STICKY: Mechanical data

[Gert van Loo]

I just uploaded mechanical data on Scribd:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/142718448/Ras ... nical-Data

As with the Raspberry-Pi mechanical data it is hand measured, accuracy about 0.05 mm
no guarantees.

[Grid]

Much appreciated!

[killor]

Thank you so much!!! , now I can make the case with better accuracy!

Camera case

camara_RPI.jpg (55.67 KiB) Viewed 51809 times

[sharix]

How much of the board can be cut off? I'm pretty sure about the green areas, yellow needs confirming.
There are two large golden pads on the sides of the ribbon connector which can probably be cut to a smaller size, and at the right end there are two small holes which I don't know if they have any purpose.
See image:

[Gert van Loo]

I can't tell you that as the board is four layers and the inner layers may have tracks on them.
This is unlikely as they are most probably fully flooded with copper, but it is still possible.

I can ask the PCB designer if that is the case as I am seeing him this evening but he
is likely to be bound by an NDA.

[jbeale]

Are PCB layouts for consumer products considered secret? If this PCB is covered by an NDA, I'd like to point out that anyone with an x-ray machine (or sandpaper and patience) can find out where all the traces are, on every layer.

[M33P]

Are PCB layouts for consumer products considered secret? If this PCB is covered by an NDA, I'd like to point out that anyone with an x-ray machine (or sandpaper and patience) can find out where all the traces are, on every layer.

While the design itself probably isn't "secret", the guy that did the layout/routing would probably be bound by NDA not to distribute it (or use it for commercial gain yada yada).

Although I question the wisdom of drilling holes in the PCB when there are 4 perfectly good ones right there...

[jamesh]

Are PCB layouts for consumer products considered secret? If this PCB is covered by an NDA, I'd like to point out that anyone with an x-ray machine (or sandpaper and patience) can find out where all the traces are, on every layer.

On the other hand the moon is made of cheese, but it's not worth going there to harvest it.

Make the whole thing public (schematics, gerbers) and within a couple of weeks you have Chinese clones flooding the market. At least by keeping some stuff under your hat is slightly more difficult for them to generate the gerbers from xrays and sweat. Not impossible - it just takes longer. The Raspberry Pi foundation still need to stay in business and they have spent a lot of money getting this board out. They need to make at least some of the costs back. Any clones will not have been EMC tested for a start, and that costs a few quid!

[Quasim0ndo]

In case someone is interested - here's my laser schematics for a camera body (using my own measures so they might slightly differ from the official ones):

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:92105

[mrlinux2u]

Yes,

Thanks very much for the mechanical data, will help with my camera enclosure too

Cheers

mrlinux2u

[sinuz]

What kind of spacer could i use to mount the camera board to something? M2 standoffs seem te be very rare.

[Gert van Loo]

How much of the board can be cut off? I'm pretty sure about the green areas, yellow needs confirming.
There are two large golden pads on the sides of the ribbon connector which can probably be cut to a smaller size, and at the right end there are two small holes which I don't know if they have any purpose.
See image:

I can't release details but I can give you a simple answer: DON'T!

[sharix]

Thanks, this is enough

[MattHawkinsUK]

I can ask the PCB designer if that is the case as I am seeing him this evening but he
is likely to be bound by an NDA.

I suspect the PCB designer didn't say a word. Just quietly fell off his chair and spluttered a bit when Gert asked the question

[jbeale]

What kind of spacer could i use to mount the camera board to something? M2 standoffs seem te be very rare.

My kid has a reusable drinking straw, fairly heavy-duty which looks about the right size. I think any plastic tubing of the right size could work fine, just cut to the length you want.

[towolf]

Apparently I got lucky with the mechanical dimensions this time:

[maddogdave]

I've used some nylon M2 nuts & bolts to fix mine to a piece of plastic as a temporary measure. Used longer bolts and extra nuts to create the standoff until I can find a better spacer.

[hariedo]

I posted this "Thing" to Thingiverse the day I got my camera module from Newark/element14 USA. It's a Blender3D model of the board, ready for STL export. I use such models to mock up mounting options.

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:90109

I had already gotten the dimensions almost perfectly from the earlier photo of the board, but the design apparently changed by 4mm in one direction after that photograph.

The Raspberry Pi Model B in the same file is a modified variant derived from RS's STL file.

[Gert van Loo]

The extra 4 mm are caused by test pads at the bottom of the board.
This allows testing of the board without having to use a cable.

[jbeale]

The extra 4 mm are caused by test pads at the bottom of the board.
This allows testing of the board without having to use a cable.

I can imagine a fixture with pogo-pins can test a whole set of panelized boards at once, without a need to manually attach a cable to each one (although mine did come with the cable already inserted). In case you haven't seen a camera board yet:

RPi-camera-back.JPG (49.81 KiB) Viewed 50950 times

Better quality image: https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/6 ... directlink

[maddogdave]

Almost broke my ribbon connector today - I can see a market for some replacements or something a little more robust for us heavy handed 'sausage finger' types. Poking the ribbon out through the Ethernet connector hole on my case hasn't done the outer part of the cable any favours. If someone can design a slightly longer and mechanically stronger cable that still supports the data transfer rates. But I must say i am very impressed with the camera module image quality and the software.

[jbeale]

Replacement cables are available, with length ranging from 5 cm to 30 cm. I haven't tried one of these, but I think they are stock 15-conductor flex cables and should just work.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AlienSpec-CSI ... 1051772597

[Gert van Loo]

There is a thread about replacement cables.
http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... 43&t=43737

[RaspISteve]

Guys,

I know its a bit late now but from the drawing it would appear that the lens axis is just off line from the adjacent mounting holes. It would make lining this thing up with any supplemental lens system a whole lot easier had these holes been moved a bit or perhaps elongated.

My point? once spent far too long trying to line up subsystems where the important bits didn't line up with anything else.

If chewing gum, bluetak or duct tape is the preferred method of fixing then I can see my issue fails.

[towolf]

Guys,

I know its a bit late now but from the drawing it would appear that the lens axis is just off line from the adjacent mounting holes. It would make lining this thing up with any supplemental lens system a whole lot easier had these holes been moved a bit or perhaps elongated.

My point? once spent far too long trying to line up subsystems where the important bits didn't line up with anything else.

If chewing gum, bluetak or duct tape is the preferred method of fixing then I can see my issue fails.

Maybe you haven’t noticed, but the camera housing itself is stuck to the board with a patch of adhesive and comes off fairly easily. Nothing you’d want to align an optical axis with.