FLIR A65 teardown and video

[marshallh]

This is the FLIR A65 compact with 13mm lens. It has been superceded by the Flir A65SC which uses the same core (I believe) but with a larger lens shroud.

Based on the Flir Tau2 core, it's nothing more than a Tau2 core plugged into a customized Pleora GigE Vision board, targeted at industrial automation and lab applications.

The converter runs a EP3C25 with 128mbit DDR2, with a 5V buck supply to make use of the 48V PoE supply.









The data format at the connector (just a 50pin Hirose) is documented and it's very possible to stick an FPGA, framebuffer and LCD on this thing and turn it into a standalone camera. However, too many projects... Digital IO connector used for sync was blown, but of no consequence for my applications.

While it's very capable, with 640x512 resolution it puts all low cost sensors to shame (and for the price rightly it should) at a nice fluid 30hz refresh, it is technically categorized as "fixed focus" because its focus adjustment takes a special tool and a not insignificant amount of wrenching, trial and error.

$70 later, we have the special FLIR-blessed CNC aluminum ring that inserts into the objective holder:


Using FLIR Tools, we have a very basic control of the camera (but not too much, because that would cost money). One gripe is that while you can save radiometric JPEGs, there is no way to export the image to a lossless format - so you are stuck with horribly quantized JPEGs, and with all the reds in the Iron palette, we're talking block city. Workaround for now is to screenshot the tool itself.











The next step was to make it portable. A PoE injector is required to feed the camera with 48V, so I picked up a 12volt Li-Ion battery bank, wired in a boost converter for 46V, and combined with my laptop, I can now go anywhere.
Flir Tools+ costs $300 and is necessary to record video - however, it only records at about 7-8fps regardless of the camera's actual rate. Even worse, it has no concept of frame deltas or time, so the Flir SEQ format is not usable as any sort of video recording medium (only for event logging).
With FLIR's own tools out of the picture, I got the Pleora SDK and modified a sample program to let me record to x264 at the full 30hz.
Of course, what better than to go driving?




In the parking garage it's easy to tell which cars have been recently moved:




Better results could be obtained from fiddling with the Tau2 core directly and enabling some additiona postprocessing - the firmware supports extra edge chancements and contrast enhancements which are good for use as night vision or security purposes. But here I am just running in raw radiometric mode.

[nidlaX]

Nice post! Are you going to repair the sync out board? Also, do you know if you can upgrade the firmware on the Tau2 to support 60 FPS?

[Fraser]

Hi Marshallh,

Nice post. Thank you for the teardown.

Some comments from me.....

You were lucky with that camera. The burn up on the sync board looks nasty and suggested abuse that could have damaged other boards. Thankfully not in this case.

The TAU 2 core is easily controlled via RS232 as you likely know. See my teardown and repair of a TAU on this forum. It can be set to provide automatic image setting and video output on application of power. Other palettes are also selectable and even a cross hair ! These settings stick so at the next power on, they are still present. The TAU 2 is a very nice core 

My FLIR ResearchIR software supports this camera and provides all manner of image processing, capture and saving options. It can save in the common compressed formats, BMP and TIFF. No truly raw saving format though. FLIR have always charged a lot of money for their pro softwares. No decent budget offereings until TOOLS+ came along. This was not an uncommon state of affairs in the thermal imaging industry. The OEM had a second bite of the Cherry when customers were forced to purchase relatively simp,e and crude analysis software at extortionate prices. Such software is a bit specialist so you will not find it floating around the internet for 'free'. The expensive software like ReportIR and ResearchIR is also heavily protected using either FLIR server activation or a HASP Dongle. These cameras can really shine when coupled up to decent software for image enhancement and analysis.

You are a lucky chap to get your hands on this neat little camera. Well done  . I went after the lower resolution version (IIRC 160 x 120 pixels) on eBay but bailed out at around £260. I wondered if it had been worth pursuing harder but soon after I found the FLIR A40 and Jenoptik IR-TCM 320 x 240 pixel cameras so I forgot about the missed Axx series camera 

Fraser

[MattSR]

Great post and thanks for the video. It certainly puts the Lepton core to shame

[homestea]

Great Post! I’m glad you are making use of that camera! My other has just been sitting around doing nothing so I’ve decided to put it up for sale as well.  The one that I have the IO board is not burnt nearly as bad (the board might be repairable if I could identify the toasted component), however for whatever reason the blue LED doesn’t light up.   functions perfectly fine via Ethernet though.  When I had both I thought it would be cool to use both together and make a stereoscopic 3d camera.  Possibly could feed the image to an Oculus Headset or something.  I just didn’t have the free time to do it.


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