Flir E4 Thermal imaging camera review

[mikeselectricstuff]

Teardown soon!

http://youtu.be/C3YksbvYnKY

[BravoV]

Great video as usual Mike, looking forward to see the teardown. 

Thanks for the tips on breaking up those ultrasonic welded plastics. 

[zapta]

Great review. Thanks. I may get one from Amazon. I had concern about the wide angle, minimal distance, and fixed focus. Will be interesting to see what results you will get with the macro lenses.

BTW, mm/dd/yyyy date format is very popular around here. It goes well with inches, ounces and fahrenheit.

[Fraser]

Mike,

Great that your TIC arrived so quickly. I shall enjoy watching another of your excellent video's

Fraser

[Mysion]

Awesome! What a cool little unit.

In another thread you said it was likely that most of the cameras used the same sensor but that the frame rate and resolution was reduced in software.  Is there any way to verify this now that you have a unit in your hands?

Can't wait for the tear down!

[Fraser]

Another excellent video Mike. Thank you.

Thanks also for your suggestion on opening ultrasonic welded plastic cases....I have eight knackered FLIR batteries to open up !

With regard to the poor user interface I am surprised. There is no excuse for sluggish menus in 2013 and the poor control pad functionality should have been discovered during UAT.

My FLIR camera has a small joystick whose function changes depending upon the menu function selected. For example, at start-up the joystick controls focus and zoom. If the manual image set-up menu is selected, the joystick controls centre temperature and span. As you state, it is common sense that the joy-pad should have commonly used functions assigned to it during normal use. Hopefully FLIR will consider some firmware updates to correct this oversight.

With regard to the 'FLIR Tools' software. It is a universal program for most of the cameras in FLIR's portfolio. It even works with my 1990's TIC's    The functions that you could not activate in the view mode are for Thermographic cameras that contain a lot of embedded information in the recorded image files. My cameras produce proprietary FLIR  .img and standard BMP files but not jpg. The .img files are the only ones that contain the thermographic data that FLIR Tools uses.

You can see plots of temperature across a scene and other stuff that Industry needs. I actually prefer Explorer99 that was released in 1999(updated 2007). It does the job without fuss.

The real advantage of these software  programs is that they can re-process the raw thermal image data, including changing centre temperature, span and the colour palettes may be changed to ones not available on the camera. Various measurements on the image may be carried out post inspection.


I am impressed with the improvement in image recognition that the MSX offers. I can see this becoming standard fitment on TIC's in the future. It is very clever that FLIR offers the image registration adjustment. A pretty decent 'budget' TIC.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Awesome! What a cool little unit.

In another thread you said it was likely that most of the cameras used the same sensor but that the frame rate and resolution was reduced in software.  Is there any way to verify this now that you have a unit in your hands?

Poking around the sensor pins with a scope should give clues as to what the sensor is capable of...

[iceisfun]

Awesome, I was considering a Flir I series camera too but that looks great for the price!

[Psi]

If there was a hack available to get this up to 20fps i would buy it right now.

[zapta]

Mike, do you have any experience with Flir I3? How would you compare them? Does the I3 has better macro resolution out of the box? They are in the same price range.

[neggles]

Mike, do you have any experience with Flir I3? How would you compare them? Does the I3 has better macro resolution out of the box? They are in the same price range.

The i3 has been discontinued, the E4 is its replacement. The optics (and probably the sensor) are largely the same, but the E4 has the secondary visual camera for outline overlay.

[chibiace]

just fell asleep half way through this. strangely hypnotic.

nice monitor layout you have there.

will have to watch the rest later. but very nice piece of kit could come in handy

[digsys]

  If there was a hack available to get this up to 20fps i would buy it right now. 

I talked to 3 FLIR / Fluke / "forgor brand" engineers at Electronex, 2 of whom were from Germany R+D.
The models they showed me were 50fps !! I was told, IF you buy these out of Germany (maybe Europe? as well),
there are NO FPS restrictions, unlike in/out of USA. I feel a hack coming up :-) ?
I'm kicking myself for not buying the demo E5 for 1/2 price.

[zapta]

The optics (and probably the sensor) are largely the same, but the E4 has the secondary visual camera for outline overlay.

Are you sure about the optics? The viewing angle of the I3 is 12.5 degrees vs 45 degrees of the E4 which is about x4 zoom. *If* they have the same minimum focus distance than the I3 can have > x2 linear resolution (e.g. when inspecting PCB's).

[mikeselectricstuff]

  If there was a hack available to get this up to 20fps i would buy it right now. 

I talked to 3 FLIR / Fluke / "forgor brand" engineers at Electronex, 2 of whom were from Germany R+D.
The models they showed me were 50fps !! I was told, IF you buy these out of Germany (maybe Europe? as well),
there are NO FPS restrictions, unlike in/out of USA. I feel a hack coming up :-) ?
I'm kicking myself for not buying the demo E5 for 1/2 price.

Different countries have different restrictions, so there may be places you can buy with fewer restrictions, but a US company would probably not supply via any country that didn't have similar restrictions to US.

[mikeselectricstuff]

I sent a link to the vid to Flir, and they replied saying they agreed with the UI issues and had previously had discussions with their engineers about it, and intend to improve the firmware.

They do have a soft case option, and looking at the prices of the soft and hard cases on their accessory page, they could sell the unit $100 less with this, which I think many users would prefer.

[neggles]

They do have a soft case option, and looking at the prices of the soft and hard cases on their accessory page, they could sell the unit $100 less with this, which I think many users would prefer.

When they're trying to make a low-cost product, and there's a way that's this obvious to reduce its price by 10%, you really have to wonder why they didn't do it.

Are you sure about the optics? The viewing angle of the I3 is 12.5 degrees vs 45 degrees of the E4 which is about x4 zoom. *If* they have the same minimum focus distance than the I3 can have > x2 linear resolution (e.g. when inspecting PCB's).

Hmm, you're right. I'm not so sure - I do recall seeing that the i3 is hopeless closer than 30cm, and Mike's video seems to show the E4 being usable down to 100mm or so, which might help.

[amyk]

Good hardware, but rather disappointing firmware. Unless the sensor needs a long time to initialise (does it need to heat up/cool down to a specific temperature?) I don't see any reason why it should need more than a second to get from cold power-off to full operation, like a regular digital camera.

The UI lag is also surprising, given how simple it is and how much this unit costs. I agree with you that this trend of "UI simplification" is getting ridiculous - things like only 3 discrete backlight brightnesses (which can turn into "eye-watering", "too bright", and "too dark"), distances for correction are in rough steps (how hard is it to just have the option of visually shifting the image with the buttons on the main screen to achieve alignment, or better yet, a built-in distance sensor), buttons that are otherwise useless, etc.

The OS also appears to be full of unneeded crap which is slowing things down - one of the debug messages is "WlanTask" - does it even have wireless? Also a little amusing that apparently at the end it has to parse XML... another thing that IMHO should never be needed in a device like this.

But on the other hand, this "full OS" thing might make it even more hackable. Framerate limits might be stored in XML configuration files, the UI could be customisable, or maybe they even use the same sensor across all their models and just downscale this one to 80x60 depending on config bits...

I've noticed these sorts of "enterprisey" design flaws more often in products that are mostly bought not by those who use them... where someone in management will just do it on the "we need some thermal cameras" idea and not have to use them, but give them to other workers so these sorts of issues you pointed out in your review don't make it back to Flir.

...And the Chinese could be catching up...
http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/914920042/DT_9875_Thermal_Imager_Infrared_Thermal.html

[Psi]

The UI lag is also surprising, given how simple it is and how much this unit costs.

I wonder if this hints at the clock running slower than was designed in order to limit the FPS

[Hypernova]

...And the Chinese could be catching up...
http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/914920042/DT_9875_Thermal_Imager_Infrared_Thermal.html

Nice, 50Hz, @ 160x120, pity it's still at the 3~4K range. Can't wait to see how far the price drops in the coming years.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Good hardware, but rather disappointing firmware. Unless the sensor needs a long time to initialise (does it need to heat up/cool down to a specific temperature?) I don't see any reason why it should need more than a second to get from cold power-off to full operation, like a regular digital camera.

Startup from standby is reasonable, given the use of an OS.

The OS also appears to be full of unneeded crap which is slowing things down - one of the debug messages is "WlanTask" - does it even have wireless? Also a little amusing that apparently at the end it has to parse XML... another thing that IMHO should never be needed in a device like this.

Probably due to having a common platform for a wide range of models - The Ex0 series has Wifi

...And the Chinese could be catching up...
http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/914920042/DT_9875_Thermal_Imager_Infrared_Thermal.html

I wonder if they actually make the sensors - this is the main cost, and tech barrier - until a low-cost manufacturer can make sensors, these things are never going to get much cheaper.
Flir own so much of the market that they can charge £4K+ for 320x240, when I suspect the hardware is identical to the 80x60, with the possible exception of the lens.

[Hypernova]

Good hardware, but rather disappointing firmware. Unless the sensor needs a long time to initialise (does it need to heat up/cool down to a specific temperature?) I don't see any reason why it should need more than a second to get from cold power-off to full operation, like a regular digital camera.

Startup from standby is reasonable, given the use of an OS.

The OS also appears to be full of unneeded crap which is slowing things down - one of the debug messages is "WlanTask" - does it even have wireless? Also a little amusing that apparently at the end it has to parse XML... another thing that IMHO should never be needed in a device like this.

Probably due to having a common platform for a wide range of models - The Ex0 series has Wifi

...And the Chinese could be catching up...
http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/914920042/DT_9875_Thermal_Imager_Infrared_Thermal.html

I wonder if they actually make the sensors - this is the main cost, and tech barrier - until a low-cost manufacturer can make sensors, these things are never going to get much cheaper.
Flir own so much of the market that they can charge £4K+ for 320x240, when I suspect the hardware is identical to the 80x60, with the possible exception of the lens.

These guy do appear to make their own sensors:
http://www.dali-tech.us/products/dlc160-58.html

In fact their starting model is a 160x120 at £1,100.00 ex VAT, that's not much more than the E4!
http://www.warwickts.com/te-dali-low-cost-thermal-imager-160x120-pixel-p1314

[mikeselectricstuff]

They do have a soft case option, and looking at the prices of the soft and hard cases on their accessory page, they could sell the unit $100 less with this, which I think many users would prefer.

When they're trying to make a low-cost product, and there's a way that's this obvious to reduce its price by 10%, you really have to wonder why they didn't do it.

I think it's just a mindset thing -TICs are traditionally expensive things that should have expensive chunky cases, not tools that get thrown in a bag with other stuff.
However it is a little surprising that they spend so much on the lowest end - maybe theye couldn't be bothered redesigning packaging etc.
I think most people would rather pay $100 less for the unit and then make their own choice of case.   

[mikeselectricstuff]

These guy do appear to make their own sensors:
http://www.dali-tech.us/products/dlc160-58.html

Interesting - pretty basic, and expensive  encapsulation method though - The Flir E4 one has a much cheaper construction  method - video soon!

[JackOfVA]

It seems that all the Ex series have fixed focus with minimum distance 0.5m and a field of view 45 deg x 34 deg. For the E4 this corresponds to 10.3 milliradian per pixel.

At the minimum distance for the image to still be in focus, therefore, (S=R x Theta) one pixel is 500 mm x 0.0103 = 5 mm.  The E6  resolution per pixel is 5.2mm, so one pixel at the closest in-focus distance corresponds to a 2.5 mm square.

Technical data sheet on the E4 at https://www1.elfa.se/data1/wwwroot/assets/datasheets/E4_eng_tds.pdf
E6 at https://www1.elfa.se/data1/wwwroot/assets/datasheets/E6_eng_tds.pdf