Adafruit
OV5640 Camera Breakout with 120° Low-Distortion Lens
· MPN: ADA5839
This breakout makes it much easier to add a higher-resolution camera to capable microcontroller projects. It uses the OV5640 image sensor with a 5 Megapixel ...
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This breakout makes it much easier to add a higher-resolution camera to capable microcontroller projects. It uses the OV5640 image sensor with a 5 Megapixel sensor element and a 120-degree wide-angle lens designed for minimal fish-eye distortion, making it a good fit for machine vision, snapshot capture and other embedded imaging jobs.
It is designed for hobby-level platforms that can handle an 8-bit camera data bus, such as the RP2040 and ESP32-Sx family. The board includes the support circuitry needed for interfacing, and Adafruit has updated the layout to make prototyping friendlier on breadboard and perfboard while keeping the module backwards compatible with existing camera setups.
There are also a few practical hardware touches for real-world use: selectable internal or external 24MHz XCLK generation, improved thermal handling around the camera area, an optional VMotor power jumper for auto-focusing camera modules, and a 3.3V power-good LED on the back that can be disabled if needed.
Features:
- Dual header layout: Standard 2x9 header if you want it, but also a duplicated header strip 0.3" apart so you can plug it into a breadboard or perfboard
- Selectable clock source: Selectable external or internal 24MHz "XCLK" clock generation - save one gpio pin, or just have a nice stable 24 MHz signal even if your microcontroller can't generate it for you
- Thermal design: Heat-sinking camera area with exposed ground pad, with lots of vias for good thermal transfer
- Reduced thermal drift: Helpful for when doing continuous encoding and reducing thermal image drift
- VMotor jumper: Optional VMotor 3.3V power jumper on DATA1, for auto-focusing camera modules
- Power LED: 3.3V power-good LED on back that can be disabled
Specifications:
- Product Dimensions: 35.7mm x 23.0mm x 17.5mm / 1.4" x 0.9" x 0.7"
A handy option for embedded vision projects where a full computer or FPGA would be overkill, especially when paired with newer microcontrollers that support camera capture and frame buffering.
Jargon buster
Plain-language definitions for the technical terms used above.
- breakout
- A breakout board carries a small or fine-pitched component and brings its connections out to standard, breadboard- and header-friendly pins. Describing a part as a breakout means it can be wired into a project without soldering directly to the component's tiny contacts.
- ESP32
- ESP32 is a family of low-cost microcontroller chips and modules from Espressif with built-in WiFi and Bluetooth. They support programmable firmware and over-the-air updates, and are commonly programmed with toolchains such as the Arduino core and ESP-IDF.
- GPIO
- General-purpose input/output pins are microcontroller pins you can set in software to read signals, switch devices on and off, or connect to peripherals. The number of GPIO pins matters because it limits how many buttons, LEDs, sensors, and other parts you can wire directly to the board.
- LED
- A light-emitting diode (LED) is a small electronic component that emits light when current flows through it in the correct direction. Because it only conducts one way, its polarity matters, and a through-hole LED must be soldered the correct way around to light up.
- microcontroller
- A microcontroller is a small computer on a single chip that runs a stored program and controls connected inputs and outputs such as buttons, sensors, displays and communication interfaces. In a device built around one, it is the part that executes the code and coordinates the device's behaviour.
- OV5640
- A specific camera sensor chip that captures still images or video data for a microcontroller or processor. The exact sensor matters because code examples, wiring, resolution, autofocus support and data format depend on the chip model.
- RP2040
- The RP2040 is a dual-core Arm Cortex-M0+ microcontroller chip from Raspberry Pi, used on many maker boards and offering programmable I/O, multiple GPIO pins and reasonable processing speed. Code and accessories built for that chip should work where RP2040 compatibility is listed, though demanding tasks such as reading a camera can require careful pin allocation and timing.
- XCLK
- An external clock signal supplied to some camera sensors so their internal timing stays stable. It matters because your microcontroller or the camera board must provide the right clock for the sensor to output image data reliably.
OV5640 Datasheet
Datasheet · 1.7 MB · Click any page to view full size
OV5640 Camera Module Dimensional Drawing
Mechanical Drawings · 814.9 KB · Click any page to view full size
Supplier page — adafruit.com
Supplier Description · 1.2 MB · Click any page to view full size
