LetsLapse allows you to capture day to night time-lapses sequences on affordable hardare, while producing outstanding results.
To get started, you will need a Raspberry Pi device, a compatible camera, MicroSD card and power source. As for specifics, you can run this from a Pi 3, 4, 4B or Pi Zero W, with a range of cameras.
LetsLapse has been developed with Pi Zero W and HQ Camera Module in mind, for compact size and low power requiremens allowing for long shoots.
To proceed, you must have a Pi and Camera connected. See the first three pages of https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/projects/getting-started-with-picamera, until it says "Start up your Raspberry Pi". You don't need to do this yet for this process.
See https://www.raspberrypi.org/software/ for the Raspberry Pi Imager. A fast SD card is required, and the bigger the better.
Recommend Raspberry Pi OS Lite, as this has the smallest footprint and excudes stuff that can slow the device down - like a pretty operating system which isn't required.
Follow the instructions to ensure the process is verified.
See https://github.com/regularsteven/letslapse/. We need to put settings on the MicroSD card to configure wireless network and access to the OS.
- Place wpa_supplicant.conf (inside 'install' folder) to the SD card partition called "Boot" of your newly formatted MicroSD card
Edit the file to put your own WiFi credentials in this file. The formatting matters - so put your wireless network(s) inside the "quotations". If you have a mobile phone hotspot, you can add this and your home network. The Pi will connect to whatever it see's first, in order of their placement.
- Create an empty file called 'ssh' in the same "Boot" partition. This file tells the Pi OS to allow 'SSH' (logging in remote) to occur.
This can be called ssh.txt or just 'ssh'.
Plug the MicroSD card to the Pi and plug in power. Depending on the device, it can take some time to boot up. We will be running the install with no screen plugged in, so we need to wait for the device to be on the network.
If you're in luck, you can access the device via 'raspberrypi.local' on your network. However, not all routers support this, so it might be a little more work to know the Pi's 'address' on your network.
In a Terminal window (MacOS / Linux) or Command Shell (Windows), type:
ping raspberrypi.local
If you're lucky, you'll see "64 bytes from raspberrypi (10.3.141.212): icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.265 ms", or similar.
In this event, you don't need to worry about IP addresses. You can jump to step 4.
If you're not a lucky person, we need to find the IP address. This can be found a number of ways.
-
Get it from your router (if you know it) or WiFi Hotspot.
Logging into your router should show you DHCP connections, along with IP addresses and names. Look for 'raspberrypi', and then you will have your IP address. Many Android and iOS devices with a HotSpot will show connections. Many devices (iPhone's / Samsung Galaxy's) will show the IP addresses.
-
In a Terminal window or Command Shell, scan the network, and take note of the output message. You're looking for something like "10.1.2.9" or "192.168.1.9".
This runs a scan across the network you're own and loks for the hardware of the network adapter, which is unique to the Pi Zero or Pi4
a) MacOS / Linux, looking for Pi Zero:
arp -na | grep -i b8:27:ebb) MacOS / Linux, looking for Pi4 (has a different MAC ID):
arp -na | grep -i dc:a6:32c) Windows:
nslookup raspberrypi
Take note of the IP address - this is how you need to connect and configure the device. Once you've got the IP, you can ping to test the connectivity like above, only with the IP and not the name. For example:
ping 192.168.0.9
MacOS and Linux can use Terminal, but Windows may require extra configuration.
This step is about 'SSH-ing' into the device. SSH is a protocol, like HTTP or FTP, that allows you to log in to the device. We need to SSH in to run some updates and set up the device.
If you're the lucky one with raspberrypi.local found in step 3, you don't need the 'IP' (192.168.0.9).
ssh pi@192.168.0.9
OR
ssh pi@raspberrypi.local
You'll be asked for the password. Because this is brand-new, the password is raspberry
Note: If you've done this before, you might be rejected. In this instance,run
ssh-keygen -R raspberrypi.local
Open Power Shell and type 'ssh pi@192.168.0.9', where 192.168.0.9 is the IP of your device as identified in step 3. If it works, great. If not, I suggest a tool called Putty - it's a simple SSH client which allows for remote connections. See https://www.putty.org/ and find the Download link. In most instances, you want "MSI (‘Windows Installer’) 64-bit x86". Download and install. Once installed, open up.
In here, you can enter the IP, username and password.
Username: pi
Password: raspberry
Address: IP as found in step three.
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Ideally, you should update your password. Do, or don't. But ideally you do. Type the following and follow prompts:
passwd -
Update the OS / Software with latest from Raspbbery Pi
sudo apt update sudo apt upgrade -
Install 'git'. This allows us to 'clone' LetsLapse code, and BC.
sudo apt install git -y sudo apt install bc -y -
Clone LetsLapse
git clone https://github.com/regularsteven/letslapse -
Run install script
cd letslapse sudo sh install.shThis may take some time, and will install a number of 'dependencies', as well as configure your device to talk / communicate with your camera. Once installed, you will need to restart. You may wish to set up some other aspects of Raspberry Pi, such as the timezone, location settings, and so on. You can do this with "sudo raspi-config" (in the terminal), but this isn't mandatory.
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Reboot and wait...
If everything above worked, LetsLapse is installed. In a browser on your network, type the IP address or raspberrypi.local into your browser. If we've got this far, it's good to go.
For, um, cleaning up...
sudo apt install python3-pip -y
sudo apt install python3-pip
python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip
python3 -m pip install --upgrade Pillow
python3 -m pip install --upgrade Pillow --global-option="build_ext" --global-option="--enable-[feature]"
sudo apt install libopenjp2-7 libopenjp2-7-dev libopenjp2-tools
sudo pip3 install opencv
sudo apt-get install libatlas-base-dev
sudo pip3 install piexif
python3 -m pip install --upgrade imutils
python3 -m pip3 install opencv-contrib-python
python3 -m pip install opencv-python - this worked, not contrib version
python3 -m pip install numpy
python3 -m pip install picamera
Install SAMBA for simple filesystem access
sudo apt-get install samba samba-common-bin
sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf
Add the following to the bottom:
[mypishare]
path = /home/pi/letslapse
writeable=Yes
create mask=0777
directory mask=0777
public=no
Create a user for SAMBA access
sudo smbpasswd -a pi
sudo systemctl restart smbd
Much of the following is automated inside the install script, but noted for reference
sudo pico /boot/config.txt
Add below, save and close the file Permalink
#Disable Bluetooth
dtoverlay=disable-bt
or remove everything
sudo apt-get purge bluez -y
sudo apt-get autoremove -y
echo none | sudo tee /sys/class/leds/led0/trigger
echo 1 | sudo tee /sys/class/leds/led0/brightness
Add the following to config:
sudo pico /boot/config.txt
dtparam=act_led_trigger=none
dtparam=act_led_activelow=on
/usr/bin/tvservice -o
sudo pico /etc/rc.local
Add the following to the bottom:
f /usr/bin/tvservice -o
sometimes the camera crashes - find it and kill it
ps -A | grep raspi
sudo kill 1599
Issues have been found with slow SD cards. If there's an issue that's hard to explain, verify the SD card can work at reasonable performance.
https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/sd-card-speed-test/ cd /usr/share/agnostics/ sudo sh /usr/share/agnostics/sdtest.sh
Some older devices may need a real update. In the instance things just aren't right, run the following to update
sudo rpi-update
Can the following be removed?
- aplay
- pulseaudio
- xserver related