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Laptop webcam to usb

Former Member
Former Member over 14 years ago

Hi

 

I have an old ACER Tm 7514WSMi laptop. its broken, so I took its internal webcam from it. Iv heard that most of laptop webcams are usb wabcams.

 

So from my webcam comes 5 wires. red, blue, orange, and green and yellow twisted together.

 

Inside usbcabe are only four wires, white, green, black and red.

 

So how could I connect those wires from webcam to usbcable.

 

My webcam detects when I have turned it around, pointing away from laptop unlike most of webcams.

My webcam has a swich insede, which detects when its turned. so I guess that one of wires is for it. I cant trace which one of wires goes to that swich.

 

so hos should I connect this to usb cable. Which color goes to which?

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  • Paul
    0 Paul over 14 years ago

    I have done this successfully. Mine only has four wire. The ones twisted together will be the USB data lines. You will need to work out what ones are +5V and gound. Maybe you can work it out by inspecting the board (Or the main board of the laptop).

     

    On mine the +5 and ground wires were coloured Red and Black but the Black one was +5V. I had it around the wrong way at first and the camera got quite warm but was not damaged.

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  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 14 years ago in reply to Paul

    Thanks for reply,

     

    Its really hard to see anything fron that boad.

     

     

    I  opened  my webcam, and here is a picture. that boad if guality is not good enough, I have a picture on my webserver (wount be there forever...)https://jarmo.homelinux.org/pictures/Webcam.JPG , sorry, no http, only https, and self signed cert.

    Its hard to teke picture from that board, background and everyting are basically made with same colour. In that picture you cant see wires , so I wrote colours to that connector.  I hope that you could take a look.

     

    image

     

    My biggest consearn is that if I connect it wrongly, could it destroy my laptop?

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  • Paul
    0 Paul over 14 years ago in reply to Former Member

    You could most likely find the ground connection by measuring with an ohm meter to the metal around the screw holes.

    Also there is a ceramic capacitor near the connector (Has a + sign at one end?). It is probably the input decoupling capacitor. So check if each side of it is connected to one of the input wires.

     

    If that works out then you should know how to connect the power supply correctly and you will be able to hook it up to a USB plug. If it won’t work when plugged in then reverse the data lines (the twisted ones).

    Maybe don't try it on your favourite USB port until you confirm it is working.

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  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 14 years ago in reply to Paul

    orange and blue are connected to those screw holes. and seems to be connected to that ceramic capasitors other / "not + side"

     

    Red seems to be connected to that ceramic capasitors + side.

     

    In usb cable are four wires; Red, Black, Ehite and Green.

     

    So are Red wire +

    Black is -               

    Green and white are datalines in USB

    Green and yellow are data lines in camera

     

    Is that correct?

     

    red from USB  to  red of camera

    black from USB  to  Blue and yellow

    white from USB  to  Yellow from camera

    green from USB  to  green from camera

     

    Does this look right?

     

     

     

    EDIT: I connected orange and blue to "-" in power supply and red to "+" in powersupply. I set it to output 5V (DC)

    That cam used 0.06-0.07A, which seems quite right for me.

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  • Paul
    0 Paul over 14 years ago in reply to Former Member

    You can't really say if it is right or not until you try it and see what happens. If you have a USB Hub try it though that.

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  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 14 years ago in reply to Paul

    But my basic idea of USB cable is right?

    Red is +

    Black is -              

    Green and white are datalines

    Right?

     

    So if I connect it wrongly it woun't blow up my computer, only that usb port its connected to.

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  • Paul
    0 Paul over 14 years ago in reply to Former Member

    Yes that is the right pinout for USB.

     

    I think it would be unlikely to damage the USB port if connected wrong. The power lines are normally protected by a PTC or similar.

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  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 14 years ago in reply to Paul

    I got it working, I connected it just the way I posted in my second last post. It works well.

     

    Thanks for help image

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  • Paul
    0 Paul over 14 years ago in reply to Former Member

    No problem. Nice to hear of the good result.

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  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 13 years ago in reply to Paul

    I REALLY need help, my camera looks like the other guys and is a Acer "Camellia_2" from a acer laptop But it has whole different wires! it has Black, White, Lime Green, And Pinkish Red. I tryed connecting red to red, green to green, black to black and white to blue but the camera always gets hot if the usb black is attatched to any other color but the red from the camera.... i tryed other various combinations and nothing happens.. The only major thing i noticed is that when i hook the red from the usb to the black from the camera the green light turns on..., but any other combos nothing happens.....

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  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 13 years ago in reply to Paul

    I REALLY need help, my camera looks like the other guys and is a Acer "Camellia_2" from a acer laptop But it has whole different wires! it has Black, White, Lime Green, And Pinkish Red. I tryed connecting red to red, green to green, black to black and white to blue but the camera always gets hot if the usb black is attatched to any other color but the red from the camera.... i tryed other various combinations and nothing happens.. The only major thing i noticed is that when i hook the red from the usb to the black from the camera the green light turns on..., but any other combos nothing happens.....

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  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 13 years ago in reply to Former Member

    Could you post a (preferably high res) picture of the module (front and back)?

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  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 13 years ago in reply to Former Member

    Hi, Its been a while since I was here last time image.

     

    Ok. here are five pictures from my webcam. I had only my phone lg optimus 2x, so there are some issues with pictures. If you have any more guestions feel free to ask. Ill do my best to answer to you.

    On the other side of that is nothing, it has some sort of cover glued to it.

     

     

     

    ---

     

    My servers HDD died, I had some picures there. I havent used that webcam for a long time, but Ill try to find the webcam and then post some pictures soon.

     

    Message was edited by: Jarmo Isotalo, Added the pictures.

    Attachments:
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    0 Former Member over 13 years ago in reply to Former Member

    Sorry for the very late response. The first thing you will want to do is finding the gnd wire. If you have a multimeter then you can most likely find it by checking which wire is connected (has zero resistance) to the metal rings around the screw holes.

     

    The next thing to find is the power (+5V) connection. I think that the ceramic capacitor (the large one) close to the  connector is probably some kind of filter. This means that is is connected to the ground and the power wires, since you already knew the ground you now also know the power connection. The only thing left are the data wires, if the connector is wired like most usb connectors are wired there will probably be 2 wires in between or to one side of the power and gnd wires. These will probably be the data+ and data-, the only easy way to check this is to simply connect them (and the 5V and gnd) and try it out, if it doesn't work just switch them around. (use am old computer just to be sure). The fifth wire is hopefully not connected (can you track the traces to find out if one of the wires isn't connected?)

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  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 12 years ago in reply to Former Member

    Hey Guys,

     

    Need your help!

    I have a Toshiba built in webcam that i took out of my broken laptop and i want to connect it to a usb wire.

    i saw the other reactions and i understand it but my camera wire has; 1 red, 1 orange and 3 black wires ...

    what must i do ?

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  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 12 years ago in reply to Former Member

    I wish I remember what I did image

     

    Well you should identify

    1. You should find out + and - wires for power
    2. data wires

     

    If you have a multimeter, you should find if any wires ary connected. Its just measuring resistance (Ohm) My multimeter has also a feature for detecting if 2 wires are connected. AFAIK it send little currency to detect if it has a circuit -> you could fry your webcam if sending too much currency to wrong direction.

     

    Any if you have something like this http://www.amazon.com/Mastech-Single-Output-Power-Supply-HY3003D/dp/B004ISQ270/ref=pd_sxp_grid_pt_1_0

    You could try feeding it 5V and almost 0A, so it shouldnt frie webcam, and only when connection is correct, it will get power and you should see some Ampers used.

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