I'm new to Octoprint, but not new to Raspberry Pi - I've looked at the compatibility list for webcams but wanted to see what people's _ experiences_ were with the various webcams were. Seems like some work well and others have issues.
Is there an ideal webcam that works well? HD?
Thanks!
Use the pi cam, or the Logitech C720 C270 or C920.
C270. It's a bit confusing because it is in fact a 720p camera, but the model number is C270.
Edited for sanity/posterity. Just got one today, in fact, because they were on sale at the 'zon and I want to see what you USB webcam people are thinking.
Thanks guys, I ordered one off Ebay; now if I could only get an actual Raspberry Pi Model 3 B+ to show up. (I ordered two, first one was a no-show, second one was an original model in a 3B+ box!) Argh.
I'd like to ask similar thing.
Is the logitech c270 really the best camera you can buy for octoprint?
Does it's quality of record surpasses raspiCam v2?
https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/camera-module-v2/#buy-now-modal
I cannot aquaire an information about the camera used here in these timelapses. If you would be able to do that - it's the best quality of octolapse I've found on youtube so far.
the c270 and c310 are incredible cheap i bought 2 for 15€ incl shipping.
I had a raspberry pi and a raspberry cam v2.1 and it was ok.
But with a second printer a raspberry or more of them doesn't make sense because they draw to much energy compared to a pc.
(around 20w compared to 7-11watt for the pc)
So i donated my cam to foosel and still using a normal intel based PC.
The c270 are not the best but they are the cheapest when not bought new.
And you can use it on any device which has a usb port.
If money is no Problem there are better cameras like the Logitech Webcam C9XX series.
Or when you have coding skills the kinect 2 which a friend uses with octoprint. to check if automated filament changes where successfully and check basic things like if the model still sticks to the buildplate.
thankfully to one stupid german idiot which sued him for writing open source code and doesn't know anything about the GPL, he stopped releasing anything he writes in binaries or source.
Otherwise the Kinect2 would be the best camera 
The C615 is a happy middleground between the C270 and the C920 (there is no C720). The C270 is great if you plan to crack it open and modify it so you can fix the focal point to whatever is ideal for your setup.
The C270 is 720P and has fixed plastic optics (that can be changed if you open it up - there are articles online and parts to print off Thingiverse to make it easy to adjust), a 60 degree field of view, and relatively basic UVC controls exposed.
The C615 is 1080P and has glass optics instead of plastic (not Zeiss optics like the C920), autofocus, a 74 degree field of view, and has more UVC controls than the C270 (but fewer than the C920).
The C920 is 1080P and has Zeiss optics, autofocus, a 78 degree field of view, and exposes a ton of UVC controls.
I speak as someone who has at least 2 of each model and is quite familiar with them for everything from basic webcam usage, though videoconferencing, and all the way up to computer vision. Links to specs are below:
https://support.logitech.com/en_us/product/hd-webcam-c270/specs
https://support.logitech.com/en_us/product/hd-webcam-c615/specs
https://support.logitech.com/en_us/product/hd-pro-webcam-c920/specs
Thank you for your posts guys, they are precious!
What do you think about an autofocus? I heard that camera for octolapse, shouldn't have one - because it can lose focus during the print and destroy the timelapse. Is this true?
Based on that video:
c920 has waaaay better quality than c270 ;p
For me SJCam S8 Plus is working pretty fine at this moment of time.
With Regards,
Rohan Daga
https://viamichelin.onl/
https://googleearth.onl/
Just wanted to say "thanks" to everyone for the replies! I bought a used C270 off Ebay and printed out the focus ring mod for it, then printed out a bracket for the X axis. It worked like a charm right off the bat with no issues and I can even see it on my tablet!
Wouldn't the best be an IP based webcam, with URLs for both snapshot, and one for the stream to be directly read by the endpoint ? That way the CPU would be offloaded.
Making a CGI script to call ffmpeg to download 1 frame on z-layer change (for cams with no snapshot) should also be a relative low impact operation.
That's what I'm proposing with the external Raspberry Pi Zero W—based webcam. It works great. If you power it from your printer's USB then it will automatically be available before OctoPrint in most cases.
Or you can run the Pi0 in gadget mode, serve the filesystem to it from the Pi3, and even cycle the USB port power to reboot it if necessary. If you setup an ethernet bridge on the Pi3 then you don't even need a Pi0w.
I'm suggesting that I routinely watch my Raspi3B's cores and that it's a good idea to push this work from the Raspi3B and onto another computer.
There are two gadget modes possible for the Zero in this case: as a drive and as a network connection. As a gadget drive device, it feels like the host Raspi3B would still use its processing power. In network gadget mode, you may have something. And yet, I'm not sure that the output stream would be available to another workstation on the network, just the host Raspi3B. (But I see here that you can share network access.)
Yes, I can see it from my home network and get to online repositories from it. I added usb0 and eth0 to the bridge. I use https://github.com/mvp/uhubctl to cycle USB power to it from the 3B+. Use bottom usb next to the eth, printer above it and you can bounce it while printing if needed.
I'm familiar with that executable; I just released OctoPrint-USBControl this week, for what it's worth. Unfortunately my Raspi3B doesn't do individual USB port toggling.
Raspberry Pi Model B+, 2 B, 3 B (port 2 only)
The site says port 2 only on that one.
Hence the plugin's setup page screenshot: