Hey! I can be casual here on the Extra channel so expect plenty of smaller videos on here :)

Watch out for webcam modules that are powered by 3.3V as they fry when connected to the 5V from a USB-port. Some have it marked on the rear of the PCB as 3V3 next to one of the wires. A little VRM to regulate the voltage to 3.3V is enough to get those working. No need to also convert the data signal.

If you can't get it to work there may be an additional step that you need to take. Most webcams run at 3.3V but USB provides 5V. Some will be fine with this but others (like mine which was pulled from a Dell Inspiron) will shut themselves off as soon as you try to pull video from them. A quick and dirty way of stepping the voltage down is to stick two diodes in between between the 5V line of the USB cable and the power wire on the camera instead of soldering them directly together. The cathode end of the diodes (the stripe that's on the diode casing) should point towards the camera end. i.e: USB cable 5V Line ---> Diode (stripe this side) ---> Diode (stripe this side) ---> Power wire on the webcam. I used 1N4001 diodes since I had them for another project and are designed to carry up to 1A of current. If that doesn't make any sense, you can find a diagram by googling for "hackaday 110436". That will bring up a project that explains it further. Thanks for the great video!

Congrats on launching the 2nd channel Matt, Good luck with it all!

Two DIY perk videos in one day, 2020 is a good year after all

The concept of this second channel to go more in depth on the tutorials is genius! Thank you so much for the great content, you have an amazing way of explaining things!

This channel will really be helpful for understanding more how you build certain DIY things 🤠

Thank you very much Matt. I enjoy watching many of your projects for entertainment but I actually came back for this one because I authentically needed it. It worked very well so far!

Thank-you, that was exactly what I wanted to know. No messing about, just, "Here's what you need and here's what to do". Most appreciated.

I love your tutorials! Your recycling of tech combined with your style is a win every time! With this vid I was able to hack a Brookstone Rover 2.0 camera to USB in under 15 minutes. Thank you!

bro this guy is like the definition of big brain. it is so cool to see people bothering to make educational video to enjoy :) good on you

Awesome project....can't wait to see all the extra content on this channel

Really top notch "videography", "post editing" and image "quality". This isn't your dad's B-roll. Good Job. 1500 points awarded. Cheers

It works everybody! I tried this with my old zee pc and it worked nicely, planning to make them into cameras to us around the house. Thanks bro and keep up the awesome work!.

The real joy I felt when it worked on the first try! Thanks!

I've been researching this as cameras are so hard to find, and I've compiled some tips: -- It seems like there's a strong convention for wiring: 4 wires carry USB connection for the camera, and 2 separate wires carry data for the microphone (not USB protocol). -- The 4 USB wires generally go to a motherboard connection labelled "camera" whereas the 2 microphone wires go to a different connection entirely so you probably won't get audio over USB. -- Audio is generally PDM digital audio or sometimes analog. The condenser mic gets power from the same power line as the camera. -- The camera is generally receiving 3.3V from the motherboard, so consider dropping your USB 5V supply with some diodes in series. -- Very high end devices like Apple MacBooks and Microsoft Surface computers are using a single PCIe lane for their camera modules, instead of USB. This will be less convenient to wire up to an external plug, but not impossible! -- The webcam controller chips used (which interface the physical camera sensor to a USB protocol) often have inputs for audio. These are sadly not used on most modules, and the pins are hidden under the chip so can't be accessed :( I would love to see someone hack this into working so we can have a full video+audio solution.

This is actually a great tip, along with the other old laptop repurposing ones. I'll definitely try some things out with my old Lenovo I haven't been using for some years

Thanks for your hints, Matt. I just dared to remove the HD camara board out of an old ASUS, finding 7 pins at the connector and totally covered components. Identified GND cable (which was connected at pin 1), took twisted cables (going to 2 and 3) as D+ & D- and connected 4 to 5V. Still works fine.

I would really like a video on how to make a lavalier mic from an old laptop in detail! Love your videos! Greetings from Chile.

Very happy there’s another channel with your content!

Tried this with a webcam that had 6 wires, identified the supply wires using the pins from an eeprom that was on the board, got the data wires from the 2 twisted wires, didn't worked, swapped the data wires, didn't worked again, got another broken laptop, this time the camera had 5 wires, identified everything again and soldered to an usb cable, worked on the first try. Thank You.

Hey, Matt. First, thank you for making this channel where people like me can gather some knowledge on how to use electronic gadgets once they get old or of no use. Good luck with future videos... :)

Hoping to learn wiring stuffs with USB , voltage regulators etc you do on your diy videos . Looking forward to more contents :)

thanks my friend, second DIY using old notebook parts (first it was its screen, now this USB camera), it was indeed tricky to find positive source. it works really fine

2 x DIY Perks. 2 x the projects I promise myself I will try but procrastinate on at a professional level. Good luck with the 2nd channel Matt!!

Thank you very much for this tip. I have many scrap laptops so I stripped the camera out and wired it to a chopped up USB cable. Worked first time!! 😃

This would be great for a car garage or possibly even as a super stealth dash cam! Love your videos!!

I would love to see a guide like this but with laptop's speakers. Nice video

Yes, I have a feeling I'm gonna love this channel. Could you please explain the wiring of the preamp on the diy microphone from the old, dead laptops video? :D

Congratulations on your new channel dude/mate/fellow!

Thank You so much, Matt! I am fixing a non functioning microscope for a coworker. It is a VGA type, with a board that has a 5v power input. I can now determine if the camera is working with what you showed. If the VGA board is the culprit, I just make it USB! Thanks again. Subbed!

Great video Matt! I think I am going to do this. I like your security system idea.

I am astonished! Please, could you make a video and talk about how you come up with your ideas, what skills you previously learned and how you got to being such an innovative and creative person. I myself want to have a workbench and general crafting room in my next flat, but am a little concerned that to achieve cool stuff like you did, it requires a lot more then just effort and time. ^^

Thanks Matt you're the man! I like your videos. Keep up the good work

As it happens, I just made one of these today! One of the things I ran into is that my particular camera had a shielding and it would not work on an un-shielded cable, it showed up OK, but I just got a black screen, to get around that I found a cable with shielding and soldered the camera shielding to the cable shielding and it worked great! In my case the camera came out of a Lenovo G505 and the wires were very, very small, 30awg if I'm not mistaken, and while soldering them was difficult, it was definitely not impossible. To insulate the tiny connections, I decided to use New Skin liquid bandage, since I lacked any liquid electrical tape or any heat shrink in those tiny sizes, and it worked great! Thanks for sharing this!

Hi Matt, greetings from China. I've been following your channel since your sun blaster video and enjoyed your channel a lot! Here is something I would like to see from your new channel: over the years, I've used a lot of cellphones, from Symbian to IOS/Android, i haven't thrown away any of them. I think I'm not the only one. Now, how about make a video teaching us how the convert cameras, microphones or even capacitive displays from more recent phones into something useful? I believe that would make a interesting as well as a challenging video which can be interested by lots of people. Moreover, recycled parts is good for keep the enviroment, isn't it? Anyway, hope your new channel goes well and keep uploading the fun videos! Sincerely.

one of the best DIY channel on YT. Good wokrs

Love your videos, and second source of them is a great idea.

Great video, very cool, I got one going to play around with (-: The camera that I had, from a hp probook 450 G3, had 9 wires going into a 10 pin plug, where the wires were all labeled on the back of the camera pcb. Turns out in order for it to work I needed to wire both the 3V and 5V pins.

Just found your channel, you just earned a subscriber mate.

Hello there. Just wanted to say thank you. I successfully managed to do this with your guidance and the video quality is great! Thanks again

Most webcams are not 5V, but normal webcams have built-in regulators. But laptop webcams can get around not having a regulator to save space and cost, as the laptop motherboard will already have plenty of regulators with many different rails. You will mostly find 5v webcams only on very old laptops, the easier way is wiring a linear positive adjustable regulator, or even easier just put a couple diodes in series.

Very cool thanks! I need a webcam for my dev/ desktop and have a dead laptop I couldn't reycle yet or even drop off at goodwill so should be set. Great channels & videos.

Many laptop cameras require a 3.3V power, not a 5V available on USB, so you have to add a voltage regulator.

Thanks for making this video. I've been wanting to add a camera to my telescope for quite some time now and have not been able to do so not knowing how to go about it. Now I don't have to strain my neck trying to look through the eyepiece of the telescope and am even able to take picture of our wonderful solar system. By the way! could you do a video on how to use cellphone cameras as they have the ability to zoom in on objects. That would be a great addition to an already great idea.

I dismantled a 10 yrs old Lenovo laptop and took out its camera, used some old USB cable and its actually worked REALLY GOOD! it was very funny to see the HP laptop recognizes the new Lenovo WebCam :) GREAT VIDEO! thanks alot :)

this absolutely works !! I now have a working usb webcam for my pc . Good tip .

Good Luck mate you are my favorite You-tuber from long time ago wish you the best :)

I left a comment on your main channel, but i will post more or less the same thing here because it needs to be heard. I wanted to thank you again for making an extra effort recently for those of us who want to make some of your builds. Sometimes it can be hard to find information/ know how pertaining to the things you are showing us, but its videos like these that make it all possible. So thank you very much. (PS: It would sweet if you could make a follow up video for the DIY monitor video)

Great tutorial, took me 10 mins to do! I love it!

I really appreciate your projects. Good Luck Matt!

Took the Link and Subbed. I need a simple Camera On/Off indicator lamp rather than unplugging the USB when I don't want the camera in use without my knowledge.

Hey, love the new channel! Would you do a similar video but on laptop mics rather than webcams?

Thank you Matt, great video! i'm really digging the second channel and i hope you will post here more videos as this one. I have a question, modificate RCA cable is not that hard, but is there a way to make a RCA to HDMI cable? the HDMI layout is way complicated and i'm wondering if there's a way to cut and modificate HDMI cables. Also, can you make a video about DIY wireless charging connector? i mean threre are the cheap adaptors you can buy on ebay or so but they usually suck, so i wonder if there's a way to make a wireless charging option to phones that doesn't have a wireless charging option.

Love you DIY Perks !

Absolutely amazing advice

Really appreciate this little hack. Thanks a lot for turorial!

Just made one for myself. This video was great. The laptop I took apart was so nice, in terms of repairabililty, everything was marked out like someone was gonna open it and have a look, very nice experience. Also the webcam had the pin-outs clearly labelled which made the job so much easier. I wish right to repair passes world wide and we can go to being able to repair all electronics ourselves. And enjoy doing it. Quality is pretty bad tho lmaooooo. I mean, it's from a 14 year old laptop so I didn't expect much. Video was very nice. Thx

Loving the new channel mate. Cool beard too, suits you!

You are good at what you do and I love to watch all your videos. I brag on you and tell people to watch and subscribe! One thing: you are all about frugality and inexpensive ways to accomplish fun projects and heat shrink tubing is inexpensive and easily obtained and used. That, is frugal. Electrician's tape is simply cheap, and after time is just a sticky mess! Keep up the good work! I look forward to the next installment!

Just done that right now(Camera: Lenovo Integrated Webcam [R5U877]) - in my case I think I was lucky :) the cables were black (obvious choice) for ground purple (reddish color) for Vcc and I had twisted pair of green and bluish - that made it easy for me to connect green to green and bluish to white and Everything works - recognized right away and streaming. thanks Matt.

I never knew you had another channel! Subbed!

This is AWESOME Matt, I wish I could subscribe a million times

I just did one. Works perfectly! Thanks for the hint!

Watched the video, had no broken laptop lying around. Fast forward at least a year I think and I do have one- I am bored and remember the video. Made my own webcam within half an hour and my long ditance girlfriend is very thankful XD thanks mate definetly a video worth watching more then once!

This is absolutely amazing video

Hello nice video. I can see that you are using very often electrical tapes to insulate the wires. While it is working fine, for long term it is better to use heat shrink tubes. They are cheap and will last long term much better ;)

Awesome idea. Better then spending on webcams. We often use webcams. Looks portable and comfortable.

Done and done, thanks this worked great

Thanks a lot for this, Manged to upgrade my 3D printer with this method so i can remotely monitor prints. And all i needed was an old USB cable and Dead laptop i had lying around. Fun 10 min project after discovering my 3D printer Firmware supports Webcams.

In germany we call you Ehrenmann. Really big thanks, thats a cool thing to make, i am really happy how my 12 year old webcam looks, really nice quality :)

I'm so happy I saved my old laptops for parts haha

Hi Matt! Great work, as always! I would really love to see some ideas on re-/upcycling old tablets and their components, as I have a couple of them and I'm sure that cool stuff could be made from them - any ideas?

THIS IS AWESOME! Is there any way to transmit and receive the visuals wirelessly? would be a huge for my project! :D

Insta subbed my dude! great content!

Did this a couple years ago all by myself. Felt smart. Feel dumb now after seeing how it can be done. Well well... it still works. Edit: “data wires are twisted” twisted... I took the broken PC, put the wires back together and then measured the voltage in data 1 and 2 and just got lucky with connecting them.

I have already done this.... and I found out that *some USB cables have red for (-) and black for (+).* As long as the cable is used with both plugs attached it's not a problem. But when using it for such a project, it may kill your stuff. So it's a good extra advise to check if the polarity is correct on the right colors. This can be done by plugging the cable to a working USB port and measure the 5V DC. If red is positive, cable is good to go.

Wow \! You rock ! Am an independent fitness captain & artist philosopher so this tech stuff am rather new to. Loved it.....will watch again.!

i tried it and it acualy worked and now i dont have to spend money on a webacm :) thanks for the tutorial

Good instructional video! Web cams, especially the early ones, were not all created equal so the question is, what in your experience is the best brand of laptop (scrapper) to look out for regarding quality of picture. Thanks for the video, I never realised that these were in fact USB devices. Best regards, Chris.

Subbed immediately! Something similar with an old smartphone camera pls

Thank you. I am looking to make several small cameras for mounting onto HP model rockets. Something with reasonable image quality but won't break the bank because obviously rockets crash often or even break apart in mid air.

Im looking forward to mtoe videos on this channel!

👍🏿I did it. Very pleased with how easy(if a bit fiddly) it was. FYI, I used a camera out of an old HP mini 210. The wiring was: Green/Ground-, White/Blue TP/Data, Red/Power+. There were two other unused wires, Brown and Yellow which are probably the microphone wires. Soldered the Green, Red and White/Blue TP wires onto an old usb charger cable. Plugged it into my PC and it was instantly recognised as a HP WebCam 50. Bosh. Now what to do with the HP Mini screen. Any suggestions????

Can you do a video about how to wire led strips? I am confused on watts/meter. I want to do more of the projects you do but wiring the leds is holding me back. Thanks, I love your channel!

Finally a helpful video

Thank you! I'm glad you are separating content. I hope we will see more content you might have scrapped as boring otherwise.

I love everything in this chanel and always enjoy it.....keep it on

Hey Matt, I'm curious about how you source all of the materials and hardware you keep around for these projects, such as aluminum, MDF, vinyl sheets, PCB pillars, etc. Do you buy these materials as you need them, or do you buy in bulk to stock up? Do you have any specific recommendations on how to obtain any of those materials, such as a cheap store/website that you know of (I live in the US, though I'd still be curious to know even if the source is UK-only). I would love to get more into DIY projects, but any time the project involves material that I don't have, I quickly lose the drive to make it. Any advice is appreciated!

I tried to get a camera module which is nearly impossible. Then finally got one, it was PK40000N300 BNC4VHTTD-310. the connections were so bizarre and my projects was a total fail! I am very sure I fried the circuit by connecting the wrong wire for trial and error. I guess it was the errors for most part. Your videos are always good Matt. I should have paid more attention to the modules you used. Importing these modules is a problem here in India(in my state actually)because of customs

I tried this earlier... And it works 😅

Hey Matt! What laptop camera model are you using?? The one's I'm researching on Ebay are relatively low resolution and grainy...trying to make a webcam to make lockdown conference calls a little more bearable!

I just had to ask something. I saw you doing your video wit a Nikon camera. There's lots of people talking about advantages of Canon in video but I personally like the Nikon. How's your experience?

Thank you Matt. Great videos! What program will open this cam conected thru USB. Whenever I open the cam app on my laptop only opens the cam thats already integrated within. Thank you

Super Video, danke für diese Idee, werde ich auch mal ausprobieren!

Darn. I just bought an endoscope and found this video in attempt to get it working with my PC. So, I could have just used a salvaged webcam instead. Thanks for the video.

Thank you for this video. Can you plz explain how to convert a Sony ps4 camera aux port to usb 3.0

I couldn't figure out why my camera didn't seem to have the right wires and hookup. On further investigation, I stripped back the sticky ribbon wrap where I thought the wires might be. There were 2 separate wrapped lines and inside were the wires that you show. These wires are really hair like, very fine. I am almost afraid to try to strip them. Great tutorial!

good video, i was waiting for you to fall on color codes but it was more than fine... also touchpads can often be repurposed the same way, done that a couple of times

Man, great videos !, I would like to ask, Is possible to adapt an old phone camera to a laptop ?, since this comes with better resolution.