Allow sufficient air circulation to keep the temperature during operation below 50 °C. Additional cooling devices aren't normally required, but should be provided, if necessary.
Connector: W2B, 4-pol, 180, JST, 1 mm, SMT JST; BM04B-SRSS-TBT(LF)(SN)
Mating Connector: Select the mating 4-pin connector that fits your requirements from the JST SH (crimp-style) or SR/SZ (IDC-style) connector family.
Do not hot-plug!
Pin #
Function
Notes
1
1.8 VDC
2
Trigger Cam 0
Connected to GPIO 71 (optional: directly to cam 0)
3
Trigger Cam 1
Connected to GPIO 65 (optional: directly to cam 1)
4
Ground
The trigger inputs can be used to directly trigger the camera.
By default, the connector is not connected to the trigger, but a GPIO can be used.
It can either be completely software driven via the GPIO towards the camera, or the software can handle an incoming GPIO signal and use it to trigger.
The below image shows the basic trigger options available in hardware. Further options (e.g. cam-sync, sync-out) are prepared on the board and available depending on the camera.
The image below shows the resistor placement around the trigger connector:
The below image shows the resistor placement at the BCON for MIPI camera connector:
Basler highly recommends using opto-couplers to isolate the trigger generator from the board. Therefore, the board provides 1.8 VDC and GND on the connector.
The power supply here is only for the secondary side of opto-couplers. Don't connect any other load here.
The MIPI specification allows cable lengtht up to 300 mm. Since some length is already used on the board and on the camera we recommend the BCON for MIPI cable up to a length of 200 mm.
IF you require longer connections this might work in your specific environment. We recommend to connect the longer connection to "CAM1" since it has shorter signal lines on the PCB.
1 single color LED: Indicates 5 VDC (first voltage, only on board)
1 single color LED: Indicates PowerOn green (connect to 3.3 VDC from the SoM)
1 dual color LED: Configurable 2-color status LED (red/green) by GPIO The LED is positioned so that it can be connected with, e.g., a front plate using light fiber or light plastic.
NOTICE – Supplying power before the hardware installation is completed can damage camera and board components.
Only connect the power supply to the mains socket when the hardware installation of all embedded vision system components is completed.
To install and connect the components provided in this kit:
Insert the microSD card into the SD card slot on the bottom side of the board.
Connect the camera(s) with the 0.2 m FFC cable to the board. To do so:
Open the black locking bar on the FFC connector.
Push the end of the cable firmly into the FFC connector with the blue color facing away from the camera. See image below.
Re-lock the connector by pushing the locking bar back into its original position.
Connect the other end of the 0.2 m FFC cable to the connector on the board. Make sure that the blue part of the cable faces up from the board.
Connect network, display, and input devices to the board.
Connect the power supply to the board.
Info
The device uses DHCP by default to retrieve an IP connection.
The device identifies itself by the hostname imx8mp-visionbox. In a properly set up network, it should be possible to connect to the device, e.g., using ssh root@imx8mp-visionbox.local.
Configure Device Tree for BCON for MIPI Camera Access#
On first start of the device or when a new root file system is flashed, you have to configure the device tree. Otherwise, no MIPI camera will show up in the pylon Viewer.
The board can be used with a variety of cameras. For the MIPI cameras, two basic modes are available:
Via ISP of the NXP i.MX8, e.g., for daA3840-30mc camera modules
Via ISI of the NXP i.MX8, e.g., for daA2500-60mci or daA4200-30mci camera modules
To configure the device tree:
Open the Tools menu and select the Device Tree Setup tool.
For default settings, leave all entries set to Auto.
Enable the required entries:
Select ISI0 for a single camera of type daA2500-60mci, daA4200-30mci.
Select ISI1 for a second camera of type daA2500-60mci, daA4200-30mci.
Select ISP0 for a single camera of type daA3840-30mc with resolution up to 4K.
Select ISP0_ISP1 for two cameras of type daA3840-30mc with resolution up to Full HD.
For other options or cameras, contact Basler support.
Save the settings and wait for the restart. After the restart, the cameras will appear in the pylon Viewer.
ISI0 and ISP0 refer to the BCON for MIPI connector marked "CAM 1".
ISI1 and ISP1 refer to the BCON for MIPI connector marked "CAM 2".
When selecting the ISP0_ISP1 option, the cameras will deliver a Full HD image. You will be able to configure the camera in pylon Viewer for up to 4K resolution, but images will be upscaled.
For 4K operation, select the single camera ISP0 option. The NXP i.MX8 M Plus does not support 4K for dual cam with the ISP.
Click the Continuous Shot icon to start image acquisition.
For more information about the Basler pylon Software Suite and on how to develop your vision applications using the SDK, visit the Basler pylon website.
For USB cameras, additional settings in Linux are required. Check the documentation of the respective camera.
Follow the proposed BitBake commands. For the image build, you can choose between the following options:
Small image: bitbake visionbox-fsl-image-gui
Larger image with much more software preinstalled: bitbake visionbox-imx-image-full
Larger image with much more software preinstalled: bitbake visionbox-imx-image-multimedia
(Basler only: image for development) bitbake visionbox-image-dev
The build process starts. It may take from an hour up to more than a day, depending on your system.
Info
The build process accesses multiple external servers. If one of the servers isn't accessible or Yocto dependencies cause errors, the build stops after a while and Yocto reports an error, e.g., that it couldn't fetch ("do_fetch") a resource.
In this case, repeat the previous BitBake command and the build process will continue.
Basler highly recommends setting up a build server for fast development iterations.
When the build process is finished, follow the instructions below to flash the image either to an eMMC or a microSD card.
Change to the deploy/images/imx8mp-visionbox directory.
Connect the boot jumper and the USB-C cable.
Remove the microSD card.
Power on the target and enter the following command: ./uuu -b emmc_all imx-boot-imx8mp-var-dart-sd.bin-flash_evk visionbox-image-dev-imx8mp-var-dart.wic.bz2 Depending on your build environment, you might have to move the image file to a different location. Note that the above mentioned *.wic.bz2 file is just a link pointing to the image with date code extension within the same directory.
Change to the deploy/images/imx8mp-visionbox directory.
Connect the boot jumper.
Enter the following command: bzip2 -d visionbox-image-imx8mp-var-dart.wic.bz2 | dd of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=1M && sync Optionally, the "Balena Etcher" tool can be used to write the *.wic.bz2 image. Depending on your build environment, you might have to move the image file to a different location. Note that the above mentioned *.wic.bz2 file is just a link pointing to the image with date code extension within the same directory.
At normal operation, the LEDs indicate the system status as follows:
The first green LED lights up on connection of power supply.
The second green LED lights up on internal "power good" signal.
The red LED lights up during boot operation.
If the first green LED does not appear: Check the power supply (12 VDC).
If the second green LED does not appear: Check that the SoM is properly installed. If you must remount the SoM, unplug the power supply first.
If the red LED does not appear: Check that the boot jumper is set if booting from microSD card and unset when not booting from microSD card. Also, when booting from microSD card, check that the SD card is installed properly.