Flir E4 Thermal imaging camera teardown

[mikeselectricstuff]

not working yet: video mode

Although it's only 320x240 the flash in the E4 isn't that big - the size was mentioned a few pages back - so it probably can't record for very long.
..and the CPU may not have the power to compress in realtime

[mikeselectricstuff]

Ok Peopes........ I am sorely tempted to add an E4 to my collection of TICs. I am not a business, so sadly will have to Pay VAT no matter where I buy it. Are there any fellow Brits who have a recommendtion for the best/cheapest place to buy from in the UK ? I know stocks are in short supply (thanks to Mike  ) but any tip woudld be apprecited as I am  looking fo a good deal if one exists.

Fraser

Seems nobody advertises anything below RRP so probably need to ask around for best price/stock. I think the issue ATM is finding any stock, let alone price. I notice tequipment in US sold not only 12 E4s but also a couple of E5's in the 24hrs after the hackaday post

[TopLoser]

Ok Peopes........ I am sorely tempted to add an E4 to my collection of TICs. I am not a business, so sadly will have to Pay VAT no matter where I buy it. Are there any fellow Brits who have a recommendation for the best/cheapest place to buy from. I know stocks are in short supply (thanks to Mike  ) but any tips would be apprecited as I am  looking fo a good deal if one exists.

I bought one yesterday from www.omega.co.uk, it was listed online for £665+VAT.

Today it's £795+VAT...

[Pinkus]

Ok Peopes........ I am sorely tempted to add an E4 to my collection of TICs. I am not a business, so sadly will have to Pay VAT no matter where I buy it. Are there any fellow Brits who have a recommendation for the best/cheapest place to buy from. I know stocks are in short supply (thanks to Mike  ) but any tips would be apprecited as I am  looking fo a good deal if one exists.

I bought one yesterday from www.omega.co.uk, it was listed online for £665+VAT.

Today it's £795+VAT...

Yeah, I just wanted to propse Omega to Aurora too but checked the price before. I then thought I remembered wrong. But obviously not. Thats the law of supply and demand.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Ok Peopes........ I am sorely tempted to add an E4 to my collection of TICs. I am not a business, so sadly will have to Pay VAT no matter where I buy it. Are there any fellow Brits who have a recommendation for the best/cheapest place to buy from. I know stocks are in short supply (thanks to Mike  ) but any tips would be apprecited as I am  looking fo a good deal if one exists.

I bought one yesterday from www.omega.co.uk, it was listed online for £665+VAT.

Today it's £795+VAT...

Yeah, I just wanted to propse Omega to Aurora too but checked the price before. I then thought I remembered wrong. But obviously not. Thats the law of supply and demand.

So I'm not the only one who thought I saw a lower price there..
Probably worth calling them though

[eliocor]

I think I was lucky: 800€ instead of 955€!!!
It is just curiosity, but other than TopLoser and me, have anyone else bought an E4 from Omega?
Maybe the surge of requests triggered some list price alarms!!!

[olsenn]

So I am a tad confused about all this talk about different lenses and service menus et cetera. I was under the impression that seperate lenses couldn't be attached to the E4, or is this a mod?

Is there any reason to go into the service menu (or whatever it's called); does it unlock any new features of the camera that the hack doesn't do?

[BravoV]

I shall have to be patient 

... sometimes that will be rewarded with a prize ... errr... comes with a price ... 

[mikeselectricstuff]

So I am a tad confused about all this talk about different lenses and service menus et cetera. I was under the impression that seperate lenses couldn't be attached to the E4, or is this a mod?

A simple mod - like adding spectacles

Is there any reason to go into the service menu (or whatever it's called); does it unlock any new features of the camera that the hack doesn't do?

Not as far as we know, unless you want to modify break the calibration of your unit.

[0xdeadbeef]

Some pictures with ZnSe lenses of different focus lengths would be welcome. I understand 0.5m is the minimum focus distance with the standard lens.
Yet 50mm (2") focus length seems very small. I wonder if  63.5mm (2.5"), 76.2mm (3") or even 100mm (4") wouldn't work better.
Besides: some dealers on eBay sell "HQ"  ZnSe lenses for roughly twice the price of the normal ZnSe lenses. They seem to have lower transmission losses.
I wonder if that makes much of a difference for thermal imaging purposes...

[Pinkus]

@Taucher and any other Windows CE experts.

May I note a minor request? Maybe it is pretty easy to do.

The E4 is a fixed focus camera, beeing able to show sharp pictures from 30cm to inifinity.
But the internal real picture camera can show sharp pictures up to 10cm or even closer (I tried). It is the infrared sensor (and lens) which is limited to 30cm.

For distances between 3m and 30 cm the parallaxis between the sensor picture and the camera picture is being corrected by shifting pixels in the vertical axis. This is selected in the distance menu.

Now, by rotating the lens or by adding an additional CO2 laser lens (ZnSn) it would be possible to check anything closer than 30cm. A PCB check with 10cm distance for example would be possible now which gives us a much higher resolution.

Unfortunately the pixels of the internal camera will not be shifted enough with the lowest (30cm) option, as the settings are limited to 0.3m / 0,6m / 1m .... >3m. Thus the usage of MSX is not possible.

Now the question: Do you think there is any way to add another option to that list: "0,1m"?
The current list should be stored somewhere including a table with the amount of pixels to be shifted. For 10cm another 35 pixels need to be added (rough guess now).

[olsenn]

A simple mod - like adding spectacles

Yes, I know it would be simple; just adding some double-sided adhesive tape and sticking another lens on there would probably work; however, do you take the old lens out first, or do you add one over top of the other (like sunglasses on top of your prescription glasses)? Thermal polarizer anyone? har de har har

 

Not as far as we know, unless you want to modify break the calibration of your unit.

My unit hasn't even shipped yet, but I will not be opening it. I was just curious to see what has been found in all these secret menus.

[Pinkus]

Just spoke to Omega. No Dice. They are sticking to their GBP795 price. From the reaction of the nice lady on the phone, me thinks a pricing error occurrred !

Or Flir insisted that they keep to RRP or they would not receive new E4s.

[kaz911]

okay - for those who need ... I have gone through and gotten my freight forwarder in the US to "approve" the Ex cameras <= 9Hz for export based on Flir Export documentation and ECCN numbers. My FF is VERY hard on export control - so now it is vetted and should be "in the system" at the Freight Forwarder as allowed for export.

Due to the sensitive nature I'll only give the details to people who PM and have EEVBlog history - and please don't disclose to outside parties for the next week (until MY camera has shipped at least - don't want corporate big guns aiming at my Freight Forwarder *G*) - and If you will let me I can even earn $10 shipping credit by referring you

And a little trick... If you have a US Amazon account and a Freight Forwarder in the US - "sub sellers" can't verify your CC details. Amazon takes payment and they are a bit more liberal with where CC comes from. You might pay a little extra buying through Amazon (As in closer to RRP) - but you can usually buy from people who would not touch a non-US CC.

[m4rkiz]

It looks like they come in 35mm and 50mm diameters.

bit harder to install and remove but plenty of sizes available

www.ebay.ie/sch/i.html?_odkw=c+clip&_osacat=0&_nkw=internal+c+clip&_sacat=0

[olsenn]

My FF is VERY hard on export control

Your profile says you are from the United Arab Emirates; that's pretty close to Iran and some other embargoes nations. I imagine shipping thermal images from there would be a bloody nightmare. Glad to hear you figured out a way though

[mikeselectricstuff]

@Taucher and any other Windows CE experts.

May I note a minor request? Maybe it is pretty easy to do.

The E4 is a fixed focus camera, beeing able to show sharp pictures from 30cm to inifinity.
But the internal real picture camera can show sharp pictures up to 10cm or even closer (I tried). It is the infrared sensor (and lens) which is limited to 30cm.

For distances between 3m and 30 cm the parallaxis between the sensor picture and the camera picture is being corrected by shifting pixels in the vertical axis. This is selected in the distance menu.

Now, by rotating the lens or by adding an additional CO2 laser lens (ZnSn) it would be possible to check anything closer than 30cm. A PCB check with 10cm distance for example would be possible now which gives us a much higher resolution.

Unfortunately the pixels of the internal camera will not be shifted enough with the lowest (30cm) option, as the settings are limited to 0.3m / 0,6m / 1m .... >3m. Thus the usage of MSX is not possible.

Now the question: Do you think there is any way to add another option to that list: "0,1m"?
The current list should be stored somewhere including a table with the amount of pixels to be shifted. For 10cm another 35 pixels need to be added (rough guess now).

The problem is that at close distances it just isn't going to work - the geometric errors across the image will be too high - as you get closer, the cameras are not just at different distances, but looking from very different angles, so registration will vary across the field of view in both axes. For close-up work, even if it did work, MSX wouldn't be a huge benefit.

[kaz911]

My FF is VERY hard on export control

Your profile says you are from the United Arab Emirates; that's pretty close to Iran and some other embargoes nations. I imagine shipping thermal images from there would be a bloody nightmare. Glad to hear you figured out a way though

UAE is not under any embargo. As the UAE has almost 10% of the worlds oil reserves the US is very nice here.... But I would not touch any kind of export to neighbour countries. Exporting restricted items here to embargo countries are punished with jail or worse.

[mikeselectricstuff]

I just joined the E4 Club 

I had a chat with a very friendly chap at PASS as I have dealt with them before. I explained that some companies in the USA are discounting when asked for such, and would he offer me any form of deal on an E4 ?

It would appear that UK sellers are in a tighter spot than US ones. I was told that discounts on the higher models were definitely a possibility but the margins on the low end E4 were so tight for them that they could do very little, if anything, for me on their GBP796+VAT price. PASS are discounting the E5 at the moment so they obviously do discount. It looks more and more like OMEGA made a pricing error. I pushed a little harder for a discount and exceptionally secured one based on my past good custom etc etc. I know this may all be just sales talk, but the chap did seem very friendly and genuine. He also advised that the set they sell is the complete kit including hard case for storage and full warrantly etc. I am very happy with my deal but it looks like discounts will be hard to find in the UK at the moment.

The camera is sent using a special secure delivery service to ensure that it does not go walkies in transit 

PASS sold two E4's today and mine is the third. They restock daily and have a batch of five arriving tomorrow. One of which will be mine. Sales are obviously going well ! FLIR must be a tad surprised at the figures ?

PASS web site:

http://www.tester.co.uk/flir-e4-thermal-imaging-camera

Looking forward to hacking my E4

Any comment from him re. recent E4 sales volumes and reasons for such...?

[olsenn]

I seriously hope FLIR is not onto us yet; I don't want to be getting a revision of this camera that is immune to hacking

[zapta]

I seriously hope FLIR is not onto us yet; I don't want to be getting a revision of this camera that is immune to hacking

I can assure you that they track this thread from day one. Some as part of their duty and others for curiosity and fun.

[Taucher]

@Taucher and any other Windows CE experts.
-snip-
Now the question: Do you think there is any way to add another option to that list: "0,1m"?
The current list should be stored somewhere including a table with the amount of pixels to be shifted. For 10cm another 35 pixels need to be added (rough guess now).

The problem is that at close distances it just isn't going to work - the geometric errors across the image will be too high - as you get closer, the cameras are not just at different distances, but looking from very different angles, so registration will vary across the field of view in both axes. For close-up work, even if it did work, MSX wouldn't be a huge benefit.

May I add: there are exactly 6 pre defined fields and all are somehow linked/used inside the binaries... so: no chance - use a mirror or prism to fix alignment

[Pinkus]

A question for those who already own an E4 and have used FLIR Tools.....

Can you change the centre temperature and span when viewing the image ? I know the E4 embeds meta data in the jpg file but wondered if it is similar to the old img file meta data

My camera produces the img files and these area read in Explorer99 and FLIR Tools. The metadata contains ALL the raw thermographic data that the camera collected so you can manipulate the image in any way you like as though it was a live image on the camera,. i.e. you can change palette, span spot temperature point etc. Does FLIR Tools provide any image data manipulation options when using the FLIR jpg files ?

Yes, you can manipulate it as you like in Flir Tools

[mikeselectricstuff]

A question for those who already own an E4 and have used FLIR Tools.....

Can you change the centre temperature and span when viewing the image ? I know the E4 embeds meta data in the jpg file but wondered if it is similar to the old img file meta data

My camera produces the img files and these area read in Explorer99 and FLIR Tools. The metadata contains ALL the raw thermographic data that the camera collected so you can manipulate the image in any way you like as though it was a live image on the camera,. i.e. you can change palette, span spot temperature point etc. Does FLIR Tools provide any image data manipulation options when using the FLIR jpg files ?

Not looked in detail but I think you have to save a raw file - have seen references to this but not sure if this is supported (YET?) on the E4 and/or (the free version of) FLIR Tools

[ixfd64]

Just spoke to Omega. No Dice. They are sticking to their GBP795 price. From the reaction of the nice lady on the phone, me thinks a pricing error occurrred !

Or Flir insisted that they keep to RRP or they would not receive new E4s.

In that case, it might be worth a try to ask for a rebate as opposed to a discount. That way, the distributor can technically say they sold it at the price FLIR demanded.