EEVblog #668 - Mailbag + FLIR TG165

[EEVblog]

Help beat Congenital Muscular Dystrophy:
http://www.beat4life.com/
(Pozible campaign live tomorrow)

A look at the FLIR TG-165 visual spot thermometer and (unfair) comparison with the FLIR E8 thermal camera.

High density Mitra 125 16KB magnetic core ferrite memory from the 1970's
http://feb-patrimoine.com/english/mitra.htm

Eric LPRS low power radio modules:
http://www.lprs.co.uk/easy-radio/eric/

[resistor]

Okay, I must be stupid.  How is the rotating laser thing possible?

[EEVblog]

Okay, I must be stupid.  How is the rotating laser thing possible?

They are just slightly angled in both axis.
In this case angled to be vertically aligned at about half a meter, and then lower and that and above that you get an apparent "rotation" in either direction.

[coppice]

Those strips on the memory controller board are a mezzanine bus. They have very little capacitance, so they have very little decoupling effect. I used to use them a lot in the 70s and early 80s.

Hand assembling those fine ferrite rings through a microscope wrecked people's sight in a surprisingly short time. They were not just assembled in South East Asia for labour cost reasons. It was also done to avoid health and safety regulations.

[Ebivetar]

So basically, FLIR TG165 is equivalent of Fluke VT02 ?

[nowlan]

Here is the comparison sheet form the other thread.
http://www.eevblog.com/files/FLIR-TG165/TG165_Comparison_FINAL.pdf
Comparison to Vt102 Vt104 Flir One.

[mikeselectricstuff]

TG165 teardown?

[mikeselectricstuff]

Was I the only one shouting "Tagarno" at the screen during the core memory bit....?

[EEVblog]

So basically, FLIR TG165 is equivalent of Fluke VT02 ?

In term of target market, yes, but the VT02 is pathetic in comparison.

[EEVblog]

Was I the only one shouting "Tagarno" at the screen during the core memory bit....?

It's still packed up from the trade show.
In any case it's less magnification than the macro lens.

[bktemp]

Was I the only one shouting "Tagarno" at the screen during the core memory bit....?

No. I waited all the time until the video switches over to the tagarno shot but then suddenly the mailbag video was over.

By the way, what is the advantage of using two different sensors on the TG165? Is the spot sensor more accurate than the lepton core?

[mikeselectricstuff]

Was I the only one shouting "Tagarno" at the screen during the core memory bit....?

No. I waited all the time until the video switches over to the tagarno shot but then suddenly the mailbag video was over.

By the way, what is the advantage of using two different sensors on the TG165? Is the spot sensor more accurate than the lepton core?

Lepton needs a reference shutter to do absolute temp measurement

[nitro2k01]

How often does the TG165 recalibrate? Given that the sensor is not used for absolute measurement, they should able to get away much less frequent calibration, maybe even just once on startup.

Regarding the Fluke, are you sure it wasn't just out of focus? There was a dial that I didn't see you touch or mention in the video.

[ryanmoore]

You wondered about the size of the core memory right at the end of the video. The convention at the time was to specify memory by number of words rather than bytes or bits, so it's most likely 16K x 18-bit words and not 16kB or 16kBits.

[mikeselectricstuff]

How often does the TG165 recalibrate? Given that the sensor is not used for absolute measurement, they should able to get away much less frequent calibration, maybe even just once on startup.

Regarding the Fluke, are you sure it wasn't just out of focus? There was a dial that I didn't see you touch or mention in the video.

Lepton does not use shutter calibration, and a thermopile sensor shouldn't need it

[EEVblog]

By the way, what is the advantage of using two different sensors on the TG165? Is the spot sensor more accurate than the lepton core?

Not necessarily so, both ultimately need to be calibrated. In this case it's a pure marketing move, giving the traditional user the look'n'feel of a PIR spot based device they are familiar with, whilst not encroaching upon the market of a "real" thermal imaging camera like the E4.

[EEVblog]

How often does the TG165 recalibrate?

It doesn't, because it doesn't take absolute readings from it.
The Lepton sensor doesn't need to recalibrate anyway, unlike the E4 et.al

Regarding the Fluke, are you sure it wasn't just out of focus? There was a dial that I didn't see you touch or mention in the video.

That was shot a long time ago, I don't recall. In any case, the resolution is awful.

[nitro2k01]

Lepton does not use shutter calibration, and a thermopile sensor shouldn't need it

Doesn't it? As far as I remember form your videos you have to periodically close a manual shutter on the Flir One to be able to use the absolute temperature measurement function. It doesn't depend on it for general use, but it can use it, as seen in the One. At about 6:50 into Dave's video when he turns his unit on, you can see the image freeze, and Dave also mentions an auto shutter. I also think I remember seeing the image freeze later on in the video, but I'm not going to back and look for those instances. Unless that's just a laggy user interface, I would presume it does use a shutter.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Lepton does not use shutter calibration, and a thermopile sensor shouldn't need it

Doesn't it? As far as I remember form your videos you have to periodically close a manual shutter on the Flir One to be able to use the absolute temperature measurement function. It doesn't depend on it for general use, but it can use it, as seen in the One. At about 6:50 into Dave's video when he turns his unit on, you can see the image freeze, and Dave also mentions an auto shutter. I also think I remember seeing the image freeze later on in the video, but I'm not going to back and look for those instances. Unless that's just a laggy user interface, I would presume it does use a shutter.

Lepton needs a shutter to do absolute measurements, but as they are using a seperate sensor to do temp measurement, they don't need a shutter - probably cheaper to do it that way, maybe also more accurate.
The other issue is field of view
 - you want a fairly narrow FOV for something like this, and a narrow FOV on the Lepton would mean a bigger, more expensive lens, whearas to get the FOV for a single-pixel thermopile they can use a cheap polythene fresnel lens

[bktemp]

The datasheet says: Automatic Shutter (calibration)
Therefore the lepton core should be more accurate than in the FLIR one. So why an additional sensor? With the higher resolution of the lepton core it should be possible to have a much smaller measuring spot than with the PIR sensor which would be a big advantage.
Does anybody know how large the measuring spot of an E8 is? Does it use a single pixel or avaraging of a group of pixels?

[nitro2k01]

Two documents from Flir themselves claiming that it's using a shutter.

http://www.eevblog.com/files/FLIR-TG165/TG165_Comparison_FINAL.pdf
http://www.flir.se/uploadedFiles/Instruments/Products/TG165/FLIR-TG165-Brochure-EN.pdf

Edit: That is not to say that they're using the image array for temperature, only that they thought that using shutter calibration improved the image enough to make it worth it.

[dentaku]

All that old magnetic core technology is fascinating.
I've watched Jeri's video on "how to make logic gates with square hysteresis ferrite" twice already. Very educational.

[EEVblog]

Two documents from Flir themselves claiming that it's using a shutter.

The Lepton sensor datasheet says it is shutterless for non-uniformity corrections, but can use an external shutter if required.
It also has automatic internal temperature compensation.
http://www.flir.com/uploadedFiles/CVS_Americas/Cores_and_Components_NEW/Products/Uncooled_Cores/Lepton/FLIR-Lepton-DataBrief.pdf

[nitro2k01]

*sigh*
Yes. However, I'm talking specifically about the TG165, as that was what was being discussed in the video. Go back and read my original question on page 1. Everything points to it having a shutter, the image freezing at least once in the video, and the advertising material mentioning a shutter. Out of curiosity, I'm wondering how often the TG165 will recalibrate, or if it will only do it once every time the unit is turned on, or perhaps even less often than that. It seems like you're trying to prove something I already know and never asked about.

[R_Gtx]

Flir One resolution 80x60 px.
New boy on the block at half the price, resolution 206x156 px.

Looks like the market is hotting up.

Further details here.

[mikeselectricstuff]

I think when Flir say automatic shutter they may be referring to the Lepton's automatic nonuniform correction, which relies on the fact that as a handheld unit, the scene is moving, so the long-term avarage of local pixels will be the same, and can be used to do nonuniformity correction.
I don't see a reason why it would need a shutter with the thermopile there as well, especailly as AFIR there was no indication of the min/max temps of the visible temp scale, so the Lepton is used for sighting only.

There's only one way to be sure - take it apaaaaart!

[Unixon]

It would be much nicer if they used different color lasers for guide beams.

[bktemp]

I think when Flir say automatic shutter they may be referring to the Lepton's automatic nonuniform correction,

Have a look at the comparison:
http://www.eevblog.com/files/FLIR-TG165/TG165_Comparison_FINAL.pdf
TG165: Automatic Shutter (calibration)
FLIR ONE: Manual Shutter

+1 for the teardown!

[max_torque]

I'd love to see that core memory bank side by side with a de-capped 16kB eeprom or similar!  Just to show how technology and manufacturing processes have moved on in 40 years!

[Monittosan]

Flir One resolution 80x60 px.
New boy on the block at half the price, resolution 206x156 px.

Looks like the market is hotting up.

Further details here.

how longs that micro usb going to last? 

[R_Gtx]

Flir One resolution 80x60 px.
New boy on the block at half the price, resolution 206x156 px.

Looks like the market is hotting up.

Further details here.

how longs that micro usb going to last? 

Does it really matter, how long that micro usb is going to last? The pertinent fact is that Freescale are now manufacturing a cheap thermal imaging sensor. How long before they release a dev. board? Think of the possible applications in security, robotics, etc.

[Fraser]

For anyone wondering what lives inside the FLUKE VT02, I did a teardown a while back.

It is very different (inferior) technology to that used in the TG165. A low resolution pyro-electric staring array, called the Redeye 6A captures the images and these are interpolated up to higher resolution. IIRC the Redeye 6A is a 31x31 pixel array that is used in a 15x15 pixel format in the VT02 and 30x30 format in the VT04. The Redeye 6A uses technology similar to the original BST arrays and requires a shutter (chopper) wheel to interrupt the image.

All becomes clear when you see the teardown that I did.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/fluke-vt02-thermal-camera-visual-thermometer-teardown/msg467641/#msg467641

The VTxx series are FIXED FOCUS on both visible and thermal cameras, Depth of focus is similar to the E4. The wheel that looks like a focus control is just the lens cover that rotates to protect the lenses and releases the trigger lock..

The TG165 is a different beast BUT I have issues with the temperature being measured by a pretty much bog standard pyroelectric IR thermometer....very old school and a technique used in older fire fighting cameras, but they had a much smaller pyrometer FOV. The VT02 and VT04 read the radiometric data from the Redeye 6A so you measure what you see without parallax error issues and close-in working on PCB's is possible. The use of a single pixel pyrometer in the TG165 is fraught with measurement error risk as is the case with the conventional IR thermometer technology. With the FOV having a direct effect on the target area size with distance, it is essential to achieve 100% or greater illumination of the pyrometers view to avoid errors creeping in. This is why thermal cameras are so effective....they show you on the screen exactly which cluster of pixels are making the measurement. For me, the TG165 is a disappointment as surely the microbolometer could have provided adequate measurement accuracy ? Or maybe not. Is this the LEPTON cores Achilles heel ? Poor measurement accuracy 

As Dave stated, the TG165 is aimed at a specific market and is well designed for that. However I would expect many to buy the superior E4 instead ? The standard resolution is the same, MSX is included and the E4 is a superior camera in most (all?) respects.

As for the VT02 and VT04, I suspect continued sales will only be due to buyers wanting FLUKE branded equipment !  My two VT02 prototypes were bought only out of curiosity 

[SeanB]

I'd love to see that core memory bank side by side with a de-capped 16kB eeprom or similar!  Just to show how technology and manufacturing processes have moved on in 40 years!

Will these do, taken right now?

First is a DLR3416 LED matrix display, made week 48 of 1994, ex a B&O VCR in the process of being turned into scrap metal, and there is a lot of steel in this thing, a lot more than the Sony Umatic recorder I did recently, but it all is there as ballast weight.

Second is a Intel 8751 erasable processor, made 1980, in a ceramic package

Third is another i8751H-88, in a hi top cerdip package, also made in 1980.

Who was saying the 8051 is dead?

As to the FLIR I will guess that when it is torn apart you will find the boards are identical to the FLIR one Mike took apart. Now we know why they used that massive amount of overkill, they probably were developing this, and were either held up in the case or the display side for a while, and decided to make the iPhone version to get a feel of the market, using what is obviously a common core set.

Wonder how long it will take Mike to "enhance" this new core and improve it to higher resolution.

[eneuro]

As Dave stated, the TG165 is aimed at a specific market and is well designed for that. However I would expect many to buy the superior E4 instead ? The standard resolution is the same, MSX is included and the E4 is a superior camera in most (all?) respects.

When we realize what this "magic" MSX is indeed by watching this intro to this technology

in the terms of image processing tools needed to do this what they call "object details" which are in fact only object contours taken from classic visual camera and... aplied to thermal camera calibrated output with temperatures, than we start thinking why they claim any patent for this MSX, while using latest OpenCV boards with Nvidia CUDA support for high performance image processing in real time it is quite easy achieve similar results to this MSX, so forget about thisTG165 for $500 if someone do not need this laser temperature measurements which looks very tricky with those 2 laser points and consider quite cheap USB OTG interface Seek thermal $200 for Android OSes

with image processing and visualisation made by this very nice $300 The NVIDIA® SHIELD™ tablet 8" HD 1920x1080 screen and Android with CUDA support for OpenCV 

This kind of image processing MSX does with visual image to extract edges I was doing more than 10 years ago at university 
Nothing special to extract & add contures/edges to another image (thermal) and some kind of user interface (not open source so no chance to change stupid behaviour) to be able mark a few spots and display its temperature when we have two scene images: visual light camera image & thermal image.
Probably, they call it Multi-Spectral Dynamic Imaging (MSX™) while from marketing point of view the more complicated names are used in product description not easy to decode by normal people, customer might think he buys something special so this has to be very expensive. Additionally Flir use classic trick "pending patent" terms to make this product more atractive 
Yeah, not everyone can write such image processing software to achieve similar results without 2 diffrent types of cameras (visual & IR) in one device but it is not anything which is worth invention and patent claims 
Multi-Spectral Dynamic Imaging Technology from FLIR Systems

"Unlike traditional thermal fusion that inserts a thermal image into a visible light picture, FLIR’s new MSX technology embosses digital camera detail onto thermal video and stills. Using MSX technology on FLIR T450SC and T650SC IR cameras eliminates the need for a separate digital image in your reporting."

So, when we use additional digital image eg. from  built in 5M into The NVIDIA® SHIELD™ tablet, than we can create output image which will contain whatever we want from those two visual & IR images, so when Flir will tell me that I can not output something similar to this what they call MSX because of they patented it and are inventors, I will tell them    while I was capable of doing such things more than 10 years ago and now using OpenCv it can be done much easier and faster in realtime 
The only problem is that it might be difficult to find the same focus using 2 diffrent cameras, so it might be not such easy to make those two images from visual camera countours & thermal camera nice aligned, so it might require some calibration, but it looks like that this
The NVIDIA® SHIELD™ tablet should easy outperform any Flir MSX hardware while it can use CUDA accelerated OpenCV for real time image processing.
That is true it can be a little bit tricky to do but advantage is we can have open source version of Flir MSX and maybe even send those realtime theraml images with scene countours like MSX to another big monitor wireless while The NVIDIA® SHIELD™ tablet was created for gamers who often wants see their action on big TV screens 
I hope I will be able test The NVIDIA® SHIELD™ tablet  & Seek thermal under Android within a few months after finishich current projects.

Anyway finally Flir's MSX myth busted 

[Fraser]

@eneuro,

Myth busted ?

Whilst I understand your views on the MSX name and capability, IMHO, you are being a little unfair on FLIR. Historically thermal imaging has suffered from issues surrounding target context. That is to say, with the lower resolution images, the users found it difficult to identify the exact source of a 'hot spot' as the surrounding detail was inadequate. The initial solution used by the manufacturers was to add a visible light camera that supplied a detailed visible light image that could be merged with the thermal image using 'fusion' techniques.

The down side of image fusion is that the visible light image can confuse the thermal image for the user as colours overlap. This was partially resolved by making the visible light image of variable transparency and so more or less prominent on the thermal image. This is how thermal camera OEM's have approached this 'problem' until FLIR released their take on the idea.

FLIR realised that the important information in the visible light image is not the colours and fine details, but rather the edges and outlines that provide context to the whole thermal/visible light combination. It is a little unfair to criticise FLIR for doing something different to the other OEM's that benefits the user, and them wishing to protect 'MSX' as a thermal imaging enhancement. Whilst the technique may have been in use elsewhere, or known to you a decade ago, was it being used as an image context enhancement in a self contained thermal camera instrument ? FLIR did well to introduce this form of visual image combination with the thermal image. As you will see from others comments, it does what it claims, and very well.

Aurora

[EEVblog]

Out of curiosity, I'm wondering how often the TG165 will recalibrate, or if it will only do it once every time the unit is turned on, or perhaps even less often than that.

The image freezes for less than second occasionally. Certainly no periodicity to it, can go for minutes without doing it.
I don't know why it does it, because as I said, it does not take any measurement from the Lepton sensor.

[EEVblog]

so forget about thisTG165 for $500 if someone do not need this laser temperature measurements which looks very tricky with those 2 laser points and consider quite cheap USB OTG interface Seek thermal $200 for Android OSes

You are not comparing apples with apples!
The TG165 is designed for a specific industrial target market of users who want a rugged trivial to use spot measurement tool. The Flir ONE and the Seek thermal add-on are nothing of the sort.

[EEVblog]

Wonder how long it will take Mike to "enhance" this new core and improve it to higher resolution.

You can't. The Lepton sensor is an 80x60 array. There is no upgraded resolution model.  I greatly doubt any extra resolution is hidden unused inside.

[eneuro]

The TG165 is designed for a specific industrial target market of users who want a rugged trivial to use spot measurement tool.

But we can't see what we measure using TG165 or other thermal cameras without edges/contoures apllied 

Now lets compare output image we can easy get with lets call it whatever we like for example OSX (Open Source eXtreme) made just a while ago using... mentioned in my post above two images aka MSX:
visual camera:

after performing old shool gradient to detect edges available more than 10 years ago in basic image processing tools (I used GIMP in this example) and when we add it (not oryginal image but its edges like in Flir MSX) with 30% blend mask to edges while for simplicity it is easy to do in GIMP we get not so bad output thermal image with scene objects edges with our let scall it OSX , so we can easy recognize its basic shape and see what is hot and where ambient temperatures are - we can add whatever we want based on how good thermal image is

while in case of any other thermal device  without our OSX, so only thermal image based we get something like in FLIR TG165 where there is no way we have no idea what we are looking for while we need another oryginal digital image of this thing


Of course this is not real thermal image of this AC mosfets switch concept (it was made by hand in GIMP) but shows how easy is to get quite good thermal image with object edges marked in output image using archaic image processing methods, so that is why I called it Flir's MSX myth buster, while we get significant improvement in what we see, and still it is not blend of oryginal visual image and thermal, but... we simply added edges to another thermal image as one could do many years ago If had two images of the same scene.
We need in our OSX improove blending of edges gray image with thermal image to get not such strong edges, etc. but even without this this object thermal image with our just developed OSX technology looks not so bad as without OSX or Flir's MSX 

I do not want compare FLIR TG165 to any other thermal cameras, just wanted to myth bust this Flir's MSX in dead simple image processing example.
While main FLIR's profits came from military contracts, they have technology much better than this what they shows for sure, Flir's thermal cameras hardware is very good too and probbaly are much better than cheaper Seek thermal, but for some customers Flir TG165 can be simply disapointment while it lacks this simple edges overlay thermal image enhancements like MSX in higher Flir's models


 

[ConKbot]

I think when Flir say automatic shutter they may be referring to the Lepton's automatic nonuniform correction, which relies on the fact that as a handheld unit, the scene is moving, so the long-term avarage of local pixels will be the same, and can be used to do nonuniformity correction.
I don't see a reason why it would need a shutter with the thermopile there as well, especailly as AFIR there was no indication of the min/max temps of the visible temp scale, so the Lepton is used for sighting only.

There's only one way to be sure - take it apaaaaart!

Wonder if FLIR is going to be shipping you , or if they were less than impressed by your shenanigens with the flirone 

[EEVblog]

But we can't see what we measure using TG165 or other thermal cameras without edges/contoures apllied 

Most of the industry has survived just fine without that for decades.
If you need it, buy that capability.

[EEVblog]

I don't see a reason why it would need a shutter with the thermopile there as well, especailly as AFIR there was no indication of the min/max temps of the visible temp scale, so the Lepton is used for sighting only.

Correct. Yet some people still don't quite seem to get this?
It is very deliberately used as a visual aid only to an existing spot thermal camera design.
This product doesn't give a rats bum about what the actual temperature from the Lepton sensor is, it just needs that thermal difference mapping.
Flir would be crazy to build any form of calibration shutter into it, unless they planned on having another model with that feature at a later date. But that would be encroach upon the E series.

[nitro2k01]

Correct. Yet some people still don't quite seem to get this?
It is very deliberately used as a visual aid only to an existing spot thermal camera design.
This product doesn't give a rats bum about what the actual temperature from the Lepton sensor is, it just needs that thermal difference mapping.
Flir would be crazy to build any form of calibration shutter into it, unless they planned on having another model with that feature at a later date. But that would be encroach upon the E series.

You know, in principle I would agree, however for the time being I'm going with evidence to the contrary (image hiccups and mentions of a calibration shutter in the marketing material.) Perhaps written material is misleading and the firmware has a bug that causes periodical hiccups in the image. I might be wrong. Who knows. All the more reason to do a teardown as soon as possible.
Or hold it up to your ear and listen while turning it on. Not sure if these shutters make a noise that is actually loud enough to be audible, but you could use the E8 as a reference.

[Skimask]

On the eRIC module...  I had the privilege of meeting and hanging out with Mike Meakin (CTO, LPRS) a number of times in Fairford back in '03 or so during an extended trip.  I needed a 10Mhz resonator for my Warp-13a to upgrade it.  Surfed around, found his name and found him right down the street from RAF Fairford.  Lost touch.  Amazing where people pop up now and again...

[kxenos]

I burst into tears. Nice deed Dave, bravo!

[EEVblog]

I needed a 10Mhz resonator for my Warp-13a to upgrade it.

I still have mine!

[EEVblog]

You know, in principle I would agree, however for the time being I'm going with evidence to the contrary (image hiccups and mentions of a calibration shutter in the marketing material.) Perhaps written material is misleading and the firmware has a bug that causes periodical hiccups in the image. I might be wrong. Who knows.

I know for sure

[mikeselectricstuff]

I think when Flir say automatic shutter they may be referring to the Lepton's automatic nonuniform correction, which relies on the fact that as a handheld unit, the scene is moving, so the long-term avarage of local pixels will be the same, and can be used to do nonuniformity correction.
I don't see a reason why it would need a shutter with the thermopile there as well, especailly as AFIR there was no indication of the min/max temps of the visible temp scale, so the Lepton is used for sighting only.

There's only one way to be sure - take it apaaaaart!

Wonder if FLIR is going to be shipping you , or if they were less than impressed by your shenanigens with the flirone 

Flir have no problem at all with my F1 stuff (message from the very top). I may even be getting a few Leptons from them....

[eneuro]

Is it possible to change percentage of this edge/countour blending in Flir's with MSX support from 0% to 100%, as well as are there any quick buttons to disable adding edges detection to final image, so we can track see thermal image overview with edges enabled, than find point where we need more detailed temperature information, so disable edges and have clear thermal image only?

If you need it, buy that capability.

No need to buy and pay for Flir's MSX logo, while former computer image processing specialists can write software which better fits ones needs. I won't pay for closed source MSX, but I could consider buying thermal camera with builtin second digital and light path divided so each of them could see the same image, than two USB plugs and if we were able to capture in the same video from visual & IR light than OpenCV can do the rest easy using latest Nvidia CUDO support for high performance when needed and no need for any Flir's MSX.

Are there any patent numbers on those Flir thermal cameras with  MSX support or still it is patent pending marketing spam?
It is common practice that this patent pending is later changed to patent number...

[ConKbot]

I think when Flir say automatic shutter they may be referring to the Lepton's automatic nonuniform correction, which relies on the fact that as a handheld unit, the scene is moving, so the long-term avarage of local pixels will be the same, and can be used to do nonuniformity correction.
I don't see a reason why it would need a shutter with the thermopile there as well, especailly as AFIR there was no indication of the min/max temps of the visible temp scale, so the Lepton is used for sighting only.

There's only one way to be sure - take it apaaaaart!

Wonder if FLIR is going to be shipping you , or if they were less than impressed by your shenanigens with the flirone 

Flir have no problem at all with my F1 stuff (message from the very top). I may even be getting a few Leptons from them....

  Good to see a company thats not turning all Golem from LoTR about their precious hardware and trying to tell you what you can and cant do with it.  (Like every other consumer hardware company... phones, TVs, gaming consoles, etc...  Tell me how HDCP provides me a benefit, or encrypted bootloaders and other shenanigans that (try to ) prevent people from putting new OS on xboxes as media centers and the like... )

Hopfully you can find some artist/organization to bankroll a big installation with a few dozen/hundreds of the thermal imagers. 

[mikeselectricstuff]

I think when Flir say automatic shutter they may be referring to the Lepton's automatic nonuniform correction, which relies on the fact that as a handheld unit, the scene is moving, so the long-term avarage of local pixels will be the same, and can be used to do nonuniformity correction.
I don't see a reason why it would need a shutter with the thermopile there as well, especailly as AFIR there was no indication of the min/max temps of the visible temp scale, so the Lepton is used for sighting only.

There's only one way to be sure - take it apaaaaart!

Wonder if FLIR is going to be shipping you , or if they were less than impressed by your shenanigens with the flirone 

Flir have no problem at all with my F1 stuff (message from the very top). I may even be getting a few Leptons from them....

  Good to see a company thats not turning all Golem from LoTR about their precious hardware and trying to tell you what you can and cant do with it.  (Like every other consumer hardware company... phones, TVs, gaming consoles, etc...  Tell me how HDCP provides me a benefit, or encrypted bootloaders and other shenanigans that (try to ) prevent people from putting new OS on xboxes as media centers and the like... )

Hopfully you can find some artist/organization to bankroll a big installation with a few dozen/hundreds of the thermal imagers. 

Absolutely, though unless the price drops, chances are they'll be Seek Thermal....

[eneuro]

Absolutely, though unless the price drops, chances are they'll be Seek Thermal....

Probably with Seek Thermal without additional digital camera synchronized with thermal forget about aka Flir MSX edge/contoures addition in software and one will get only thermal image similar to this one on the left - blobs of temperature colors without scene edges/contours which looks not so great for 500$ TG165, but competitors I hope will add visual camera to thermal one soon, if this is not limited by some stupid MSX patent for Flir company working close to military, so this way they help them take advantage on battle fields, while those commercial available devices like Flir with MSX has preprogrammed limited capabilities only to not be able use it for diffrent purposes-so they maybe got patent to block others to make mass production of similar things-that is why patents are so bad for customers looking for lower prices and bigger competition...

If someone knows Flir MSX patent numbers let know just to see if it is already patented or patent pending only...

[mikeselectricstuff]

Absolutely, though unless the price drops, chances are they'll be Seek Thermal....

Probably with Seek Thermal without additional digital camera synchronized with thermal forget about aka Flir MSX edge/contoures addition in software and one will get only thermal image similar to this one on the left - blobs of temperature colors without scene edges/contours which looks not so great for 500$ TG165, but competitors I hope will add visual camera to thermal one soon, if this is not limited by some stupid MSX patent for Flir company working close to military, so this way they help them take advantage on battle fields, while those commercial available devices like Flir with MSX has preprogrammed limited capabilities only to not be able use it for diffrent purposes-so they maybe got patent to block others to make mass production of similar things-that is why patents are so bad for customers looking for lower prices and bigger competition...

If someone knows Flir MSX patent numbers let know just to see if it is already patented or patent pending only...

They had it on the earlier Ex0 models so probably a few years old by now.

[eneuro]

...
If someone knows Flir MSX patent numbers let know just to see if it is already patented or patent pending only...

They had it on the earlier Ex0 models so probably a few years old by now.

Answer if Flir MSX is patented is here http://image-sensors-world.blogspot.com/2014/01/flir-announces-consumer-thermal-camera.html

"Lepton is used in FLIR One camera. It has "a breakthrough lens fabricated in wafer form, a microbolometer FPA, and advanced thermal image processing on an ASIC. Lepton is fully compatible with FLIR’s patented multi-spectral imaging (MSX) technology, which allows visible and thermal image streams to be combined for sharper, more visually pleasing hybrid images."

Now the only question is if anyone can do these visually pleasing hybrid images by combining visible and thermal image streams not by using Lepton module and will try to sell it as own product this FLIR MSX patent will be violated? 

It is time to  this FLIR’s patented multi-spectral imaging (MSX) technology and read what is inside those patents, but how to find them - are they published on Google patent finders or keep secret somewhere else for military? 

[firewalker]

Flir have no problem at all with my F1 stuff (message from the very top). I may even be getting a few Leptons from them....

What about the other Flir related stuff? 

Alexander.

[nitro2k01]

Now the only question is if anyone can do these visually pleasing hybrid images by combining visible and thermal image streams not by using Lepton module and will try to sell it as own product this FLIR MSX patent will be violated? 

It is time to  this FLIR’s patented multi-spectral imaging (MSX) technology and read what is inside those patents, but how to find them - are they published on Google patent finders or keep secret somewhere else for military? 

You can find it on Google's patent search, no problem. Search for Flir and click search tools and sort by filing data, latest. And you will find "Infrared imaging enhancement with fusion".

https://www.google.com/patents/WO2014100784A1

With that search you will also find other interesting patents from Flir, such as "Abnormal clock rate detection in imaging sensor arrays". You must obey US export restrictions. You MUST obey US export restrictions!

https://www.google.com/patents/WO2014093721A3

[mikeselectricstuff]

With that search you will also find other interesting patents from Flir, such as "Abnormal clock rate detection in imaging sensor arrays". You must obey US export restrictions. You MUST obey US export restrictions!

https://www.google.com/patents/WO2014093721A3

Something I didn't check when I tried overclocking the Lepton is whether it increased the number of duplicated frames (normally 3 at 27Hz) it outputs at higher clocks...

[eneuro]

And you will find "Infrared imaging enhancement with fusion".
https://www.google.com/patents/WO2014100784A1

. I was looking for something like multi-spectral imaging (MSX) technology in this Google patents search 
Quite new probably old military technology and they have something much better while it is published in internet 

Application number   PCT/US2013/077343
Publication date   Jun 26, 2014
Filing date   Dec 21, 2013

You MUST obey US export restrictions!

Do you mean those black box Flir's Lepton modules or this concept of enhancing IR thermal images using visual & IR streams?

Something I didn't check when I tried overclocking the Lepton is whether it increased the number of duplicated frames (normally 3 at 27Hz) it outputs at higher clocks...

How did you get this thing hacked and working, while there is only 2 pages of datasheet Flir Lepton Longwave Infrared (LWIR) Camera Module ? 
It is interesting, Lepton module can be used using some kind of I2C too?

Two-wire I2C-like serial-control interface

Does it means Flir's own I2C modified somehow?

[mikeselectricstuff]

How did you get this thing hacked and working, while there is only 2 pages of datasheet

Watch the videos! Could have been done with no data, just taken longer

It is interesting, Lepton module can be used using some kind of I2C too?

Two-wire I2C-like serial-control interface

Does it means Flir's own I2C modified somehow?

No - Due to trademark issues, everyone calls I2C something different - SCCB,TWI and a few others
 As with normal camera modules, I2C is used for configuration

[Kadah]

I'm the one that sent in the Ampex board. After shipping I was able to find a copy of that ad on eBay and made a "higher-res" scan of it, or as best I could given that 70's era magazines were larger than all of my decent scanners and had to resort to the photo copier.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/26299591/pics/Mitra/Mitra%20125s%20Ad.png

Was I the only one shouting "Tagarno" at the screen during the core memory bit....?

It's still packed up from the trade show.
In any case it's less magnification than the macro lens.

What about that Andonstar USB microscope?
Can you publish some Hi-res stills please?
Before you put it in the pool room can you maybe look at it in more detail and see (speculate on) perhaps how it addresses the bits and the driver / interface circuits. I know from some reading that delay lines used before core memory was accessed serially, are these also?
Even though it is a huge board there must be considerable duplication on it. It is worth a second look I think. Maybe compare/contrast it with the other one you have.

I bought two of them from the seller (who's been out of stock for a while now), and I still have the other but unfortunately I lack access to any decent macro lenses. I do have some photos I took... with my phone back in March. If I locate my Canon G9, I'll get some shots of it, though Dave is far better kitted for this, which was one reason I got the second board.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/26299591/pics/Mitra/IMG_20140326_162748.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/26299591/pics/Mitra/IMG_20140326_170124.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/26299591/pics/Mitra/IMG_20140326_170142.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/26299591/pics/Mitra/IMG_20140326_170153.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/26299591/pics/Mitra/IMG_20140326_170236.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/26299591/pics/Mitra/IMG_20140326_170251.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/26299591/pics/Mitra/IMG_20140326_170256.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/26299591/pics/Mitra/IMG_20140326_173849.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/26299591/pics/Mitra/IMG_20140326_173858.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/26299591/pics/Mitra/IMG_20140326_173917.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/26299591/pics/Mitra/IMG_20140326_174527.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/26299591/pics/Mitra/IMG_20140326_174535.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/26299591/pics/Mitra/IMG_20140326_174547.jpg


Yeah, they did come with all that crustiness in the packing, and that one was the cleaner of the pair.

[eneuro]

Watch the videos!

Finally I've found them via Google Groups: Flir Lepton Shared publicly
links to this nice Flir Lepton reverse-engineering 

[Skimask]

I needed a 10Mhz resonator for my Warp-13a to upgrade it.

I still have mine!

I put a ZIF socket on the PIC socket of my Warp13a, and switch out what was the latest (last) firmware for the Warp13a with another PIC with my own firmware on it.  I still use the old Warp13 for what amounts to a sort of breakout board when I need to connect something up to the PC quick and easy.
It works...
Whatever happened to Jim?
(oh and it needed a 20Mhz resonator, not 10)

[SL4P]

CORE MEMORY
I mentioned in a previous post in another thread, that I was visiting the AMPEX facilities in Hong Kong in 1987/8 - and while there was taken to watch the middle aged women weaving the core threads.

I only saw the first phase - picking up the core donuts, and threading them onto the 'row' wires.  About 4 or 5 women, gathered around an island workbench with 'clean' trays full of 'dust'... the cores.  Working without magnifiers or any special equipment on that task.

They patiently leant over - a bit like grandma knitting - to build up lengths of each core row.

The sticker on the back of the module gave it away... AFL = Ampex Ferrotec Limited.

Cheers

[FrankBuss]

A more objective comparision between the FLIR TG165 and the Fluke visual IR thermometer (but it is the VT04) :



The TG165 has higher resolution, but the VT04 has the nice feature to take pictures automatically every 10 minutes when a threshold temperature is exceeded. Unfortunately the IS2 file format of the VT04 is not published and Fluke doesn't want to publish it (I asked the Fluke customer support and at least they answered, but refused to send me the specification to write a better program than the very limited viewer which is bundled with it).

[eneuro]

The TG165 has higher resolution, but the VT04 has the nice feature to take pictures automatically every 10 minutes when a threshold temperature is exceeded. Unfortunately the IS2 file format of the VT04 is not published and Fluke doesn't want to publish it

Using other thermal cameras connected to device with OpenCV like some Nvidia tablets or regular PC, one can easy write such application and no thanks to Fluke for their closed formats 

Will see how Seek Thermal with USB OTG will behave when they publish developers tools.
There is a question about supported temperatures ranges in thermal devices, but if one can in realtime get thermal image on device with OpenCV one can do everything with such thermal images-thermal image specs are then limits only.
I hope Seek Thermal team is smart and they know that they do not have to fight with Flir's MSX patents, while when they provide thermal camera plugable to decent computing power those devices can download any even Open Source software which will give users unlimited options to convert those thermal image and even make fusion with visual light like in Flir's MSX .

Those Fluke and Flir closed software will no longer be needed as well as their thermal cameras in many practical use cases of IR analysis