Quick Start Guide for Multi-Camera Adapter Board¶

Hardware¶

Abstract

Arducam offers multi-camera adapters to accommodate up to 4 camera modules on a single Raspberry Pi and switch between them quickly. The HAT-style quadruple adapter fits well with the Raspberry Pi A&B series, and the double adapter is perfect for the Pi Zero. You will read more about it in the following chapters.

Hardware Structure(Example as B012001)

Connect and Insert the Multi-Camera Adapter Board into Raspberry Pi

Connect the cameras to Multi-Camera Adapter Board

Pinout Definition

Multi-Camera Adapter Board V2.1/V2.2 (SKU: B012001)

Software¶

Warning

We currently only guarantee that the Camera Adaptation is supported on Raspberry Pi Bullseye and Bookworm OS.

Supported Platforms and OS

¶

Note for Supported Platform and OS
Platform	Bookworm(rpicam)	Bullseye(libcamera/rpicam)	Buster(raspistill)
Raspberry Pi 5	√
Raspberry Pi 4B / 3B+ / 3A+ / Zero / Zero 2 W	√	√
Raspberry Pi CM3 / CM3+ / CM4 / CM5 (extra adapter board required)	√	√

Update Kernel Version¶

Note: Please make sure your kernel version is up to date (at least 5.15.63 or later)

How to update the Kernel bersion:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Supported Cameras¶

The following cameras will need the corresponding driver to be accessed:

Sensor	Resolution
OV5647	5MP
IMX219	8MP
IMX477	12MP
IMX708	12MP
IMX519	16MP
64MP Camera	64MP

Modify the Config.txt¶

For Quad-Camera Adapter Board(B012001):¶

sudo nano /boot/config.txt

#add Following content: 
dtoverlay=camera-mux-4port,cam0-<camera sensor name>,cam1-<camera sensor name>,cam2-<camera sensor name>,cam3-<camera sensor name>

#Find the line "camera_auto_detect=1" and modify it: 
camera_auto_detect=0

Note

Please manually add the number of cam according to the number of cameras you have connected.
Example: if you have three IMX219 cameras connected, enter:
dtoverlay=camera-mux-4port,cam0-imx219,cam1-imx219,cam2-imx219

Demo(64mp)

dmesg

For Dual-Camera Adapter Board(B016601):¶

sudo nano /boot/config.txt

add: 
dtoverlay=camera-mux-2port,cam0-<you camera sensor>,cam1-<you camera sensor>

Note

Please manually add the number of cam according to the number of cameras you have connected.
Example: if you only have one IMX219 cameras connected, enter:
dtoverlay=camera-mux-2port,cam0-imx219

Run the Multi-Camera¶

Use libcamera apps to access the Multi-Camera

rpicam-still -t 0 --camera <choose camera num>

Example:

rpicam-still -t 0 --camera 2

Attention

For another libcamera apps like `rpicam-raw`, `rpicam-vid`, etc. You will need to manually add `--camera <choose camera num>` behind the command

For more details and source code, please refer to:

Github -- Multi-camera-Adapter-board-v2.2-python

Troubleshooting¶

1. Time-error-occurs-when-using-multi-camera-adapter-board-on-pi5