The Raspberry Pi Camera is a great tool; it allows projects that require a camera to be put together quickly and on a budget. Plus, having a Linux back end for a little processing never hurt anybody. What can be difficult however, is imaging in low light conditions. Most smartphones have an LED flash built in for this purpose. [Wim Van Gool] decided to follow suit and build an LED flash for the Raspberry Pi.
The project consists of a custom PCB with surface-mount LEDs in an attractive concentric layout. This is a good way to get a nice even distribution of light, particularly when taking photos close up. The board is designed around the Texas Instruments TPS61169 LED driver, which is controlled by a PWM signal from the Raspberry Pi. The flash mounts as a Raspberry Pi HAT, and there’s a hole routed in the centre to allow the camera to fit in nice and snug when using standard 11mm standoffs. It might seem simple, but it’s an impressively tidy piece of engineering and a testament to [Wim]’s abilities.
The Raspberry Pi Camera turns up in all sorts of projects — like these far-seeing PiNoculars.
Very nice build.Would make a good over head camera for recording hacking. :)
This looks like what I’ll need for a project I’ve been thinking about for some time.
Not a hack… it’s way too nice :P
I’ve been thinking about doing something like this but it never occurred to me to mount the camera underneath like that, I really like it.
Is it flux or are the components on the left are getting a bit hot?
That’s just some flux residue.
I wonder what it would take to swap the LEDs for IR LEDs for night pictures.
Probably a redesign of the board with other LED footprints since I haven’t found any 5630 IR LEDs when I was looking for them not so long ago.
How do you trigger the flash? And how is it synched with the rolling shutter?
I know the Picamera allows controlling a flash. How does that pin work? Does it stay on for the duration of the flash or is it just a momentary trigger?
You can purchase a similar board here:
https://www.tindie.com/products/pi-plc/led-flash-module-for-raspberry-pi-camera/