Hey folks, I’m planning to use the RPI IO board with a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 and I want to run 8 cameras using the Arducam setup described here:
My question is — which GPIO pins are still available on the IO board when using this 8-camera configuration? I have some other sensors I need to hook up and I want to make sure there won’t be a conflict. Specifically wondering about the I2C pins (SDA/SCL) but would like to know the full picture.
Just 5V & GND. The setup doesn’t use SDA/SCL pins at all, so those should be free.
Thanks for the quick reply, but I want to make sure I’m reading this right. Do you mean I can only use 5V and GND from the GPIO header — like, everything else is off limits? Or are you saying the camera setup only takes up 5V and GND, and I’m free to use whatever other GPIOs I want, even with the two Arducam boards and all 8 cameras connected?
Sorry for the confusion — let me spell it out more clearly.
The Camarray HAT bundle kit only uses the 5V and GND pins on the Raspberry Pi IO board’s GPIO header. That’s it. No other GPIO pins are consumed or reserved by the camera setup at all.
So to answer your question directly: yes, all other GPIOs remain freely available for your own use. That includes the I2C pins (SDA/SCL), SPI pins, UART, and any other general-purpose pins you need for your sensors.
One more thing worth mentioning — if you want to free up even the 5V and GND pins, there’s an alternative power option. You can power the bundle kits using two USB Type-C connections instead of pulling power through the GPIO header. That way literally every pin on the header is yours to use.