External webcam on an Android tablet...Anyone got this to work?

bingo_bango

This is nothing to do with the two cameras currently on the tablet. They both work fine for what they do.

I am trialling an astrophotography setup which requires using an external webcam for image capture. Rather than have to hulk a laptop about as well as the scope, tripod and all lenses etc, I want to try and use the tablet for capture. I need to lighten the load as I may be trekking up mountains with this on my back (light pollution at home is not very conducive to good shots), so every bit of weight I can save will be welcome.

I have the webcam, I have an OTG adapter, but the tablet's USB port does not supply enough power (needs 500mA) to run the webcam.
Acer A1-810 tablet running Kitkat.

Looking at using a (battery) self powered USB hub to see if that solves the problem, but wanted to know if anyone else has tried this before I buy a hub?

Alternatively, has anyone got suggestions on how to achieve this using another method?

TL;DR Want a solution that allows me to record from an external webcam to a tablet, but tablet does not supply enough power.

aerostar

There are OTG cables that have a Y lead, 1 for power and other for USB device, BUT the power only supplies the USB device and does not charge the tablet at the same time.

search Ebay for

usb otg y lead

lots.




This camera runs from the OTG - not tried it with Hub



https://www.mobius-actioncam.com/

On Ebay as well, though not sure if any are counterfeit.

This gives live pics on HUDL2 tablet and records to micro SD.

tonyh66

have you got drivers so the camera can work on android? even if you sort the power problem

bingo_bango

Drivers are a separate issue, and currently in dev. There is a Linux driver which theoretically can be ported in to Android, but that is not really so important at this stage. The cam is an Xbox livecam, so it *should* work without a specific driver, but that remains to be seen.

However there is not much point in spending hours on the driver port if the tablet won't power it up anyway. If I can get the power situation sorted out and the driver doesn't work, then I can continue with the Linux port as the next step.

The reason it's an Xbox cam is specifically because it has a CCD sensor and easily removable IR filter. It's also easy to mod the cam to fit the eyepiece of the telescope.

As for the OTG Y cable. Having the power coming through a separate cable won't increase the amount of power available from the USB port. I mentioned the OTG cable only to demonstrate that I had been down that route already with no success. That's why I'm now looking at a standalone powered hub to remove any need for the tablet to power the cam at all.

Just to add, this is a homebrew project. I am not going to fire lots of money at it to experiment, as I can just hook up the laptop and get the results I want. It would be nice however to reduce the amount of kit I need to achieve the same results, and I was somewhat surprised to find that nobody has spent any great amount of time trying to get external cams to work OOB on Android builds.

I'm also aware that there are a number of apps which claim to work across all Android flavours and all cam hardware, but none have worked yet for me.

tonyh66

you probably need to be asking the question on a more specialist forum like Stargazers, it a bit to niche for anyone to have the answer on this forum. I have a couple of xbox cams I use for guiding.

sillygoose

bingo_bango wrote: »

Drivers are a separate issue, and currently in dev. There is a Linux driver which theoretically can be ported in to Android, but that is not really so important at this stage. The cam is an Xbox livecam, so it *should* work without a specific driver, but that remains to be seen.

However there is not much point in spending hours on the driver port if the tablet won't power it up anyway. If I can get the power situation sorted out and the driver doesn't work, then I can continue with the Linux port as the next step.

The reason it's an Xbox cam is specifically because it has a CCD sensor and easily removable IR filter. It's also easy to mod the cam to fit the eyepiece of the telescope.

As for the OTG Y cable. Having the power coming through a separate cable won't increase the amount of power available from the USB port. I mentioned the OTG cable only to demonstrate that I had been down that route already with no success. That's why I'm now looking at a standalone powered hub to remove any need for the tablet to power the cam at all.

Just to add, this is a homebrew project. I am not going to fire lots of money at it to experiment, as I can just hook up the laptop and get the results I want. It would be nice however to reduce the amount of kit I need to achieve the same results, and I was somewhat surprised to find that nobody has spent any great amount of time trying to get external cams to work OOB on Android builds.

I'm also aware that there are a number of apps which claim to work across all Android flavours and all cam hardware, but none have worked yet for me.

I use a OTG Y cable to run an external hard drive on my tablet (Acer Iconia A1-830) that requires more power than the tablet can supply. Its not just a cable, its more like a mini hub and as someone else mentioned plugging a USB power supply into the power supply connector routes extra power to the external device not the tablet.

So you could possibly use one of these devices but instead of plugging a mains USB suppy in the power port on it, plug in one of those portable battery power banks, they do the same and even a small one should last a several hours.

Going back to the Y cable hub, some are just two usb ports, but some are usb ports plus a power-in port, you want that one.

Not saying its assured to work in your application but these hubs cost peanuts and the power banks too so its worth a try.

You wouldn't even need the power bank initially even, just the hub as you could feed power in from any mains USB power pack to try it first.

bingo_bango

Not had a chance to look at this again until now.

Some good thinking in the responses (which is really what I was hoping for!). I have looked in the astronomy forums, but this doesn't seem to be something that people are looking into (at least not in any depth).

I might retire this thread for a while until I can put some time into it. Unfortunately work has provided me with more than enough to do for at least another few weeks, and it's what pays the bills!

Thanks all.

S0litaire

Do you *have* to use the tablet as the recording / monitoring device?

Have you looked into something like the Raspberry Pi and it's 5Mp Camera module instead?

It has 2 versions of the camera module 1 with the I.R. filter and one without.

The Pi can also work with the Xbox camera with a bit of code tweaking.

I've had my Pi + camera module doing time lapse shots (1 shot every 30 seconds) using a 12000mAh battery pack (44.4Wh) lasting for around 12h

Add in a wifi usb stick and use the tablet as a remote access terminal you might get a full night's use out of it.



http://astrobeano.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/xbox-360-webcam-for-astrophotography.html
http://astrobeano.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/raspberry-pi-with-two-webcams.html