SIM7600 and OV2640 camera on ESP32 dev board

[lennardd]

Hi all,

I'm working on a project involving an ESP32 dev board with OV2640 connected to it over a custom designed PCB. A SIM7600 module is used to send the pictures over 4G to an external server. The camera works perfectly fine when sending the pictures over WiFi, as does the SIM7600 when sending textual data over 4G.

However, I run into some errors when combining both. If the camera is initialized first, the SIM7600 cannot be started. Similarly, if the SIM7600 is initialized and powered on first, it does connect to the server, but the camera initialization process fails and no pictures can be taken.

At first I thought there was an issue with the available RAM (4 MB PSRAM and 520 kB SRAM). Yet the camera takes a maximum of 1 MB RAM only, so that at least 80% of the available RAM is left for the SIM7600. This should be enough.

Browsing on internet, the most common problems with the SIM7600 module are power related. So, I figured I'd need to switch from USB powering the board to a more powerful source. That's why I took a lab power supply with a maximum of 10A and used it to power the 5V-in pin of the ESP32. However, this didn't improve a thing.

So, I'm a bit stuck now. The combination of a SIM7600 and a OV2640 seems to be a rare one, so browsing forums on internet doesn't help much either. Now if any of you has some experience with a SIM7600, OV2640 camera, or a combination of both I'd love to hear what could possibly be the cause of these problems.

Any help would be appreciated!

Kind regards,
Lennard