Hi everyone, I’m having trouble getting my Arducam 5MP 2 (B0033) working with my Raspberry Pi and I’m hoping someone can help. I used an SD card to write the 64-bit imager from the Python site, then hooked up the board and the Pi camera. After that I imported the opencv2 and picam libraries and checked the Raspberry Pi configuration for the camera, but the camera just won’t show up. At first the camera LED was solid red, and then it stopped showing any light at all. The camera isn’t detected and it doesn’t appear in the Raspberry Pi configuration screen. Has anyone seen this before?
Thanks for the details. A camera not showing up in Raspberry Pi configuration usually points to a connection issue, so before we dig into software, could you double-check how the camera board is physically connected? It would really help if you could attach a few photos of the board, the ribbon cable, and the connectors on the Pi so we can see exactly where everything is plugged in.
Sure, I’ve attached some photos of the setup. I took them from a few angles so you can see the board and the cable. The weird part is the LED was solid red at first, which I thought meant it was getting power, but now it doesn’t light up at all. I also made sure the picam and opencv2 imports were in place and the camera was still not detected anywhere.
Thanks for the photos, they were really helpful. Looking at them, I can see the issue: your camera board is connected to the Display port on the Raspberry Pi, not the Camera port. That would explain everything you’re seeing.
Ah, I was wondering about that. I didn’t realize there were two similar-looking ports. So which one is the camera port, and is that why the LED behaved that way?
Exactly. On the Raspberry Pi there are two flat ribbon connectors side by side: one is the Camera port (usually labeled CAMERA) and the other is the Display port (usually labeled DISPLAY). The camera board has to go into the Camera port. A camera plugged into the Display port won’t be detected by the Pi at all, which is why it never appeared in Raspberry Pi configuration and why the LED behavior looked off. Go ahead and hook the camera board up to the Camera port instead.
That makes sense now. I’ll reseat the ribbon into the Camera port and give it another try.
Sounds good. To summarize: the root cause was that the Arducam 5MP 2 (B0033) was connected to the Display port rather than the Camera port, so the Pi never detected it and it wouldn’t show up in Raspberry Pi configuration. Connect the camera board to the Camera port and then check the configuration again. If it still doesn’t appear after reseating the cable, let us know and we can continue from there.