This repository is a result of analizing the QHY5 astronomical guide camera
The goal of this repository is to share my investigations about how to create an equivalent of the well-known QHY5 grayscale astrocamera by just wiring two fairly cheap boards (the MT9M001 adapter board and a the CY7C68013A dev board) together.
| Description | CY7C68013A board | CY7C68013A 56-pin | MT9M001 | MT9M001 board pin | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CLKIN | CTRL0 + PA3 | 36 + 43 | 29 | 8 | Connect CTRL0 and PA3 in parallel |
| SCL | SCL | 22 | 46 | 3 | |
| SDA | SDA | 23 | 45 | 4 | |
| PIXCLK | -- | -- | 31 | 7 | Not connected |
| OE | -- | -- | 13 | -- | Wired to ground on the board |
| RESET | PA0 | 40 | 10 | 19 | |
| STANDBY | GND | Any GND | 7 | 20 | Connect to any GND pin on the controller board |
| TRIGGER | -- | -- | 8 | 21 | Not connected |
| HSYNC (LV) | -- | -- | 40 | 6 | Not connected |
| VSYNC (FW) | -- | -- | 41 | 5 | Not connected |
| STROBE | -- | -- | 39 | 22 | Not connected |
| VCC | VCC | Any VCC | Many | 1 | |
| GND | GND | Any GND | Many | 2 | |
| DOUT 9 | PB7 | 32 | 36 | 9 | |
| DOUT 8 | PB6 | 31 | 35 | 10 | |
| DOUT 7 | PB5 | 30 | 34 | 11 | |
| DOUT 6 | PB4 | 29 | 33 | 12 | |
| DOUT 5 | PB3 | 28 | 32 | 13 | |
| DOUT 4 | PB2 | 27 | 28 | 14 | |
| DOUT 3 | PB1 | 26 | 27 | 15 | |
| DOUT 2 | PB0 | 25 | 26 | 16 | |
| DOUT 1 | PD7 | 3 | 25 | 17 | |
| DOUT 0 | PD6 | 2 | 24 | 18 |
As a camera board I used the "MT9M001 1.3Mp HD CMOS Infrared Camera Module with Adapter board" from Arducam (http://www.arducam.com/product/mt9m001-1-3mp-hd-cmos-infrared-camera-module-adapter-board/). I found this board on ebay for about $18.
Controller board I used is a CY7C68013A development board from geeetech (http://www.geeetech.com/wiki/index.php/CY7C68013, also here https://sigrok.org/wiki/Lcsoft_Mini_Board). I ordered my board on aliexpress for less than 4 euros, you can found it by searching for "CY7C68013A USB logic analyzer core board". Probably you can found such boards on ebay too.
As a prototype I used dupont wires 15 centimeter long to connect boards together.
Developers of QHY5 camera left VID and PID of the controller unchanged, so the USB ID's of the original camera and the development board are the same.
Every time you connect the QHY5 camera to the computer, it checks this ID's and uploads the firmware to the microcontroller's RAM. When you connect the controller board from geeetech computer thinks you connected the QHY5 camera (if you have QHY5 driver installed).
I tested my camera clone on Ubuntu Linux 16.04 with INDI server and PHD2 guiding software, both was able to detect camera and take pictures. I have not tested it on Windows yet, but I assume it should work as well.