Can anyone help me with my ELP camera autoexposure problems

[andrew...@gmail.com]

Can anyone help me with my ELP camera autoexposure problems?

"Freeze properties" only seems to work until the camera has a rapid change in brightness.

Then it seems to revert to auto exposure.

I am using the "white corner" hack to allow fiducial homing to work.

The other option I have is setting the camera settling time to 1500mS

[bert shivaan]

I can't say how, but I do know you need auto focus turned off. Is there a checkbox for it or anything?

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[andrew...@gmail.com]

The ELP camera does not have autofocus function and the check box for that is grey.

I changed the USB port the camera was on, and it may have improved from losing the fixed exposure every time "down light" is turned on to about once every three times.

Or that could just be the phase of the moon or how I am holding my tongue at the time.

I asked the hallucinating AI assistant about scripts that might help re-setting fixed exposure but I suspect it is as bad at writing code as I am.

[Mike Menci]

Can we see a picture of your ELP camera with lens ? 

Screen shot of camera adjustment in Open PnP ? 

Dne 19. mar. 2026 ob 11:43 je oseba andrew...@gmail.com <andrew...@gmail.com> zapisala:

The ELP camera does not have autofocus function and the check box for that is grey.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/openpnp/40601dfe-858a-4fa0-a9d5-bbe35a8200d2n%40googlegroups.com.

[andrew...@gmail.com]

Not the actual camera - but one of three I bought at the same time when I first started building my open pnp machine.

This one is my old "bottom" camera before I made the new coaxial lit one.

The text on the PCB says 

"720P HD USB100W03M"

and the other side you can't see says

"2014.3.17   .B"

[Mike Menci]

Show your settings in open PnP under image transform (from your screen shot next pages) 

Do a screen shot 

Poslano iz iPhon-a

Dne 19. mar. 2026 ob 13:04 je oseba andrew...@gmail.com <andrew...@gmail.com> zapisala:



Not the actual camera - but one of three I bought at the same time when I first started building my open pnp machine.

This one is my old "bottom" camera before I made the new coaxial lit one.

The text on the PCB says 

"720P HD USB100W03M"

and the other side you can't see says

"2014.3.17   .B"

<P1040157.jpg>

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/openpnp/699bdd53-df00-4a08-bb6c-172f807c0469n%40googlegroups.com.

<camera_page.jpg>

<P1040157.jpg>

[andrew...@gmail.com]

[andrew...@gmail.com]

I removed "Suspend during tasks" and now it only needs to be reset to "not automatic exposure" once after each homing cycle.

It would be nice if I could get a javascript thing to do that reset for me - but I have no idea how to write that kind of code and every suggestion google AI gives me fails.  I normally code in 8bit ASM - and any time I have to deal with "frameworks" and "interfaces" I just start rocking back and forth quietly sobbing.

Also after having the exposure correct my "residual X/Y scatter plot" has a much tighter circle.  But it does have a definite oval-ness (+/- 40um) which makes me think I have some mechanical issue - maybe camera shake.

My next upgrade after making the next 200+ PCBs is going to be a coaxial down camera - will see if I get an improvement then.

[Fernando Corona]

I can try to write a script for you. 

I never thought about this idea. Thanks for bringing it up to the group. I have a similar issue my ELP camera doesn't seem to stay programmed or something. It reverts back to the default settings sometimes. 

I spent like 3 weeks learning by trial and error and mentored by a programming wiz coworker I have the privilege to work with. He helped me understand the scripting.

As you mentioned AI is utterly useless. Do not even waste your time. 

I have a spare usb camera. I can run tests on. Reviewing the openpnp wiki scripting page. I already found the object names which is the first step in my process. Then the hard part is determining the structure openpnp expects. Then once I get the .getExposure() reporting back to the temrinal working. Then its just .setExposure(int) and repeat for all the other parameters. 

Please give me a situation breakdown and desired parameters you want the script to set every time. 

I will work on my use case of setting my parameters every time. This is exciting I'll make an user input box for my operator to enter in desired values. 

- Fernando

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/openpnp/33d1983b-b60f-4a87-a19d-8f9af96ce87en%40googlegroups.com.

[andrew...@gmail.com]

Hi Fernando, The only setting my camera loses is "Auto Exposure"  All the other setting stay put.

I guess I just want it to reset autoexposure before visual homing.

I am not 100% stupid with programming - if I have something that works I can probably adapt it for my use case.

[vespaman]

Hi Andrew,

I know this does not help you much, but maybe it will give you some ideas.. 

I have a crappy down looking camera that works fine until i restart OpenPnP, then something happens with the exposure. So I have added this line to my openpnp.sh, just after the #!/bin/bash line; 
(sleep 5 && v4l2-ctl -d /dev/video2 -c exposure_time_absolute=50)&

Now, for me, this lasts the full session, but I understand that in your case you have issues also during runs, so maybe you need to find a way to do something similar (without the sleep delay, or a much smaller delay) triggered when you see the issues.

 - Micael

[andrew...@gmail.com]

Micael, Thanks.  After disabling "Suspend during tasks" my ELP camera now only stuffs up the exposure setting on enable/home.

Hopefully Fernando can work out a javascript thing that will help as I am windows ATM not Linux and reading that bash script makes me wonder if I am having a stroke (is that toast I can smell)

WRT this problem - is there a known good camera people recommend these days that "just works"

[andrew...@gmail.com]

Fernando, Did you get any scripting working to help your situation?

On Saturday, March 21, 2026 at 12:01:38 PM UTC+10 Fern528 wrote:

[Fernando Corona]

I did spend about an hour trying. I could get the top camera info to report back to the trace log. I think I found the auto exposure setting object name. When I tried reading the current value or state of the auto exposure object, openpnp would throw an error message. My syntax is wrong probably. 

At work I just trained the operator how to adjust the exposure if it changes on them.

I will give it another try when I'm at work this upcoming week. 

- Fernando

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/openpnp/8c5b450a-89c9-4312-ab35-8c1b0ca837bdn%40googlegroups.com.