Dream Chip Camera Set Up
Dream Chip Camera Set Up
When cabling Dream Chip cameras you have two options:
Option 1
Use a SKAARHOJ Blue Pill as a utility box with the sole purpose of powering and connecting your DreamChip camera. This requires a special extension cable attached to the Blue Pill. This cable connects directly to the Hirose connector of your DreamChip AtomOne camera to supply power and signal in one. The Blue Pill is powered via PoE. If you purchase the Power version of Blue Pill (expected availability in summer 2022) it can power the camera from the PoE+ source. Alternatively, the Extension cable has a DC input that is forwarded to the camera.
Using the Blue Pill with PoE+ is an elegant solution and potentially solves other issues too since the Blue Pills software can serve access to the camera for multiple masters via the DreamChip device core running on it.
Option 2
Use a USR-TCP232-306 Ethernet-Serial converter. This option requires manual cabling work with screw terminals, possibly some soldering, etc. If you desire to daisy chain the cabling to your cameras this may be the best option. The USR-TCP232-306 does not have PoE so you supply 12V DC, to it which can be forwarded to the cameras via the screw terminals. The serial converter has a basic TCP interface that the SKAARHOJ controllers device core will connect with. It's important that only one client connects to it and forwards messages since DreamChip cameras does not have any way to manage multiple masters. Multi master connectivity should always happen by connection to the single DreamChip device core that manages a chain of cameras.
The following workflows will give you an overview of how to connect with the DreamChip cameras.
A variant workflow is when a DreamChip AtomOne camera is mounted on a BR Remote Micro L Pan/Tilt head. In this case we recommend a similar workflow, but here the extension cable is different. It has two cables coming out in the other end, one for the camera, one for the BR Remote head.
A similar dual extension cable exists for workflows with DreamChip SSM500 and B4 lenses. Ask SKAARHOJ support for guidance.
Finally, you may wonder how to correctly cable a daisy chained set of cameras. This overview may help you:
Notice here, that there is the theoretically correct way and then there is very likely room for a little bit of deviation from that. However, SKAARHOJ cannot generally guide you about the limits for that. We invite you to make your own experience with it.
The camera ships with a special cable that connects the Hirose connector on the camera with
- a) 12V Power (Broadcast 4-pin XLR) - Attach this to a 12V power supply
- b) serial RS485 communications (3 Pin female mini XLR) - Attach this to a USR-TCP232-306 Ethernet-Serial converter on T+(A) = orange (mini XLR pin 1), T-(B) = black (mini XLR pin 2) and GND = brown (mini XLR pin 3)
Follow instructions for the Ethernet-Serial converter to get it onto your network. When done, make sure to provide it this Serial setup for operation with the DreamChip camera:
Baud Rate: 115200
Data Size: 8 bit
Parity: None
Stop Bits: 1
Local Port Number 5000
Work Mode: TCP Server
Bug on USR-TCP232-306: It looks like the red TX and green RX LEDs on top of the unit is labeled wrong: On one or more of the units we have tested, it's clear that RX will blink green as we send out content on the serial bus and TX blinks red as we receive content. It feels more intuitive that the TX LED should blink in that case (and vice versa).
The "Link" LED will light up when the device has a network connection. It may not turn off if you pull the plug though - apparently it won't detect such a disconnect.