I wanted to have some cheap (mostly because it can be stolen :( ) way to take some picture of animals in the forest, close to my new (future) home. ESP32Cam looks like a perfect thinker board for the purpose, sadly pictures are crappy as hell, but it will have to do.
I've found some basic approach to the idea here (https://randomnerdtutorials.com/esp32-cam-pir-motion-detector-photo-capture/) - it work's but I found it not reliable enough and lacking. Anyway my first approach with IR sensor failed because of the snow, perhaps it could be tuned to some extend, but I've switch to microwave sensor. I've also wanted to have timestamp, when the picture was taken, so I've used DS3231 chip from "my box of goodies". This required some major changes in the code. And then more changes followed.
- Uses DS3231 to name files with date/time (also sets system time - so file timestamp is also valid), as a bonus - it also measures temperature. It's not required - it still work without it.
- I've removed white LED - it made the whole ESP32Cam module unstable (I've removed transistor - not the led itself - I thought it's gone be easier this way to revert changes)
- Added Red led to blink when pictures is taken, when ESP32 shuts off and when there is an error - this led is present on board, I've just extended it outside.
- Added Yellow led to see when microwave sensor is triggered - on the transistor ground line.
- Added ability to updated firmware by the .bin file on the SD card (it's much easier this way)
- Change error handling so t does not hang on errors - tries wait/sleep and reboot (it helps with most camera, MMC bus errors)
- It shows errors with blinking - so you can diagnose it from distance (and without serial)
- It's able to take multiple pictures at one trigger
- It has all the cam config parameters defined and also delays for AWB and AG to work
- ESP32 Cam board with compatible camera like OV2640
- DS3231 RTC board
- Microwave (RCWL-0516) or PIR sensor with trigger pin
- power supply. I've used old 3Ah cellphone battery, Li-ion protection (charge/discharge) board and step-up board to have 5V
- some diodes, switch and hermetic case
- also some resistors, capacitors etc.
Connect DS3231 to ESP32Cam pins 14,15 (shared with MMC) Connect RCWL-0516 output pin, to ESP32Cam gpio13 over transistor ... this section is not finished :)
After you've assembled the trap, you need to first setup the clock on DS3231. For this, there is separate sketch in GIT repository "ESP32Cam-PhotoTrap-clocksetup,ino". Change the "," in the name to "." and put it to separate folder. Arduino is reading all the .ino files to the project - that's why I've renamed it. And I did not wanted to create separate repo. Anyway, you have to set your WiFi SSID and password. It would be also good to change (depending where you live) "gmtOffset_sec". After you upload the sketch, look on the serial. If everything is OK, you should see that clock on DS3231 is setup to one from NTP server.
Now you need to upload proper ESP32Cam-PhotoTrap program.
- yellow light on, microwave sensor is triggered
- on >1s picture is taken (right at that moment)
- 2 fast (150ms) flashes, devices went to deep sleep
- 4 slower flashes - unknown error
- 6 slower flashes - Camera init failed with error: Failed to initialize camera, check connections; check camera
- 7 slower flashes - Picture capture failed: Could not take picture, check camera
- 8 slower flashes - Failed to start SD interface: No sdcard, connection to SD failed
- 9 slower flashes - Card Mount Failed: Wrong SD card type or something wrong with FS on sdcard
- 10 slower flashes - Failed to open file in writing mode: Failed to write picture to sdcard: Card can be full or corrupted