Quick Start Guide for Multi-Camera Adapter Board

Hardware

Abstract

Arducam offers multi-camera adapters to accommodate up to 4 camera modules on a single Raspberry Pi and switch between them quickly. The HAT-style quadruple adapter fits well with the Raspberry Pi A&B series, and the double adapter is perfect for the Pi Zero. You will read more about it in the following chapters.

Hardware Structure(Example as B012001)

Connect and Insert the Multi-Camera Adapter Board into Raspberry Pi

Connect the cameras to Multi-Camera Adapter Board

Software

Warning

We currently only guarantee that the Camera Adaptation is supported on Raspberry Pi Bullseye and Bookworm OS.

Supported Platforms and OS

Note for Supported Platform and OS
Platform	Bookworm(rpicam/libcamera)	Bullseye(libcamera)	Buster(raspistill)
Raspberry Pi 5	√
Raspberry Pi 4B / 3B+ / 3A+ / Zero / Zero 2 W	√	√
Raspberry Pi CM3 / CM3+ / CM4 (extra adapter board required)	√	√

Update Kernel Version

Note: Please make sure your kernel version is up to date (at least 5.15.63 or later)

How to update the Kernel bersion:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Supported Cameras

The following cameras will need the corresponding driver to be accessed:

Sensor	Resolution
OV5647	5MP
IMX219	8MP
IMX477	12MP
IMX708	12MP
IMX519	16MP
64MP Camera	64MP

Modify the Config.txt

For Quad-Camera Adapter Board(B012001):

sudo nano /boot/config.txt

#add Following content: 
dtoverlay=camera-mux-4port,cam0-<camera sensor name>,cam1-<camera sensor name>,cam2-<camera sensor name>,cam3-<camera sensor name>

#Find the line "camera_auto_detect=1" and modify it: 
camera_auto_detect=0

Note

Please manually add the number of cam according to the number of cameras you have connected.
Example: if you have three IMX219 cameras connected, enter:
dtoverlay=camera-mux-4port,cam0-imx219,cam1-imx219,cam2-imx219

Demo(64mp)

dmesg

For Dual-Camera Adapter Board(B016601):

sudo nano /boot/config.txt

add: 
dtoverlay=camera-mux-2port,cam0-<you camera sensor>,cam1-<you camera sensor>

Note

Please manually add the number of cam according to the number of cameras you have connected.
Example: if you only have one IMX219 cameras connected, enter:
dtoverlay=camera-mux-2port,cam0-imx219

Run the Multi-Camera

Use libcamera apps to access the Multi-Camera

libcamera-still -t 0 --camera <choose camera num>

Example:

Attention

For another libcamera apps like libcamera-raw, libcamera-vide, etc. You will need to manually add --camera <choose camera num> behind the command

Troubleshooting

1. Time-error-occurs-when-using-multi-camera-adapter-board-on-pi5