My Dell Inspiron 15-i5559 laptop from 2016 just failed a few weeks ago. I want to salvage parts for use in DIY robotic projects or to enhance my day to day computing needs.
I extracted the webcam from and I see a number PC011628 written on the PCB board. I see other people selling a webcam that looks similar to mine. Some websites also suggest its called a RealSense 3D webcam.
Is it practical to re-purpose this webcam for use as an external webcam for my other computers or for a Raspberry Pi?
I found some guides that show how to turn a laptop webcam into a USB webcam, but in all those guides, I see the connectors only have 4 (FOUR) wires: Voltage positive, Ground, Data positive and Data negative (the 2 data wires are often braided together).
When I look at my PC011628, I see 10 (TEN) wires, and out of those 10 wires, 2 pairs of them are braided. I'm not sure what all these wires are for. But I'll take a wild guess - maybe the PCB011628 has two web cams and one LED light, and thus 2 wires for the LED, 4 wires for the first webcam, and 4 wires for the second webcam. If my guess is right, does that mean I can still convert one of the cameras for use via USB if I can figure out which wire is which? See image below:
(note: At bottom of image, you see 10 pins that correspond to the 10 wires in a cable)
Or is there an easier and more practical way to re-purpose this webcam for re-use on my Raspberry Pi or other computers?
I extracted the webcam from and I see a number PC011628 written on the PCB board. I see other people selling a webcam that looks similar to mine. Some websites also suggest its called a RealSense 3D webcam.
Is it practical to re-purpose this webcam for use as an external webcam for my other computers or for a Raspberry Pi?
I found some guides that show how to turn a laptop webcam into a USB webcam, but in all those guides, I see the connectors only have 4 (FOUR) wires: Voltage positive, Ground, Data positive and Data negative (the 2 data wires are often braided together).
When I look at my PC011628, I see 10 (TEN) wires, and out of those 10 wires, 2 pairs of them are braided. I'm not sure what all these wires are for. But I'll take a wild guess - maybe the PCB011628 has two web cams and one LED light, and thus 2 wires for the LED, 4 wires for the first webcam, and 4 wires for the second webcam. If my guess is right, does that mean I can still convert one of the cameras for use via USB if I can figure out which wire is which? See image below:
(note: At bottom of image, you see 10 pins that correspond to the 10 wires in a cable)
Or is there an easier and more practical way to re-purpose this webcam for re-use on my Raspberry Pi or other computers?