FLIR LEPTON 3 - a cheap source and regular availability

[Fraser]

Hi all,

As some readers will know, FLIR recently announced that they would be selling the LEPTON 3 imaging core to OEM's. The core is priced at around $250 !

For some time now I have been repairing FLIR One Generation 2 camera dongles. These contain a LEPTON 3 with the optional shutter assembly.

I have recently been approached to repair large numbers of these cameras that are customer returns. I have declined the requests as the margins are too small on these cameras to make it worth my time repairing them for the seller.

I am aware of several 'Customer Returns' sellers on eBay who get quite regular stock of faulty or 'unwanted' F1G2 cameras. I have bought several for around £65 and repaired all but one. I bought another this week for £66. The seller also sold two more at a similar price.

The purpose of this post is to highlight that there is a relatively cheap and easily accessible source of LEPTON 3 cores out there. The LEPTON 3 in the F1G2 is no different to that supplied to OEM's in terms of hardware.

If you are looking to experiment with a LEPTON 3 on a tight budget, think about buying one of the many customer returns or faulty units. I have yet to receive one that has a faulty LEPTON Core in it.

When buying a F1G2 you also get a semi development board and the socket for the Lepton. The case also contains a lens protector. A pretty good experimentation platform at a knock down price. Not forgetting that the iOS version also contains the Apple ID chip

Fraser

[cdev]

Thank you for this info. Will keep my eyes open for this.

[Fraser]

The FLIR One G2 is really easy to open and because the LEPTON 3 is socketed, it is easy to harvest from the PCB. It will plug straight into one of the Groupgets development PCB's designed for the Lepton 2 and 3.

It may well be possible to re-purpose the F1G2 PCB but I have no experience of that. The joy of the LEPTON is that it is a complete calibrated and configured thermal camera core so just needs interfacing to a host and there is no dead pixel mapping or calibration to worry about writing code for. It really is a neat little thermal imaging building block. I am looking into attaching a better lens assembly to the LEPTON as they may well improve the images produced significantly. The FLIR designed Silicon diffraction lens is very much a low resolution compromise solution and can be improved upon with conventional optics.

http://www.laserfocusworld.com/articles/print/volume-50/issue-07/world-news/ir-imaging-thin-silicon-fresnel-lens-enables-inexpensive-thermal-ir-imaging.html

At the moment, and for the foreseeable future, faulty F1G2 dongles are the cheapest source of LEPTON 3 camera cores.



Fraser

[mikeselectricstuff]

Just noticed that Lepton 3's are now in Digikey
https://www.digikey.co.uk/product-detail/en/flir/500-0726-01/500-0726-01-ND/6163867

[Fraser]

Excellent news Thank Mike.

Maybe we will see some Lepton 3 autonomous adapters appearing that provide user friendly output like composite video etc. The drone brigade currently have such an adapter for the Lepton 2 but it does not support the Lepton 3 yet. I suspected it was due to the Lepton 3 not being generally available.
The Lepton 3 would be a good step up from 80 x 60 on a drone.

Fraser

[stmdude]

Sorry for hijacking the thread for a bit, but it seems like the right people are in here, and I have very little experience with FIR.

I've gotten a request from a customer to quote on building a device with a thermal camera in it. Their prototype is based around the Lepton 3, and it works well enough for their purposes, but the price-range they're looking at makes it difficult to fit a $240 component into the BOM.

Do you guys know of a similar type of module, but cheaper?  Roughly the same FoV and resolution. It'll be connected to a fairly beefy SoC, so I can do some post-processing of the data if that helps.

[Fraser]

Hi stmdude,

There is not much choice as SEEK have chosen to not produce a self contained thermal core for OEM use. The FLIR Lepton is an amazing piece of miniaturisation and the price is actually low for a thermal camera core. AFAIK, it has no competition in the market at the moment.

The Lepton was designed to be a relatively self contained module that can interface easily to a host system that processes its output data. It is by far the easiest solution for you to use. Building your own core using a sensor from ULIS would be Challenging if you are not familiar with thermal camera design. You would then need the ancillary parts such as the lens as well. I suspect even designing your own core would cost more than a Lepton3.

You have not specified the purpose of the unit you are being asked to design. No problem with that but the only lower cost thermal energy sensors that I can think of are much lower resolution, such as the Melexis and Panasonic offerings. They are VERY low resolution though. Such as 2x16 pixels.

The Lepton is a marvel of modern miniaturisation using the currently available microbolometer production technology. Sadly it is not exactly a cheap component, but then it is not a common mass produced CMOS visible light camera.

My advice would be to include the Lepton core in your quote and detail the options available. Lepton2 at 80 x 60 pixels or the more expensive Lepton3 at 160 x 120 pixels. Explain the uniqueness of this component in the marketplace and price controlled by FLIR. It will be for the customer to decide whether they can afford the best thermal core for the design, or they need to reconsider their specification. Manage the customers expectations. Once enlightened on the specialist nature of the thermal core and it's relatively high cost, most customers will be happy to discuss options. If not, I strongly suggest you walk away as the customer is living in cloud cuckoo land.

Fraser

[stmdude]

There is not much choice as SEEK have chosen to not produce a self contained thermal core for OEM use. The FLIR Lepton is an amazing piece of miniaturisation and the price is actually low for a thermal camera core. AFAIK, it has no competition in the market at the moment.

Thanks Fraser, this is pretty much what I suspected, but I needed some confirmation before I submitted to this fate.

I agree that for what it is, $240 is pretty reasonable. I think I was hoping for some competition in the market though.

Thanks for your very thorough overview!