-A ports — connect the cameras to separate stacked rows instead of adjacent ports. I’ve attached a reference image showing the stacked ports.
I’ve narrowed it down a bit. The cameras don’t reconnect automatically after a system reboot — I have to manually unplug and replug the USB cable to get them working again. It happens with a single camera and with both. The disconnect specifically happens after rebooting. I’m using the Arducam-provided USB cables. I also tried connecting them to separate stacked USB-A ports, but the issue is still there. Attaching my dmesg output, an lsusb -t screenshot, and a dev_video listing.
Thanks for the logs. So the pattern is: after a reboot, the camera(s) don’t come back on their own and need a manual replug, even with a single camera. I’ve got the dmesg output and the lsusb -t screenshot showing the USB device tree. Still working through them. This is consistent with a USB enumeration or power sequencing issue at boot, but nothing confirmed yet.
One more thing I noticed — all the Arducam cameras report the same Vendor ID and Product ID. I tested on both Linux and Windows and it’s the same on both.
Thanks for testing on both OSes. The shared VID/PID across all the units is worth noting, since that can affect how the system enumerates multiple cameras. I’ve sent you remote support scheduling details in a private message — please check it and we can dig into this together.
Quick update: a self-powered USB hub seems to have resolved the original disconnect issue on my end. But now I’ve got a different problem. I’m capturing frames from a conveyor where flanges move at 150–200 flanges per minute, and the images aren’t clear and have a lot of noise. I’ve attached a captured video and a few still frames. Separately, I’m also trying to connect four Arducam AR0234 USB 3.0 cameras to an NVIDIA Orin NX (16GB RAM, 100 TOPS) and I’m running into issues there too.
Good to hear the self-powered hub sorted the disconnect — that points to power delivery being the culprit on the original issue. I’ve scheduled a remote session to go over the conveyor image quality and the 4-camera Orin NX setup. I’ve sent you the meeting link in a private message — please join at the scheduled time.
Thanks for the session earlier. Can you post a quick summary of what we found and the next steps, so I have it for reference?
Sure. During the session, we tried to get the camera modules detected as USB 3.0 devices and selected a higher resolution for preview, but the image quality didn’t improve. We also tried adding background light to bring the gain value down and reduce noise, and that didn’t help either. Based on what we saw, the current camera module may not be the right fit for this high-speed conveyor inspection application. I’d recommend writing out your full project requirements and sending them through the sales channel — I can send you the contact details privately — so they can recommend a more suitable module or a customized solution.