Author Topic: How to tear down Flir ix?  (Read 5547 times)

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Offline sam1275Topic starter

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How to tear down Flir ix?
« on: January 15, 2017, 06:05:51 am »
Hello.
I just want to tear down my Flir i5 for fun, but after remove 2 screws under the battery, only the bottom part is loosed, the head part is still hold by something, are there any hidden screws?
Thanks.
 

Offline sam1275Topic starter

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Re: How to tear down Flir ix?
« Reply #1 on: February 18, 2017, 11:45:05 am »
Wow thank you a lot! That's very informative! I'll try it!
 

Offline sam1275Topic starter

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Re: How to tear down Flir ix?
« Reply #2 on: February 18, 2017, 05:13:48 pm »
I successfully opened the plastic case and opened the internal metal case, but I cannot take the PCB off the front metal panel, anyone knows how to do that?
BTW, I really hate when I see there's such a small hole between the lens and the sensor, so much area is wasted on such a large sensor...
 

Offline sam1275Topic starter

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Re: How to tear down Flir ix?
« Reply #3 on: February 18, 2017, 05:35:50 pm »
Thank you very much!
 

Online Fraser

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Re: How to tear down Flir ix?
« Reply #4 on: February 18, 2017, 08:53:59 pm »
Sam,

Worry not about the small 'hole' between the lens and sensor window...... it is an optical path diaphragm and forms part of a good quality optical block.

Fraser
« Last Edit: February 18, 2017, 09:05:30 pm by Fraser »
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Offline sam1275Topic starter

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Re: How to tear down Flir ix?
« Reply #5 on: February 18, 2017, 10:05:35 pm »
Sam,

Worry not about the small 'hole' between the lens and sensor window...... it is an optical path diaphragm and forms part of a good quality optical block.

Fraser
I already knew Flir ix only use a small area of the 320*240 sensor, but looking at it still make me feel bad for the wasted pixels again :palm:
 

Offline Bill W

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Re: How to tear down Flir ix?
« Reply #6 on: February 19, 2017, 10:45:15 am »
Sam,

Think of yourself being sat on a corner pixel on the sensor, you are only 3.4mm from the centre of the sensor.
What you want to see looking up is ONLY the rear element of the lens and a lump of metal whose temperature you know.  Seeing any other metal or risking seeing reflections is bad.
That means a hole smaller than the rear element of the lens because the sensor is smaller than the rear element of the lens.
My only gripe is that it should not be round, it should be a rounded rectangle unless there is another aperture lower down near the flag.

Bill

Offline sam1275Topic starter

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Re: How to tear down Flir ix?
« Reply #7 on: February 19, 2017, 12:28:01 pm »
That means a hole smaller than the rear element of the lens because the sensor is smaller than the rear element of the lens.
Thank you Bill.
The fact is that for the Flir ix, the sensor have a much larger area than the lens, the resolution limit is not as same as Ex that down sampling the whole image, ix crop the image instead.
I just fully took it apart today, and as Pedre's picture shows, the sensor is a plugable module with 20-pin connector, I wonder anyone can hack it and make a host that can use the full ability of it >:D
 

Offline amyk

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Re: How to tear down Flir ix?
« Reply #8 on: February 19, 2017, 04:08:33 pm »
There's a chance the other pixels of the sensor will have more bad ones.
 

Offline sam1275Topic starter

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Re: How to tear down Flir ix?
« Reply #9 on: February 19, 2017, 04:54:37 pm »
There's a chance the other pixels of the sensor will have more bad ones.
Of course, and they are not calibrated, but personally I'll still hack it if possible, because otherwise they will be wasted anyway, it's good to have a (much) wider FOV and higher resolution IMHO.
 

Offline Bill W

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Re: How to tear down Flir ix?
« Reply #10 on: February 20, 2017, 01:34:33 am »
Thank you Bill.
The fact is that for the Flir ix, the sensor have a much larger area than the lens, the resolution limit is not as same as Ex that down sampling the whole image, ix crop the image instead.

What is the diameter of the rear element in your lens Sam ?

May be of interest if you have not found it already:
http://www.merlinlazer.com/assets/Flir_i3_i5_i7_Manual_Merlin_Lazer.pdf


regards
Bill

Offline sam1275Topic starter

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Re: How to tear down Flir ix?
« Reply #11 on: February 20, 2017, 09:06:19 am »
Hello Bill.
The diameter of the rear element is about 1cm(+-1mm), and the hole is even smaller.
Also, thank you for your manual.
Sam
 

Offline Bill W

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Re: How to tear down Flir ix?
« Reply #12 on: February 20, 2017, 01:24:40 pm »
Hi Sam,

The 'official' sensor size would be for the i7 (as the i3 & i5 are down windowed not downsampled) at 120x120 25u pixels, so 4.2mm diagonal.

Presume it was really a 160x120 sensor, which would be 5mm diagonal.  I take it the sensor package window is a lot bigger ?

regards
Bill

Online Fraser

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Re: How to tear down Flir ix?
« Reply #13 on: February 20, 2017, 01:41:57 pm »
Bill,

A reverse costing analysis company identified the microbolometer as a 320x240 type that was being limited to lower pixel count to suit each cameras specification. IIRC, the microbolometer is the On-Semi ISC0601B

It is interesting that the is series is actually a more resilient configuration 'hobble' than that used in the Ex series. Setting windowing in the FPGA would have prevented the Ex upgrade to full resolution.

Fraser
If I have helped you please consider a donation : https://gofund.me/c86b0a2c
 

Online Fraser

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Re: How to tear down Flir ix?
« Reply #14 on: February 20, 2017, 01:47:27 pm »
« Last Edit: February 20, 2017, 01:49:57 pm by Fraser »
If I have helped you please consider a donation : https://gofund.me/c86b0a2c
 

Offline sam1275Topic starter

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Re: How to tear down Flir ix?
« Reply #15 on: February 20, 2017, 03:54:00 pm »
Thank you Bill and Fraser, I think Fraser's answer is what I'm about to say, the first pdf is also exactly which I read before.
Sadly these articles are focused on cost analyze, although they provided something we are interested, it's still too limited on the electric info of the sensor, I really hope someone can probe the pins and tell us about the signal format of the sensor itself.
 

Offline Bill W

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Re: How to tear down Flir ix?
« Reply #16 on: February 20, 2017, 05:32:57 pm »
Ah thanks I recall this a while back now but it dod not click  :-[ .  It would explain the 140 x 140 although it is 120 x 120 in the Merlinlazer document linked above.

The next question is whether the lens is designed down to cover the 140 x 140 (or 160 x 120, both are 5mm diagonal which might not be a coincidence) or is capable of illuminating a 10mm image circle if required.

Offline sam1275Topic starter

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Re: How to tear down Flir ix?
« Reply #17 on: February 20, 2017, 06:12:30 pm »
The next question is whether the lens is designed down to cover the 140 x 140 (or 160 x 120, both are 5mm diagonal which might not be a coincidence) or is capable of illuminating a 10mm image circle if required.
This is a good question, I've thought it before.

I think it could be checked by a similar method I used on visible light lens:
Find a material that is flat and "diffuse reflect" LWIR, similar to a paper for visible light;
Take the lens, and put it in front of the material;
Use another thermal imaging camera which is able to focus closely, to look at the material;
Adjust the distance between the lens and the reflect material, until you see a clear image on the material;
Now you can tell the imaging circle of the lens;
If the edge is not clearly cropped by the lens, you may point the lens to a wider/hotter scene, until you see the round image edge, which is the best the lens can do.

I don't have another TIC which can focus very near, so this job is leaving to you guys :D
edit: I guess the lens is for 140*140, maybe slightly larger than that for the sake of image quality, but no need for Flir to craft a lens covering 320*240 area.
« Last Edit: February 20, 2017, 06:19:18 pm by sam1275 »
 

Offline sam1275Topic starter

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Re: How to tear down Flir ix?
« Reply #18 on: February 20, 2017, 07:21:26 pm »
I just remember another question: what's the aperture of Flir ix? I searched before but cannot find the answer.
 


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