I managed to pick up a FLIR TG130 for what I thought was a good price (£168) in the Amazon black friday sale. I've finally had permission from Santa and time to do a mini review. I haven't seen it for less anywhere since, but the RS and Farnell prices are better than the normal Amazon price even after you take VAT into account.
It was a bit of a risky buy. Obviously the TG130 is right at the bottom of FLIR's offerings, but given that I couldn't justify the significantly higher (ie.
starting at double'ish) cost of their other offferings it seemed worth going for. I don't have a smartphone either (luddite!) which ruled out the FLIR One and Seek Thermal too - both more expensive anyway and a more cumbersome solution for close-in PCB work. At least it was FLIR though and not one of the ebay no-brand 32x32 or 6x60 photoshopped specials.
Basic spec then: Point and shoot, integrated display (1.8"), 80x60 Lepton 2 (with shutter). Power button and trigger to freeze frame. Single point measurement. No storage or removable card. Fixed focus lens down to 100mm, FOV 55x43 degrees. AGC only, so the image colours track the coldest and hottest items in frame. Colour pallet: Iron only. [EDIT: Emissivity fixed at 0.95]. Batteries 2 x AAA alkaline (4 hours quoted). In a word, humble. The full user manual including mechanical drawing is here:
http://flir.custhelp.com/app/account/fl_download_manualsActually, I had no problem with the above spec, I wanted something compact and self-contained. No particular interest in taking thermal photos (would have been helpful for a review though!). I basically wanted it for PCB and general fault-finding, single point measurement and freeze-frame is fine for that. 80x60 is low for these days, but at least it's a Lepton 2 with a track record which has been 'adequate' for several years. Worst case, I could pull it out, put it in an adapter board and still not loose money.
Initial impressions then... Not too shoddy. The AGC is very noticable when you start swinging it around the room and the background colours change. It would be nice to be able to lock the temperature range, but it becomes much less of a problem when you point it at a fixed scene. Pointed at an exterior wall (from inside) and I can see the outlines of the thermalite blocks under the plaster. As long as there is some thermal contrast in the scene then it's fine, otherwise the image gets noisy. It can clearly see thermal 'traces' on the carpet and furniture. Startup to image is fast, you can see the image freeze and hear the click of the shutter at intervals as it normalizes the sensor elements. The spot reading shows approximate (leading ~ ) for anything between 30secs and a couple of minutes while it self calibrates. Display size seems adequate for the resolution - and keeping everything compact, the slimmer the profile, the easier to see what you're pointing at. Temperature measurement tops out at 150'C, enough for semiconductors but probably not some wirewound power resistors (though it can still image them of course).
Turning to PCBs, I was expecting the fairly wide FOV to be a problem but in practice I found that the imager is useable a lot closer than the 100mm min. The first image shows a 0.1" through-plated matrix board held in the palm of my hand at 10mm distance. Ok, at 80x60 resolution 'focus' is a bit academic, but the image is pretty clear, certainly enough to be able to be able to check 0603 parts. I really wasn't expecting that. The imager window is nicely recessed so would be difficult to scratch, even with sticking up headers. At very close distances some pincushion becomes evident.
NOTE: There seems to be some beating effect between the LCD screen and [EDIT:
the my] camera - the moire pattern is an artifact (you can see it's absent fron the second image).
The second and third shots show an Arduino Leonardo clone, being powered from a mains adaptor (voltage a bit high). The first, of the board at 100mm, and the second, of the AVR chip at approx 10-15mm.
Turning to the power source (last photo). The three AAA batteries are mounted in a 'Lithium replacement' battery holder. This is probably a bonus against worrying about aging of an internally fitted cell. I measured the supply current at approx. 150mA. The low battery icon and shutdown happen between 3.2 and 3.1V. Not quite low enough to get full capacity from alkaline cells but ties in pretty well with the 4 hours stated life. Backlight brightness changes with supply voltage. Clearly the thresholds also match a Lithium cell. The holder length is about 55mm. Too small to replace with an 18650 cell, but a 18500 cell would go - the unprotected 'Vaping' cells are 50mm, but there are protected versions come in at about 54mm. 1500mAh should give about 10 hours life. Might be worthy of experementation, but running cost should be pretty low anyway. NiMH would be another option of course.
On Fraser's advice, I purchased a 20mm ZnSe lens (76mm I think) I have still to experment with using it to narrow the FOV, I'll report back when I've found a neat way to mount that - the case doesn't have many straight edges and I don't want to resort to tape. I'm sure there are mounting screws behind the display window, but I'm not going to be persuaded to do a teardown! There's probably little to be gained anyway - it's pretty unlikely that there's going to be a card socket footprint in there, or anything to drive it. The Lepton is bound to be socketed.
Conclusion: A significant and reasonably economical addition to my fault finding aids, your mileage may vary!