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Multi-camera setup project.

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Offline Hardware_Hacker

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Re: Multi-camera setup project.
« Reply #420 on: 05 / February / 2017, 19:24:22 »
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Quote from: mphx on 04 / February / 2017, 08:37:58
We are facing a rather stupid problem lately.
Sometimes cameras are disconnected during photo shooting , most of the times because some cable is moved and lost connection to the camera.
Lately we have noticed that some cameras when they lost connection ..they turn off by themselves for some strange/unknown reason.

My question is , is there ..... a way , to "report" the number of connected cameras.
...

Thanks in advance.
If you are using windows.
Try using the latest version of Nirsoft's USB Device Viewer and USB Log Viewer.
Also try using the latest version of Uwe Sieber's USB Tree Viewer.

My guess this is something related to post's that I have, very unsuccessfully, posted about else were.

Windows has a way of driver ranking. i.e. "Windows has determined that .....",  "Windows ... Re-Format... SD-Card" etc.
So it may be that windows "Trusted Platform" management modules are the source of this problem.

Another issue might be that effectively you are continuously plugging and un-plugging the Cameras SD-Cards.
So problems such as SD-Card wear leveling might also be a cause, after a year or more of use.
What SD-Card type's are you using.

H-H

Edit #1 Some examples  are now attached

Edit #1a There was a recent CHDK post regarding the use of mix of USB-3 and USB-2 Hubs
               that suggested that this approach had some advantages.

General Ref #1a:- Electronic Design 2013-03-12 D.W. Johnson, Renasas "Whats The Difference Between USB-2 & USB-3 Hubs"

Continued, see H-H post 422
« Last Edit: 06 / February / 2017, 18:49:53 by Hardware_Hacker »
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Offline mphx

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Re: Multi-camera setup project.
« Reply #421 on: 05 / February / 2017, 21:03:37 »
@H-H


I don't think windows are involved in all this.Cameras tend to turn off since day one.
I had noticed that when running chdkptp and connect all cameras , if i issued an "exit" command , meaning disconnecting and stop running camera-side script,
then a random number of cameras would turn off.
So i never use "exit" in chdkptp.And i had never problems with cameras turning off.
Maybe its a chdk-firmware bug or problem.I don't know.
Lately (and by lately i mean last months) i upgraded chdk on cameras and after that upgrade i started having random turn offs.
So i always have to keep an eye for turned off cameras now.
Last shooting we had like 20 cameras off and we didn't notice a thing..we were busy with the customers.Thank god we were able to produce a 3d model out of the remaining working cameras.


Thing is that if a camera loses connection during shooting , we can see it.There is an error popup and we just know that some camera lost connection.
So we just re-connect everything and we continue...but if one or more cameras turn off RIGHT BEFORE the re-connect command..there would be no error..only less cameras connecting...
If we don't see it that moment for various reasons (we didnt pay attention on the console output in chdkptp , or/and the camera that is turned off is in the "back" of the rig) , then we just operate with less cameras and we dont know it :)


Thats why i want a command in chdkptp so i can check during shootings how many cameras are connected...anything lower than 64 means something is going on.


I will test tomorrow the commands of reyalp/andrew and see if they work the way i am guessing they work.


As far as sd cards are concerned..they never leave the camera slot.There is no reason.Downloading of images is done through chdkptp , and future chdk upgrade , through chdkptp again.
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Offline Hardware_Hacker

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Re: Multi-camera setup project.
« Reply #422 on: 05 / February / 2017, 21:37:32 »
Continued from H-H post 420

Edit #2 some examples  are now attached

"....but if one or more cameras turn off RIGHT BEFORE the re-connect command..there would be no error..only less cameras connecting..."

USB Device View has several options  that may be useful for additional USB Monitoring:-

a/ Display a Tray Balloon when a USB Device is Disconnected.
b/ Execute the following command when you unplug a USB device. (In Advanced Options.)
    "You can use the following variables in the command string:- "...................."

"...As far as sd cards are concerned..they never leave the camera slot..."

The SD-Cards have limited number of "Guaranteed" Read-Write cycles.
This is why wear leveling is used on the SD-Cards.
So may be there approaching "Old Age".

Originally you had  some problems with the USB-2 Hubs, Edit #1a in post #420 might be of some interest.

H-H
« Last Edit: 05 / February / 2017, 23:06:50 by Hardware_Hacker »
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Offline waterwingz

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Re: Multi-camera setup project.
« Reply #423 on: 05 / February / 2017, 23:01:43 »
Quote from: Hardware_Hacker on 05 / February / 2017, 21:37:32
The SD-Cards have limited number of "Guaranteed" Read-Write cycles. This is why wear leveling is used on the SD-Cards. So may be there approaching "Old Age".
Very unlikely.  All modern SD cards can stand 100,000 Program/Erase Cycles per memory cell and many can do 10x that. With wear leveling enabled and a small 4G card, if you were to shoot a 4MB picture every minute in an eight hour day,  it would take you about 136 years to hit that limit

  • 1000 picture/card ( 4G per card / 4M per photo = 1000 )
  • 1000 pictures @ 1 minute/picture and an 8 hour day takes just over two days to fill a card. ( 1000 * 1 ) / ( 60 * 8 )
  • It would thus take 136 years to hit the minimum life time ( 100K cycle / 2 days per fill = 50K days = 136 years )

Even if we pretend I'm off by a factor of 10x,  that's still 13.6 years of shooting.
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Offline reyalp

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Re: Multi-camera setup project.
« Reply #424 on: 06 / February / 2017, 00:31:11 »
Quote from: mphx on 05 / February / 2017, 21:03:37
I don't think windows are involved in all this.Cameras tend to turn off since day one.
I had noticed that when running chdkptp and connect all cameras , if i issued an "exit" command , meaning disconnecting and stop running camera-side script,
then a random number of cameras would turn off.
This may or may not be your problem, but make sure "disable display off" is set in your CHDK settings. For your situation, "always" is probably the best choice. You can use multicam call and set_config_value to set it on all cameras.

Background:
When the screen goes off for power saving, you can still wake the camera up with a  key press sent through chdkptp, but if it's not woken up in a certain time it will shut down completely.
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Offline andrew.stephens.754365

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Re: Multi-camera setup project.
« Reply #425 on: 06 / February / 2017, 03:53:10 »
Quote from: Hardware_Hacker on 05 / February / 2017, 21:37:32
USB Device View has several options  that may be useful for additional USB Monitoring:-

a/ Display a Tray Balloon when a USB Device is Disconnected.
b/ Execute the following command when you unplug a USB device. (In Advanced Options.)
    "You can use the following variables in the command string:- "...................."


I just read that USBDeview has "all kinds of snazzy, user-callable command line capabilities as well as the basic GUI"  - hadn't realised that...potentially useful for further (e.g. AutoIt) automatic analysis.

Thanks.
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Offline andrew.stephens.754365

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Re: Multi-camera setup project.
« Reply #426 on: 06 / February / 2017, 04:22:48 »
Quote from: waterwingz on 05 / February / 2017, 23:01:43
All modern SD cards can stand 100,000 Program/Erase Cycles per memory cell

Interesting - I have very little idea about how SD works.

If shoot/download/delete were used could the same cell/s (theoretically, at least) just be subject to the cycle?

If one cell becomes defunct is another simply used (i.e. does the card gradually wear out)?
Edit:
SD cards are designed to mask initial manufacturing bad blocks and those which appear with use. As blocks wearout spare blocks are transparently substituted. The SD's built-in controller uses error correction to prevent the errors from corrupting data as they occur (on cheaper cards the error correction may not be as good).
Wear levelling  - writes are spread across all cells, not just always using the same area over and over.
« Last Edit: 07 / February / 2017, 12:07:52 by andrew.stephens.754365 »
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Offline mphx

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Re: Multi-camera setup project.
« Reply #427 on: 06 / February / 2017, 04:24:39 »
Quote
This may or may not be your problem, but make sure "disable display off" is set in your CHDK settings. For your situation, "always" is probably the best choice. You can use multicam call and set_config_value to set it on all cameras.

Background:
When the screen goes off for power saving, you can still wake the camera up with a  key press sent through chdkptp, but if it's not woken up in a certain time it will shut down completely.

Last time i was "playing" with cameras was when i was trying to find out why cameras don't shoot fast enough in a 2-shot scenario.i believe you remember that.
At that point , i manually set the EXACT SAME settings in canon menu and chdk menu on each one of the cameras so there would be nothing to affect shooting times and cameras would have different shooting times.Took me like an hour to do it.
So i am pretty sure (99.9999%) that i set disable display off to every camera.
But for the sake of conversation , lets say that , this is the case.I can't accept that i left this setting on  to like 20-25 cameras....out of 64...because there were like 20-25 cameras turned off in the last shooting.
After all , there were times that we had two shootings few hours apart in the past and we left the cameras turned on and they stay on and connected for hours....

Anyways i am satisfied with a command that will show me the connected devices so i can check them during shooting..i will test the command later today...

@all

Get over the thing with sd cards wear level.We operate studio maximum 2 years now..and obviously we are not taking photos every day.
So cameras should have taken like 1000 photos maximum during these 2 years..and the number could be easily less than 1000...
I dont think sd cards hit their maximum life span yet...
I have sd cards older than the ones in the cameras , from some pdas i had bought years ago and they still operate in peak perfomance...
« Last Edit: 06 / February / 2017, 04:26:17 by mphx »
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Offline mphx

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Re: Multi-camera setup project.
« Reply #428 on: 06 / February / 2017, 08:45:29 »
@reyalp @andrew

I've tested the commands and here is what i noticed.

Code: [Select]
function mc:which_cams_are_not_connected()
 for lcon in mc:icams() do
  if not lcon:is_connected() then
  printf('%s not connected\n',lcon.mc_id)
 end
end
1.First of all it is one "end" missing.Otherwise it produces an error.3x "ends" are required.
2.It doesnt work the way i'd like it to work.

Example :
I power on 2 cameras , lets say id 101 , 102.
The  "command" doesn't produce any result.If i turn off lets say camera id 102 , the "command" reports that camera with id 102 is not connected.
I don't need that. I would know that one camera (of the two connected , and i don't really care which one) is disconnected the moment i will issue the next command in chdkptp (preview mode , rec mode , set focus/zoom , preshoot , shoot , whatever).
An error popup will be displayed.

What i need from the "command" is to report which ids are not connected at all by reading the file with the serial/ids of all cameras and comparing them with the connected ids/cameras.
If i accidentally don't turn on the cameras of 2 poles  , with this "command" i will never know it.Since this command is checking only the connected cameras and if someone of them will be disconnected after the initial connection.

But i need the command to tell me that ids with number bla bla bla bla bla are not connected , or even the count number of them is equally helpful. For example "20 ids/cameras are not connected"
Probably at some point must read the file with the ids and do some more calculations...
« Last Edit: 06 / February / 2017, 08:49:04 by mphx »
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Offline andrew.stephens.754365

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Re: Multi-camera setup project.
« Reply #429 on: 06 / February / 2017, 13:45:32 »
Quote from: mphx on 06 / February / 2017, 08:45:29
Probably at some point must read the file with the ids and do some more calculations...

Not currently near a chdkptp computer - perhaps something like this:

Code: [Select]
function mc:which_cams_are_not_connected()
 for lcon in mc:icams() do
   if not lcon:is_connected() then
      printf('%s NOT connected\n',lcon.mc_id)
   else
      printf('%s connected\n',lcon.mc_id)
   end
  end
end
?
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