PAXCAM drivers

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jmp
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PAXCAM drivers

#1 Post by jmp » Mon Mar 22, 2021 8:49 pm

A PAXCAM (model PX-CM) was included as part of some hardware I recently acquired secondhand. As far as I know its an old camera model with a USB 2.0 interface and a sensor of 1M pixel or less, yet its apparently sensible enough to be used in fluorescent microscopy applications, and the reason why I'd like to get it running.

Unfortunately there were no drivers included (no CD) for it. As it turns out drivers are not available on the manufacturer website either, unless you have a service/licensing contract with them. Enquires regarding the cost of such a license have gone unanswered (perhaps the sales rep senses, correctly, that the cost of such a license will be beyond my league). Thus, I wonder if any body here has experience with these cameras and 1) knows of an alternate driver that can be used to control this camera in either Windows 10 or any Linux flavor, 2) has access to the driver and is willing to share it, or 3) has any other insight into how to get this camera going.

MichaelG.
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Re: PAXCAM drivers

#2 Post by MichaelG. » Mon Mar 22, 2021 9:10 pm

Doesn’t look very encouraging:
https://www.paxit.com/resources/technical-support/

MichaelG.

.
Edit: Just found this flyer on the McCrone site:
https://www.mccrone.com/wp-content/uplo ... al_np2.pdf
Last edited by MichaelG. on Mon Mar 22, 2021 9:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Too many 'projects'

jmp
Posts: 74
Joined: Sun Feb 16, 2020 2:07 am
Location: Texas

Re: PAXCAM drivers

#3 Post by jmp » Mon Mar 22, 2021 9:19 pm

MichaelG. wrote:
Mon Mar 22, 2021 9:10 pm
Doesn’t look very encouraging:
https://www.paxit.com/resources/technical-support/
Nope. Been there, chatted with a rep, sales rep never got back to me. That's why I posted here, but everything points towards the camera going the paper weight way.

MichaelG.
Posts: 3971
Joined: Mon Apr 10, 2017 8:24 am
Location: North Wales

Re: PAXCAM drivers

#4 Post by MichaelG. » Mon Mar 22, 2021 9:43 pm

There is one [‘ex-demo’] on ebay UK ... but that’s an expensive way of getting a driver !!
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Paxcam-2-USB ... 4048134753

This summary specification may, just possibly, be of interest :
https://www.photonics.com/ProdSpec.aspx ... pecSheet=1

As you say ... it’s probably destined to be a paper weight. :(

MichaelG.
Too many 'projects'

jmp
Posts: 74
Joined: Sun Feb 16, 2020 2:07 am
Location: Texas

Re: PAXCAM drivers

#5 Post by jmp » Mon Mar 22, 2021 10:01 pm

Thanks for the help MichaelG. I've seen the specs page from photonics.com before, but not that ebay auction. You are right, that auction is a no-go to get a driver. Shame, its the exact same model. Seems the camera has quite a decent resolution 1600x1200 for an oldie. Would be nice to get the TWAIN drivers for it.

Any way, since its going to be a paper weight, I went ahead and opened it. Turns out the electronics board and ICs are made by Lumenera, a producer of sensors and cameras for industry/research. Perhaps that would lead somewhere.

jmp
Posts: 74
Joined: Sun Feb 16, 2020 2:07 am
Location: Texas

Re: PAXCAM drivers

#6 Post by jmp » Wed Mar 31, 2021 2:13 am

Did a bit more digging around. The PAXCAM hardware is really a full Lumenera's LU-200C camera board (full SDK is available for it, neat). The LU-200C board uses a Cypress EZ-USB FX2 microcontroller as the USB bridge, paired up with some I2C EEPROM chip that likely holds a customized firmware version, because the Lumenera drivers are not able to initialize the PAXCAM. I guess there's some obfuscation of the USB interface, to differentiate it from Lumenera's. So close.... now to see if I can capture USB traffic, dump the contents from that EEPROM.

MichaelG.
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Re: PAXCAM drivers

#7 Post by MichaelG. » Wed Mar 31, 2021 7:55 am

.

Keep up the good work !!

MichaelG.
Last edited by MichaelG. on Thu Apr 01, 2021 10:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Too many 'projects'

jmp
Posts: 74
Joined: Sun Feb 16, 2020 2:07 am
Location: Texas

Re: PAXCAM drivers

#8 Post by jmp » Thu Apr 01, 2021 2:06 am

Success! After fiddling with the Lumenera driver code included in the SDK for Linux I was able to get the drivers loaded and the camera recognized by the kernel. Fortunately both, the USB and FPGA firmware, are all loaded by the drivers. The only obstacle to get this going in Windows with the Lumenera drivers were the USB vendor/product ids reported by the camera; can't use the same trick that in Linux because Windows drivers are signed (and I didn't want to disable signature checking). However, the documentation of the EZ-USB FX2 bridge from Cypress states that USB ids are stored in the EEPROM, and the EEPROM content can be modified over the USB link. After replacing the ids with those from the standard LU200C hardware, the camera was recognized by Windows using Lumenera drivers! Now I have a 2MP camera and full control of all parameters using the LuCam capture program included in the SDK, sweet.

Here's a test image from parts of a colony of Nostoc cyanobacteria
nostoc_1024x768.jpg
nostoc_1024x768.jpg (198.62 KiB) Viewed 6233 times

MichaelG.
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Re: PAXCAM drivers

#9 Post by MichaelG. » Thu Apr 01, 2021 10:33 pm

Congratulations !!

MichaelG.
Too many 'projects'

bpepper
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Re: PAXCAM drivers

#10 Post by bpepper » Tue Oct 25, 2022 11:27 pm

Can you say a bit more about the EEPROM settings? I am trying to resurrect another PAXCAM that may not be able to run with a current OS, but I have accidentally overwritten the EEPROM and want to make sure I have the settings correct. You're using it in "C0" EEPROM mode, correct? See section 3.4 here https://www.keil.com/dd/docs/datashts/c ... x2_trm.pdf ...

EEPROM Address Contents
0 0xC0
1 Vendor ID (VID) L
2 Vendor ID (VID) H
3 Product ID (PID) L
4 Product ID (PID) H
5 Device ID (DID) L
6 Device ID (DID) H
7 Configuration byte

So my best guess here is:

C0 24 17 [2 bytes for the specific unit PID] 01 00 08

But I am also suspicious that I have the device ID and configuration byte wrong, so I'd love to check against yours...

jmp
Posts: 74
Joined: Sun Feb 16, 2020 2:07 am
Location: Texas

Re: PAXCAM drivers

#11 Post by jmp » Wed Oct 26, 2022 2:19 am

You are on the right path. Assuming that you have the same model that I have (PX-CM) the bytes from the original EEPROM are:

address|content
0|0xC0
1|0x54
2|0x53
3|0x17
4|0x80
5|0x00
6|0x00
7|0x00

That's vendor_id=0x5354, product_id=0x8017 with device id and configuration bytes all equal to 0x00. Set vendor_id=0x5354 and product_id=0x8097 and the drivers from Lumenera's SDK will identify the camera as a LU200C. As simple as that. Good luck!

jmp
Posts: 74
Joined: Sun Feb 16, 2020 2:07 am
Location: Texas

Re: PAXCAM drivers

#12 Post by jmp » Thu Sep 14, 2023 1:34 am

I recently found out that a PAXCAM, modified as described in previous posts, works with Micro-Manager 2.0 (april version or newer, better yet, latest nightly bluild) using the bundled Lumenera driver adapter. There's a catch though, Lumenera's Infinity analyze (v7.1.1 or later) must also be installed (and added to the PATH environment variable); several of the DLLs installed are required by Micro-Manager's Lumenera driver adapter. Note that Infinity analyze won't work, it complains that the camera is not from their Infinity line of cameras for microscopy (bummer!). Nevertheless, the driver adapter bundled with Micro-Manager appears to support the full range of cameras handled by the LuCam driver and happily recognizes PAXCAMs modified with suitable vendor and product ids.

Posting this in case someone else finds it useful.

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