This Mini JPEG Camera Module captures colour images and video in a compact form factor, with built-in motion detection and serial image transfer, making it a great fit for security, monitoring, and data-logging projects.

This tiny little camera module can be a pretty neat project addition, it is just like our other JPEG cameras (same chipset/software), but much smaller and slimmer. It was designed to be used in security systems and does two main things – it outputs NTSC colour video and can take snapshots of that video (in colour) and transmit them over the TTL serial link. You can snap pictures at 640×480, 320×240 or 160×120 and they’re pre-compressed JPEG images which makes them nice and small and easy to store on an SD card. Perfect for a data-logging, security, or photography project.

One nice thing about this particular camera is all the ‘extras‘ that come with it. For example it has auto-white-balance, auto-brightness and auto-contrast taken care of for you as well as motion detection built in! That means you can have it alert your project when something moved in the frame. The lens is manually adjustable, it has a 1-15 meter focal distance by default which is good for most projects.

We also carry a much larger, but enclosed weather-proof version.

Using the module is pretty easy and only requires two digital pins (or a TTL serial port) – by default it transmits at 38400 baud. Of course we wouldn’t just leave you with a datasheet and a ‘good luck’, we even spent a lot of time researching the module and DSP to make really nice libraries for both Arduino & CircuitPython, with example code that shows how to change the image size and compression quality, detect motion, control the video output stream, etc. That and more is available in our very detailed tutorial that will help get the most use out of your camera.

Example photo 1 (outside street) & example photo 2 (inside person).

Features

• Compact camera module with NTSC colour video output
• Captures JPEG snapshots at 640×480, 320×240 or 160×120 resolution
• Pre-compressed JPEG images for easy storage and transmission
• TTL serial communication at 38400 baud
• Auto-white-balance, auto-brightness and auto-contrast
• Built-in motion detection with alerting capability
• Manually adjustable lens with 1-15 metre focal distance
• Requires only two digital pins or TTL serial port for operation
• Compatible with Arduino and CircuitPython libraries
• Includes comprehensive tutorial and example code
• Ideal for security, data-logging and photography projects

Specifications

• Module size: 20mm x 28mm
• Module Weight: 3g
• Image sensor: CMOS 1/4 inch
• CMOS Pixels: 30M
• Pixel size: 5.6um*5.6um
• Manual focus adjustable from 5 to 15meters
• Output format: Standard JPEG
• White balance: Automatic
• Exposure: Automatic
• Gain: Automatic
• Shutter: Electronic rolling shutter
• SNR: 45DB
• Dynamic Range: 60DB
• Max analogue gain: 16DB
• Frame speed: 640*480 30fps
• Scan mode: Progressive scan
• Viewing angle: 60 degrees
• Image size: VGA640*480), QVGA320*240), QQVGA160*120
• Baud rate: Default 38400
• Current draw: 75mA
• Operating voltage: DC +3-5V (the power pin is marked 3.3V but it goes into a 3-5V input regulator so you can power it with 3-5VDC)
• Communication: 3.3V TTL Three wire TX, RX, GND

Resources

• Library
• PTC-08 Datasheet
• DSP Management tool
• Protocol cheat sheet
• Tutorial
• Datasheet

Package Contents

• 1x Miniature TTL Serial JPEG Camera with NTSC Video