For some time the Bestek webcam (Sansun? Z-Star 0x0ac8 0x301b) worked very well on the Wl-Hdd with OpenWrt (RC4 kernel), using the Spca5xx_LE driver on WhiteRussian RC4. Then I tried another webcam, but it was not supported by the Spca5xx_LE driver and the Wl-hdd rebooted after trying to run Spcacat.

Then I put the first webcam back, but the Wl-Hdd kept rebooting very often. So I thought the OpenWrt installation might be corrupted and so I re-flashed it.

The Wl-hdd still reboots sometimes when I try to load the webcam driver by running Spcacat or my custom (Spcacat-based) software. So I tried to use Spca5xx instead of the LE driver, same results. (The Spca5xx driver actually worked well, equally like the Spca5xx_LE some time ago).

So I upgraded to WhiteRussian RC5. The problem was not yet solved. I don't know where to look for the solution! All I can think of is unlogical. It's all about communication and communication problems cannot cause power failures or damaged webcams or worn-out flash chips. And the problems started when I attached the second webcam (Logitech Quickcam Express new version: 0x046d 0x0920).

When I run Spcacat or my program Firecat, most of te time the program works well. Sometimes it crashes and the Wl-hdd reboots. It occurs during initialization, when the driver is probing the available palettes.

I also have installed (and succesfully compiled) the complete buildroot toolchain. I have not yet tried the Spca diagnostic programs, but I'll try them Sunday. But the webcam worked so well some days ago...

Did you solce it? I experience the same problem with WR 0.9. So nothings better with spca5xx webcams here

Yes, in my case it was caused by covering the lens with an IR filter during startup. When the screen is totally black, the software crashes when booting.

You mean the lens of the cam was blocked by an physical object?
Well, thanks but mine has best point of view and crashes, too

Yes. Zero brightness on the image causes the driver to crash during startup.
And also when images are retrieved too quickly (>8 times a second) the driver crashed in our case.
By the way, we built a cool fire fighter robot with it

which changes do you made to Spcacat?

I have other problems with Spcacat but maybe you solved my problem?

http://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=10953

thanks Jakson

I also used two webcams and worked well. I wrote my own program (in C), with help from someone else, using Spcacat as starting point. We noticed some bugs in Spcacat too. Our program initializes both webcams and grabs the frames from them, one by one. Not in parallel, but all in one single thread to avoid concurrency problems. The frame rate is about 4 frames/sec at most. Increasing this value makes the driver crash. When everyting is programmed OK, we never experienced wrong or corrupt frames.
The cameras were both mounted on a seperate servo together with a water cannon. It worked really cool Pictures on www.vincentgroenhuis.nl

(Last edited by WhizzVin83 on 1 Jun 2007, 13:56)

that's exactly what I want to change in Spcacat.

Can you send my the new Spcacat or tell my where I get it?

Email: jakson@gmx.net

thanks Jakson

(Last edited by Jakson on 1 Jun 2007, 16:19)

Jep, same thing here.

Would like to have it, too. Mine crashes without a reason..

My program is for the fire fighting robot only, it is not spcacat anymore.
Install buildroot, download the spcacat source and work through it, optionally removing parts you don't need. Make sure you understand everything, do some programming so that it works with two webcams. It is all pretty straightforward and it should work. Good luck!