My planned setup with an Arducam IMX462 (B0423)

[Vertikar]

Wanted to start this as I've been trying to get decent results out of the IMX462 with @aaronwmorris in this issue - #878

But wanted to share why I went with the IMX462 and plan for it.

So the original plan was to run the IMX462 via INDI server on an RPi Zero 2 W or even a Orange Pi Zero LTS to have wired connectivity, with indi-allsky running remotely indoors on one of my docker hosts.

Haven't got to that full stage yet, and have been testing with an RPi3 running INDI Server, INDI Web Manger, indi_pylibcamera and the IMX462 outside, and indi-allsky running nicely on docker on a host inside.

This was due to me not fully trusting the weatherproofing/waterproofing of my outdoor enclosure fully, and not wanting to risk ruining the expensive RPi4 and my ASI224MC camera with water damage.

I found the IMX462 - https://www.arducam.com/product/arducam-2mp-ultra-low-light-starvis-imx462-motorized-ir-cut-camera-for-raspberry-pi/ also had slightly higher resolution than the IMX224 in the ASI224, and was substantially cheaper than the ASI224 and ASI462MC. I have since discovered the Player One Astronomy cameras, and while they are cheaper than the ASIs, they're still not as cheap as the board cameras like the Arducam IMX462.

After a lot of back and forth with Aaron, and I have to say he has been great, and I really appreciate all the help you've given so far Aaron, it looks like currently running it with a remote INDI Server and getting good quality images is going to be a bit harder than I originally thought.

My next step is to have a crack with https://github.com/indilib/indi-3rdparty/tree/master/indi-libcamera and see if the results from that are any better. There's been a patch to libcamera to try and fix some of the IMX462 issues, and it looks easier to get the patch into that than indi_pylibcamera.

I'll report back here when I've had a crack at that and see how I go.

[Vertikar]

Hey @aaronwmorris, had a look at your ansible build scripts for INDI server, does it build all 3rd party drivers or just a selection?

[aaronwmorris]

By default, it builds all drivers, but I believe if you passed the correct tags, it would build only specific libs/drivers. I have not really been maintaining the Ansible scripts, in fact I was considering removing them soon. The shell build script is just easier to maintain.

I will look at making an enhancement to the shell build script to only build specific drivers and libs.

[Vertikar]

@aaronwmorris looking to move my IMX462 to my RPi4, but run into an issue,
i'm getting weird images from it, like this one:

I can't reproduce this on either of my RPi3s. Have made sure they're all on the same kernel and libcamera version.

I remember you tested with your IMX462 in the issue I raised- #878 (comment)
was that on a 3 or a 4?

[aaronwmorris]

I think I tested on my RPi3. Did you remember to set the clock-frequency on the Rpi4?