A handheld mini camera built on an ESP32-S3-CAM live preview on a small SPI TFT screen, a physical shutter button to snap and save full res photos to a microSD card, and 18650 battery power via the board's micro USB input. Basically a tiny standalone digital camera from scratch.
Started SNAPX this week, a handheld camera im building on an ESP32-CAM.
First thing was ordering parts. Got the ESP32-CAM board, a 1.8 inch ST7735 screen, a 12mm metal push button for the shutter, and an 18650 setup for power. While I was waiting on those I spent a while just reading pinout diagrams and working out what connects where, because the camera sensor eats almost every usable pin on this board and there isnt much left over.
Once everything came in I got the camera going first. Streamed it over wifi to my browser just to confirm the sensor actually worked before wiring anything else in. That took way longer than it should have. This board has no USB port and no auto reset circuit, so GPIO0 has to be grounded by hand every single time i upload. I spent a solid while convinced my code wasnt uploading when really it was just booting the old firmware that was already on the chip.
Then I broke it. Because of that upload process I was pulling the camera module in and out over and over, and the ribbon cable eventually gave out. Sensor stopped being detected at all, just threw a probe failed error no matter what I tried. Ordered a replacement board, this time one that comes with a programmer attachment so the camera can stay seated and I never have to touch that ribbon again.
While waiting on that I switched over to the screen and got it working on its own. Nothing fancy, just a test sketch filling it red and printing some text, but it confirmed the wiring and libraries were right before I try combining it with the camera.
Next up is getting the actual camera preview onto that screen.
