MSI StarCam 370i

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#1

Hello guys,

I just recently got a 3d printer and I decided to try octopring.
I've ordered Pi 3B+ and I dug out this really old MSI StarCam 370i webcam.

I plugged it into my computer and it works.
The main reason why I wanted to go with this one is that it has no IR filter and it has IR LEDs.

Does anybody have experience with things like this? Is there a way to turn those on in case they are not controlled automatically ? Is the webcam even supported?

Thanks a lot!

#2

Hello @GohanCZ and welcome :slight_smile:

You're probably gonna have a definitive answer when you plus the camera in the Raspberry Pi. It is a very old camera as far as I can see on Google. So that's a 50/50 chances : either it's a webcam old enough to be sent back to the time where no standard was yet in place in the Camera field; or it could be so old that the driver used by Linux (and so your Raspberry Pi) to control it is veeeery stable... or has been removed because no one use it anymore :smiley: I've found posts like this one. As you can see, it's a very, very old post (2008). You may be lucky and have nothing to do.

For the other question : most of the time, IR LEDs are not controled by the computer. It's controled by a light sensor on the webcam, as soon as the ambiant light is lower than a certain threshold, the LEDs are turned on. Again, it could be different (I've never had my hands on this model) but I'm pretty confident on that part, more than on the first one :wink:

Feel free to keep up posted (and mak this thread as solved ;))

Cheers,
K.

#3

Hello @koreth and thank you for the warm welcome!

so I finally got my PI 3B+ and got octopi working. It was ean experience since I havent used linux before.
Anyways the good news is, that I plugged in the camera, rebooted and it works.
The bad news is that the video feed is slow,dark and the IR LEDs do not light up, while when connected to windows machine, they do, even automatically.

How could I fix this?

Thank you

#4

So I installed uvdynctrl to control the exposure etc.. and now I have somehow usable video feed. Unfortunately no luck with the IR LEDs