Camera Trigger

I was in need of a device that would allow me to trigger a camera with an esp32/arduino.

Not wanting to buy a costly already made device, i decided to build my own (with what i have lean around), cheaper and more compact that commercial one.

You'll need :

A soldering iron

Tin for soldering (not lead, don't destroy your lungs for nothing)

An opto-coupler

Couple of resistors

Some wire

A 2.5mm jack

Optional :

Perf board or any way to make a PCB

Two screw terminal

The following schematic is for Lumix camera, but it should work with most, if not any other camera with an external trigger port.

The 330 Ohm resistor is for a esp32 which uses 3.3V, in case of an arduino (5v) it is best to calculate a new value for R1 to be sure not to frie your opto-coupler (330 Ohm should be fine to but it is best pratice to double check). The calculations arethe same as for a standard LED.

When no signal is send to the opto-coupler, the camera will "see" a resistor close to 36k Ohm, which alow it to detect the external trigger.

Once a signal is on, the opto-coupler "short-circuit" the 36k Ohm resistor with a 2.2K Ohm resistor, das dropping the value of the resistor the camera see.

When the camera detect the drop of resistance, it take a picture.

Since i have acces the tools needed to make my own PCBs I decided to make one.

I needed my PCB to be fairly small, so my board will be about 30mm long by 10mm wide.

I also decided to put two screw terminal, that way i avoid having to solder any wire to the board and make it easier if i need to replace those said wires

To use the trigger, all you need to do is connect the input between GND and a 3.3V source or a pin from your micro-controller.

The output of the trigger need to be connected to the two top ring of a 2.5mm jack.

Now every time a 3.3v signal is send to the trigger board t he camera will take a picture !