Intraoral Camera from Ebay

[DonDDS]

I've been using this Intraoral Camera I bought from Ebay ($200) for a while and love it (HK-780 USB)
The only thing that bothers me is when I open the camera from the Image Module, OD gives me an error message " Failed to negotiate Pixel Type. TWAIN device does not support requested image type(s). "..... Click OK, then it is fine.
Is there a way to bypass this message?

[brentwood]

I am sorry I don't know the answer. But I am interested in your camera. I spent $3,000 for a camera from Sota (http://www.sotaoptics.com/index.html). I thought I got a good deal. How much do people usually pay for an intraoral camera?

[Yorek]

Sounds like the resolution is acceptable.
Can you give more specifics on this 200.00 camera?

[DonDDS]

Spec? 3.8 M pixels, 6 LED light, USB 2.0....
http://www.flickr.com/photos/renodds/2398248984/
Can you tell if the above image is from a $200 camera or a $3000 one? I know my patients can't.

[brentwood]

You know what? I am impressed. Mine may be better than yours if we compare them under the same situation. But I don't think the difference will be much. Next time I will pay more attention to those inexpensive cameras.

[tdong]

I am using the same thing just update the Twain Driver with a new Twain Driver I will give you a name and where to download I am at work right now.

Are you vietnamese ?

I like your computer setup and the x-ray. We don't have lots of room therefore it has to be outside on the wall.

Have a look at mine office
http://drnguyendental.com/index.php?opt ... &Itemid=60

[DonDDS]

Great... if a new Twain Driver resolves this tiny bug...I would be so happy.
I am planning to get 5 or 10 more of this camera to equip other offices that I involve in. But this time, I try to get a better pricing directly from manufacture... may be down to $150/each.
Yes, I am VNese.
and thanks for your comments on my IKEA cabinet/setup. It was fun.

[tdong]

http://www.dosadi.com/eztwain1.htm

download the free or the pro doesn't matter install that's it. the pro require registration key but you are not a programmer you don't need that you just need the .dlls after install it should works

[Nate]

tdong-

I am impressed with the 3D virtual views of you office. It is something I may be interested in doing at some point. Can you explain how you made it?

[tdong]

the office belongs to my wife, I am doing IT and a season wedding photographer.
it is kind of complicated to explain and yet it is simple but it require tools

Tools
D200 and 10.5 fisheyes - cost you around $2500
Nodal Ninja VR head - cost you $250
PTGui ($100), and Pano2QTVR (free) and QuickTime (free)

I take 7 pictures. 6 all around me on a tripod with 10 degree down from horizontal(30% overlaps), 1 picture pointing up(call zenith) other people will also take extra pictures pointing down call the (nadirs). for me I just photoshop out the tripod which look like a little hole because of 10 degree down

http://fromparis.com/html/technical_us_ ... 10mnts.php
All the info and samples are there. he also shows you a video of how it done


Otherwise just hire a photographer to do it. The price is usually around $100 to $200 for one 3D depend on resolution. Will take around 10 min to shoot and 20 min to put it online

[Dan_man76]

Hi allI recently purchased a Hk780 intra oral camera and am using opendental 5.6.14.0
i am getting this same error "Failed to negotiate Pixel Type" , and am unable to resolve it ( did anyone manage to fix it ?)
I think i have a updated version of the dll eztwain3.dll date 11/04/2008 and eztw32.dll dated 26/04/2008

also what drivers are best for this camera , and can capture at more than 800x600?
something that allws you to live preview , then directly capture the pick into opendental
as it is apparently a 4 mp camera .

I am having problems capturing images , as it doesn't directly talk to the camera it is not so easy
any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Dan

[drtbar]

What are you guys using for new sheaths/covers? I have the same camera and it came with 50 or so sheaths but where do we get some more or something like it?

[DonDDS]

Clear, thin plastic that cover food... of course, from Costco

[DavidWolf]

Any info on how to install the .DLL's would be appreciated. I downloaded the files but am not sure which folder to install, etc. Thanks in advance for the help.

http://www.dosadi.com/eztwain1.htm

download the free or the pro doesn't matter install that's it. the pro require registration key but you are not a programmer you don't need that you just need the .dlls after install it should works

[msgill5]

Any solution to this DLL problem.

I am planning to buy 2 HK-780 intraloral cameras from Ebay, but was wondering if anyone has been successful at integrating them with OD.

Thanks for your replies.

[jordansparks]

You could go vote for that feature request.

[chrishilldmd]

Does anyone have a suggestion for which of the cameras may be more compatible than others?

[maddy]

I am being offered the .HK-780 Dental Intraoral camera(USB) from a guy in China for $150 payment through Paypal. I realize this post is fairly old . Is the camera working well for you with OD ?

[KCalla]

I'm considering intraoral camera options. Does anyone have advice about cameras that have worked well with Open Dental?

[DavidWolf]

I have the camera from EBAY and China, it works great. My only complaint is the on/off button is bigger than the capture button on the wand so I have a tendancy to turn it off rather than capture the image.

Also, I have not been able to fix the TWAIN driver problem which is a complete pain.

[KCalla]

Thanks for the quick reply. I'm glad you have been able to make it work.

[drfredc]

I'm considering intraoral camera options. Does anyone have advice about cameras that have worked well with Open Dental?

It would be nice to have a place where stuff that works with OD is posted, with a link to what was needed to get it to work. One might even email the Ebay China folks with links about how to get their stuff to work with OD right out of the box. They could easily sell more product that way...

I've ordered an Ebay China intra-oral cam (not yet received) -- I opted for the 2M wifi one instead of 4M USB wire. It should be interesting to see how it works. I have an older low res wired one, the wires are a pain...

Also, I've recently ordered a 4G Eye-fi HDSD card for my extra-oral camera (~$50). It's in the mail... I don't know how that will link into OD just yet, but supposedly you can download pics to the computer directly from your camera without opening the camera.

Technology is great, but the fine print is getting it to work for you can be a hassle.

[murmsk]

the eye-fi doesn't tie into OD but you will love it just the same. I have it dump the images to the server then have a link on every desktop to the folder.

steve

[jordansparks]

At some point, we'll probably resell an IO camera.

[drfredc]

At some point, we'll probably resell an IO camera.

n
That's fine, especially if the IO webcam software it uses is generic enough to handle various webcam intra and extra oral camera solutions.

========== My recent Ebay digital camera and web cam experiences ===========

The 2M wifi intraoral camera I recently picked up from China (via Ebay) for something like $250 works great -- excellent images, no wires to drag around -- battery life of the webcam seems about an hour left on constantly (which is stupid to do, but I managed to do it this week by leaving the camera on while diving into other work). The camera does work plugged in to the charger if the battery runs out. Basic use -- Pop in the USB wifi pickup to the operatory computer, start the capture software, then glove up while the workstation gets the wifi USB dongle recognized and you're ready to go. The top button on the wifi camera captures the video for the software. Being a video capture of one of 30 frames a second, it's modestly tolerant of minor movement.

If you want a webcam software link to show up in OD to start your web cam software, just go to program links and add the capture program and it's file location to OD -- Note : Every workstation should have the same software and folder location. This simple program link won't do anything more than start the software -- there is no connection to patient names or chart #s happens. But you can start up the software while in OD by clicking an OD button. The capture program that came with my IO camera keeps the folder name of the last save between uses -- I set it up at every workstation the same so each work station saves to the same folder on the clinic server.

The capture software does a decent job of collecting captured pictures and saving them into a user specified folder with unique user defined names plus a time and day stamp. While there's something like a 1200x1600 pixel capture mode (probably an interpolated picture) , a 600x800 picture seems good enough for most uses. These jpgs can then be manually imported into a patient's OD chart in the image/import mode.

Ebay offers a slightly more expensive wifi camera with slightly less resolution offered an LCD screen that was attached to the camera. Having an LCD on the camera would seem a very nice option. I'm not sure about the slightly lower resolution, but then I'm not using the full resolution on my 2M camera and getting good results. Ebay also offers 4M wired USB intraoral cameras for less than $200 that probably works great if you want to hassle with more wires in the operatory.

As someone else noted, the Eye-fi HDSD 4G memory cards are great for extra oral digital cameras that use HDSD cards -- cost around $70. It automatically transfers any picture taken to a user selected computer and folder on your wifi network. It would be great if Open Dental could pick up any new photo files that appear in a specified folder while in the 'images' mode and then automatically associate these new pictures with that patients chart and data.

Also, I bought (China via Ebay) an xray digitizer/scanner for about $150. It uses the same capture software as my wifi camera which also means you can provide a program link for it on OD (see above). It's basically a USB webcam in a small 3" box with a slide out tray for digitizing old school xrays into your system. It does a decent job and you can select quite high resolutions if desired. One nice feature for the staff -- the capture software is exactly same as that used by my wifi webcam -- there's no new software to learn to use. I set up a digitized_xray folder in my server's image folder to save digitized xrays to so they don't get confused with intra or extra oral pictures. Again, you have to manually import the digitized xrays into OD and/or your digital xray program. It's not tough, just a few clicks of a hassle.

[Rickliftig]

Fred -

A few quick questions about the camera:

1) What is the greatest focal length - IOW, how far can you get back from the teeth - (two teeth, three teeth, quadrant, smile, face?)

2) How is the color? Any graininess?
(I had ordered one of the 4m cameras and was really disappointed. - no focus - not enough light, grainy as all get out - it must have been defective)

3) Am I correct that you capture to the camera's software folder, and then import into OD?

4) Are you running a second monitor for the patient?

5) which ebay camera is the one that you ordered? Did you order from China or Canada?

I adapted my old acu-cam system to plug into the USB and finally found a decent capture device with a foot control jack. I am considering setting up the second monitor, but don't have a lot of room in the operatory. Also, my hygienists tend to be a little rough with the technology - because I have multiple hygienists, it seems when something breaks, it is surreptitiously left for the next hygienist to discover.... the next hygienist doesn't want to appear at fault, so she does the same - I usually discover the problem at the end of the week when I do a once-over of the ops. How they screw up the cavitron so often, I'll never know - I think one of them just keeps rotating the water valve until it doesn't turn any more and then she cavitrons dry or handscales! Obviously I haven't caught her in the act....

They haven't broken Open Dental, however.

[Nate]

how did you modify your acu-cam to plug into usb?

[Rickliftig]

Nate - pretty easy, but then not. The original Acucam used a Sony printer as a video memory/capture device. The memory needed back then was the size of a pack of cards for two photos! Of course, digital cams now can store thousands of shots on an SD card, but I digress.

There are many s-video --->USB adaptor devices available. They work, but the problem with the cheaper ones (ie $35) is the need for a foot switch and better capture software. You could lean over to the keyboard and press 'enter', but by that time, you've ruined your shot. On e-bay, you can find transcription pedals which will emulate a keypress and these work fine, but they are in the $70 range. You could also purchase a capture card for your computer, but you are raising the complexity of the system

I finally found a fairly robust model - the COP AD-USB20. The features that I like are 1) a jack for a footswitch (simple momentary switch - I used a cheapo Radio Shack pedal that I had lying around) 2) moderately good capture software (as opposed to horrid capture software). This one cost about $75 from 'spytown usa' (something like that, couldn't make up the name) .com.

The acucam has a much better depth of field and range of focus as compared with the digital pen cams from China - The camera unit is also fairly large - 12x12x3 - I have mine mounted on a cabinet.

I'd love a small digital device that takes its place, but don't want to buy an 'unknown' off of ebay again. The one I purchased (HK-740) had a very grainy picture, poor depth of field and limited focal distance - I think I got a lemon on that one.

[drfredc]

1) What is the greatest focal length - IOW, how far can you get back from the teeth - (two teeth, three teeth, quadrant, smile, face?)

It can take a somewhat grainy face shot. I suspect a lot of the grain is because it's normal environment is high light intensity in the mouth and the face shot is room light. You can get 1 to 2 molars in a picture, depending upon how wide the pt can open and angle. Here's a couple shots.



Here's another picture that I somehow coaxed XDR to take and directly put into XDRs data folder for the patient (myself) -- I had troubles doing this the other day, but not today. It's jpg save is less than 100k.



2) How is the color? Any graininess?

The color and depth appear fine. The top resolution is supposedly 1200 x 1600, however, I suspect it's less than that.

The camera offers 4 wifi channels to broadcast from. The wifi USB receiver can pick up signals and reasonably clear pictures 2 ops away (about 20 feet), possibly further. Two op's away, the video feed has an occasional video line thru the picture that doesn't happen much in the same room. Not that you can easily take pictures two op's between camera and receiver.

However, while searching around ebay IO cameras, for another hundred bucks, I noted a wifi IO camera with less resolution that offers a small lcd screen attachment on the camera. IMHO, that would be the cat's meow if coupled with a 2M or 4M IO camera -- probably it will show up in a couple months.

3) Am I correct that you capture to the camera's software folder, and then import into OD?

Sort of. The camera software lets you choose the folder, so I choose to make an intraoralpics folder in the XDR server folder. So each time you use it, it defaults to save there, with the pt name I typed in, with a time and date stamp. This makes finding the picture easy from other computers on the network as well as keeps data storage and backup consistant.

Also, the camera provides a video feed to XDR's video capture software (offering 960x576 max resolution), which would directly put any captured pictures into the XDR patient folder. I just started playing with it last week and probably will have to work with XDR to sort out some the details (like how to capture the capture button press on the camera instead of computer mouse clicks) when I get a time window between tax time, spring break, practicing for USTA team tennis, pruning fruit trees at the house plus the honey dew list. I did send off an email to XDR, but I think it's probably going to require a support phone call...

4) Are you running a second monitor for the patient?

Not currently. I'm using laptops mounted on old school TV monitor swing arm sitting over the sink behind the patient. The patient has to turn around to look. I've put getting an LCD monitor somewhere in the ops for the patient somewhere on the endless list noted above.

My first experience using this particular IO camera was to take snapshots of my own teeth (above). It showed me it's time to get some of my 40 year old amalgams replaced... Kind of a no brainer, even the staff noted "can we do your fillings?" -- "not" was the reply. I'm sure the visuals of decay could have similar impact on patients with a operatory monitor.

5) which ebay camera is the one that you ordered? Did you order from China or Canada?

Ebay "intraoral camera 2m". My came from China (or somewhere in the Orient). The Canada ones look like the same unit. I just looked for lowest price, including shipping. I looked at the 4M corded option, but there's no more room for cords and tubes in my operatories (Cerec, Hoya DiodeLaser, ultrasonic scaler/endo, Isolite, etc, etc), especially if I jump on an electric endo unit... IMHO, there's hardly more room for another foot pedal...

[Rickliftig]

Fred - thanks so much for the detailed reply - looks great! maybe I'll chance another $150 bill.

[abhay]

I am having trouble with both units i just bought from Ebay. During installation from the disk there is a warning about this not being microsoft compatible.When I click "continue anyways", the software installs.However on plugging the camera in the USB port,the wizard looks for the same software again and installs it.Now when I turn on the unit, once in a blue moon it works.Otherwise when I open the HK780 icon, it reads"the graph cannot preview".Any ideas or solutions?