Arducam 8MP Autofocus USB Camera, IMX179 Lightburn Camera with Microphone, Ultra HD Embedded Webcam for PC and Raspberry Pi, Compatible with Linux, Windows, and Mac OS

Very serviceable camera for the money. Gets a little hot sou you'll probably want to put it in a case with decent airflow.

I use this camera on my laser. It works great in lightburn. The only issues is the auto focus is not very good. It wants to search. What I do is just stick my hand in front of it for a second and then move it and the camera usually refocuses on the bed correctly. Other than that one issue it works great for my purpose.

As expected

I was very surprised by how much noise there was in the image, which left me wondering if it was a hardware issue, or it was up-sampling from a poor sensor. In addition to this (and possibly related), it was almost impossible to get the autofocus to stop hunting for focus, making it unusable for my use case. The workaround is to use the windows camera app (pro/advanced mode) to set the focus manually (basically turn AF off) which stops the hunting, but it will reset next time you power up the camera. So the workflow would be, 1. boot up computer (or plug in camera) 2. Run windows camera app 3. Switch to this cam, and select focus 4. Move the focus slider away from autofocus to a fixed focus to dial in your focus 5. Close camera app 6. Run other app that uses the camera Note that may apps connect to the cameras in exclusive mode, so it's a faff to close them and run the windows camera app, then re-open them again. I'm switching to a fixed focus camera instead, and hopefully one with great image quality.

Camera functions as expected. I wanted to use it for Lightburn laser bed but needed to mount it too high in order to get the entire bed. Would have been outside if my laser enclosure.

I purchased this to add a camera to the inside of my CO2 laser lid. We 3d printed a camera housing. Attached it to the lid, and ran a cable out to my laptop. I can now superimpose a screen shot of my item laying on the laser bed, while in my laser control program. It helps to position the art work to be lasered on the items in the laser. If that makes sense. It issue I have is that the laser control program will lose connection with the camera at times. All the connections seem fine. The USB splitter which is running the laser as well, does not lose connection to the laser or my mouse (if/when it is plugged into the splitter). And I have replaced the splitter with a different brand to double check that. As far as I can tell, it is something with the camera. When it is working, it works great. I get a touch of fish eye, but its not bad. The picture is pretty clear. The auto focus seems to work great. I have never had a screen shot or live footage go blurry. I think its a pretty good camera, with just a small problem for my application.

Heard up really quickly. Be careful

Yeah, everyone else said it -- I figured most of them were being a bit on the picky side, or paranoid side. They're not. I saw the PCB had a thermal pad and vias on the backside, and thought to myself, I'll add a heat sink there. It comes with a nearly full-body heatsink for the back which isn't pictured. Legitimately, at only 1280x720 @ 15fps (and any other resolution/framerate I could find, it's not "load-dependent") and connected to the same USB port I used for my previous camera, this thing got so hot I found it both uncomfortable to touch and worrying that it was so hot. I have a high tolerance for heat, I've been soldering and working with copper pipe for most of my life, and I find it uncomfortable to hold. This camera might function flawlessly at this temperature forever, but it will NEED open air, and ideally some air -flow.- The temperatures I'm seeing will soften PLA, and it's in open air. It won't work for my needs. It might work for yours.

Good product 👌