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Equipment Thermal Imaging - The Want is Strong

Discussion in 'Photography, Art & Design' started by Gareth Halfacree, 11 Jul 2019.

  1. Arboreal

    Arboreal Keeper of the Electric Currants

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    Yes, you're not kidding.
    This time last year, one of my factory units at work burned down because the 'vehicle salvage' operator was growing in an LWB Sprinter shell, in the mezzanine office, and a camouflaged space in a storage room.
    The Enterprise comes with some bolt on toys as standard; a floodlight, beacon for night flying (if allowed??) and a speaker.
    It's as if Blue Thunder from my childhood has been reincarnated in miniature, albeit without the rotary cannon. All that tech was live back then (not all in one platform), and that was nearly 40 years ago FFS!
     
  2. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Apparently FLIR is very interested, though with CES and all that jazz won't be able to do owt about it until late January at the earliest. It's sounding promising, though - so fingers crossed!
     
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  3. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    It's now late January... and I've just heard from the PR that FLIR's given the nod, so I should soon be unpacking a lovely ETS320. Expecting a bit of a jump from the C2 sat in a crudely extended smartphone tripod adapter mounted on FleaBay's cheapest document copy stand!
     
  4. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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  5. Arboreal

    Arboreal Keeper of the Electric Currants

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    It's on the way! Set Hype to 6000K
     
  6. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Ta-da!

    upload_2020-2-6_14-52-51.png

    Now I just need to find the time to have a play!
     
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  7. Fingers66

    Fingers66 Kiwi in London

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  8. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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  9. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Well, I'm glad I didn't spend £3k on it.

    The good news: it is super, super detailed. Here's a raw capture straight from the device - which shows up as a Linux-compatible webcam, neatly:

    Picture 2020-02-06 23-44-13.png

    You can see the holes in the micro-HDMI connector! The lack of copper around the mounting holes! Lookit the tiny through-holes!

    You may notice that you can only see *part* of the board there. Yeah, that's because...

    Picture 2020-02-06 23-48-55.png

    That's what happens if I zoom out. Turns out the ETS320 has a fixed focal distance of 70mm, and a pretty narrow field of view. Brilliant for getting real up-close and personal with stuff; absolutely useless for capturing an overview.

    Some of that's on me - I should have looked at the tech specs more closely, rather than just peering lustfully at the promo imagery. Some is on the PR and FLIR, tho': I showed 'em what I use the C2 for, and nobody said "hey, you know the ETS320 can't do that, right?"

    I'll email the PR tomorrow: I can either do a review as planned and send it back, or keep it but on the understanding that I'll still be using the C2 for most stuff and only pull out the ETS320 on special occasions.

    (I did think about image stitching, but each capture records a slightly different temperature - the accuracy's plus/minus three degrees C - so that's a no-go.)
     
  10. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    The fact it shows up as a webcam is neat, though - and look, you can see the read operations taking place on the microSD!

     
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  11. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Y'know, this ain't going to be so bad. Here's a very quick and dirty processed shot - based on an image of a Raspberry Pi Zero sat under a Raspberry Pi 3 for size comparison, 'cos back then I was still using FLIR's MSX instead of blending my own images so there wasn't much need for a plan shot.

    upload_2020-2-7_16-19-24.png

    So, new approach: I stick to the C2 for overview shots, and then use the ETS320 to "zoom in" on interesting parts.
     
  12. Spraduke

    Spraduke Lurker

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    This is a really cool (no pun intended) image which reveals a lot about the underlying electronics. Would be interesting on specific regions of motherboards to see where the power/heat is. I'm sure the extreme overclockers out there would love this level of info (allowing targeted cooling etc.)
     
  13. edzieba

    edzieba Virtual Realist

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    Oi, Gazza! Little late, but it looks like the lens can be relatively easily hacked for variable focal distance with a 3D printed plastic doodad.
     
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  14. Bloody_Pete

    Bloody_Pete Technophile

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    Ooof, I don't know why I didn't see this before as I could have helped a lot, I litterally work in the R&D department of an image analytics company, one of our primary project is high detail low cost thermal imaging! Glad you got it all sorted (I don't have time to read through the whole thread), but give me a shout if you need help in the future :)
     
  15. MLyons

    MLyons 70% Dev, 30% Doge. DevDoge. Software Dev @ Corsair Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Will keep this in mind as we're looking into thermal imaging for articles. Do you have a product page?
     
  16. Bloody_Pete

    Bloody_Pete Technophile

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    Unfortunately not, that project is for the MOD so I can't actually discuss it directly :p
     
  17. MLyons

    MLyons 70% Dev, 30% Doge. DevDoge. Software Dev @ Corsair Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Any suggestions for thermal cameras at different price points? ranging from £150 to £1k
     
  18. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Oh, you beauty - would have been nice if FLIR had known the lens *is* actually adjustable, wouldn't it!

    I'll pop the file across to a printing service, give it a go - if I can do overview stuff on the ETS-320, that saves faffing around with the document stand and tripod adapter on the C2 with the added bonus of being way higher resolution. Ta!

    EDIT:
     
    Last edited: 20 May 2020
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  19. Bloody_Pete

    Bloody_Pete Technophile

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    We work with embedded or industrial style cameras, is that any use?
     
  20. MLyons

    MLyons 70% Dev, 30% Doge. DevDoge. Software Dev @ Corsair Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    hmm, probably not as much then. This would be for stuff like motherboards and GPUs.
     
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