Motion Servo Camera

A simple web interface for viewing and controlling a Raspberry Pi camera with servos

Hardware Requirements

1x Raspberry Pi (I'm currently using an old RPi v1B)
1x Raspberry Pi Camera Module: https://www.jaycar.com.au/5mp-camera-for-raspberry-pi/p/XC9020
2x 9G servos: https://www.jaycar.com.au/arduino-compatible-9g-micro-servo-motor/p/YM2758
1x Pan Tilt Camera Bracket: https://www.jaycar.com.au/pan-and-tilt-action-camera-bracket-mount-for-9g-servos/p/XC4618

Software Requirements

Raspbian lite
motion: https://motion-project.github.io/motion_guide.html
nginx
python3
python3-pip

Software Install

Clone repo to correct location on pi

git clone https://github.com/se1exin/servocam.git ~/servocam

cd ~/servocam

Install system dependencies

sudo apt update && sudo apt install motion nginx python3 python3-pip

Enable Raspberry Pi Camera

sudo raspi-config

Go to Interfacing Options > Camera > Yes. Exit out to save and then reboot the pi.

Setup motion

Edit the motion conf file.

sudo nano /etc/motion/motion.conf

Make the following changes to improve framerate, enable remote access, and run on boot:

daemon on
width 640
height 480
framerate 10
locate_motion_mode off
ffmpeg_output_movies off
stream_motion off
stream_maxrate 10
stream_localhost off
webcontrol_port 0

sudo nano /etc/default/motion

Change start_motion_daemon=no to start_motion_daemon=yes

Enable the motion systemd daemon

sudo systemctl enable motion

Make sure permissions are correctly set on the motion log file

sudo chown -R motion: /var/log/motion

Reboot and check camera is available at http://raspberrypi:8081 after the pi has booted.

Install python dependencies

# Run inside this repo/directory

sudo pip3 install -r requirements.txt

Setup Gunicorn

sudo cp gunicorn.service /etc/systemd/system/gunicorn.service
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable gunicorn
sudo systemctl start gunicorn

Setup nginx

sudo mv /etc/nginx/sites-available/default_old
sudo cp nginx-site.conf /etc/nginx/sites-available/default
sudo systemctl enable nginx
sudo systemctl restart nginx

Reboot

Everything should now be installed. Reboot.

sudo reboot

The interface should be available at http://raspberrypi

se1exin/servocam