Thermal Expert TE-V1 vs. TE-Q1+

[mahony]

Hi guys,
as I recently bought a TE-V1 with the standard 19mm f/1.0 lens and I am not aware that anyone else on the forum has one so far I though it might be of interest to see some comparision to the TE-Q1 (plus in my case with the 13mm f/1.0 lens).
I got mine from the european distributer in 30 Hz fashion because there was a good offer that I could not resist.
The camera is currently selling for a regular 2490€ in 9Hz trim which makes it the cheapest offer for a VGA thermal imager at the moment as far as I know.

I will post some images of the final camera itself but as my unit will be exchanged I will wait for the new one to arrive.

I mounted both cameras on a pan-tilt unit and pointed them just down to some houses in the neighboorhood. I had to manually flip the images from the TE-V1 as the app is a bit weird and not very stable.
Each camera was used on a phone with the respective TE App and a PC using my custom software. For the naming:
_init = image without any NUC applied
_NUC = image after NUC
_raw = custom software without any denoising/deblurring or any other image processing except the factory gain/offset correction (+NUC for the _NUC files)

You can see already from those few images how bad the App degrades image appearance compared to the raw data. Especially regarding the TE-V1 there is no point in upgrading from the Q1 if you plan on using it on the phone WITH the original App! What surprised me though was the fact that the TE-V1 images w/o NUC did not show any column noise or other high frequency fixed pattern noise but only a very smooth non-uniformity pattern.

#removed the video link#

[joe-c]

really beautiful.

I also thought about the offer, I believe we saw the same... ebay kleinanzeigen aus Freilassing?

have the V1 just another frame size or also different commands for USB?

the only Thermal VGA Camera i know is the Axis, sadly no access to the Raw frame 

[mahony]

Hi, Joe-c
Yes, that was the same offer I think. The price got a little bit higher due to the 30Hz version but still far less then any other VGA imager I know of.
I have seen you are selling the Axis camera? Not happy with it? Or just looking for something different?

There is not much difference software-wise between both. Basically changing the frame size does the job. This is also true for FPA temperature readout and radiometric calibration. There is a lot more (and quite sophositcated) code for ambient correction in the Android SDK but most of it seems to be unused internally. VID and PID is the same for both cams and the read-out commands need to be adjusted to the frame-size too. Aside from that there are also commands now to re-read the flash data plus some others but nothing really relevant for the basic Connection. Cameras seem to be distinguished by some ID numbers that appear in frame 0's header.

The TE-Q1 rawimage size is 384x296 with 384x288 used and the V1 has 640x482 raw with 640x480 used pixels plus most of the calibration constants are now in frame 0 of the Flash-read data while the TE-Q1 had them in frames 18-26 I think. I had my software (WinUSB) running in less than a day with the TE-V1 but will investigate some more into the exact differences in both SDKs. They also made a major design change in the SDK from simple function calls to a class type interface/construct per camera type which makes it mostly unusable from C#/.NET applications without writing another C/C++ wrapper DLL...

Yesterday I had a quick look into the new lenses I got - they all seem to produce very good images with the V1 but only close up at the moment due to the TE housing. The 100mm f/1.6 is very impressive. Quite excited now to build an adapter/new housing to get the Ophir lenses to easily fit the TE-V1.  :scared:

[tinu_80]

Hi mahony,
I'm thinking of buying the V1 in 30hz fashion, mainly for animal watching. I got a good offer from an european distributor (2900.- Euro excl. VAT but with 30 hz and 35 mm lens)
If I compare 640x480 devices specially built for this application (e.g. Liemke Bussard 35mm), there's a huge gap in prices. The Bussard 35 sells around 8000.- Euros... of course you can't compare them 1:1. The Bussard ist all-in-one, rugged, and has probably a better lens.

Would you still recommend the V1? You wrote that the Android app does degrade picture quality quite a bit. Do you think this will change in the future? Of course I'm also very interested in your ophir lens testing ;-)

Martin

[mahony]

Hello tinu_80,
I am not sure how much effort i3 is investing in upgrading the apps but if you just want to use it for animal watching I would definately suggest using the camera with a windows tablet and some other software that gives you the raw imagery. I can provide you with my Windows software which is capable of recording raw (and radiometric if desired) images and video but with limited support only ;-).
If I had more time I would love to build an Android App for both TE cameras but this will not happen in the near future - especially because I would need to dive into Android App development first.

The image quality of the V1 is as good as it you can expect from a VGA LWIR imager I think and absolutely comparable to any other 17µm VGA imager I suppose. The noise is quite low (NETD measurement is on my list), the images are sharp and crisp and the frame rate is stable and even slightly exceeds the stated 30Hz as far as I have seen (on a PC! I usually get ~31fps). Also dead pixels seem to be no major issue too - altough the V1 I had is ~0.65% dead Pixels whereas my Q1 only had ~0.15%.

My camera had some small issues and was returned/exchanged (if you buy one have a look at the screws and the backside of the lens ;-)) and I expect my new one to arrive next week - I will post some updates then, probably also from initial experiments with the 100mm lens. The 100mm will give me ~6.2° HFOV and 0.17mrad iFOV ...

Actually there aren't to many 'budget options' off the shelf for longer range LWIR observation... you can get a FLIR Boson with up to 76mm lenses as VGA but this will also set you back ~6k€+ I think.

[tinu_80]

Hello mahony,
Thanks you for your infos! This helps me a lot. I think I will give the V1 a try. And, of course, are closely watching your progress with different lens setups ;-)
Martin

[mahony]

Now that I have my final camera it is time for some update me thinks. ;-)
I posted some initial snap in the gallery: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/thermal-imaging/thermal-imaging-gallery/msg1861080/#msg1861080

I have to admit that I think I got a quite good sensor here especially regarding the number of dead pixels. The total sensor only got 141 dead pixels which equals only 0.046% - my Q1 had 185 (0.17%)
The dead pixel maps of both cameras are attached below.

I also did play with my blackbody project and tried some NETD measurements with both cameras. I calculated 66mK for the Q1 and 91mK for the V1 - although I have to say that visually there is no difference between both cameras. As temporal noise is dependent on sensor read-out frequency it may anyway be reasonable - probably my noise estimation is a bit high for the V1 too because it did not have as much time to settle as the Q1 I measured first.

[mahony]

Oh, and I could not resist and open the camera for some pictures and initial testing with the other lenses I have got…

[mahony]

The images of the 19mm, 35mm and 100mm lens are trying to picture a radio tower that is located roughly 2.9km away. You can hardly identify it in the 19mm image and it was quite tough to the acceptable focus with the 35mm lens handheld. The 100mm were place on some support so focus is much better here. As you can see there is a lot of detail in the image but also a bit of noise but totally acceptable for an apparent temperature difference of less than 1K.

[Vipitis]

The sensor is quite large, must be larger than a 1/2" and those look like some fun lenses.

I got some elements to play with as well. My print failed today - so no post yet. If I ever get a TE; it should work with them as well.

[frenky]

Did anyone had success with micro usb -> usb type-c converter?
I have tried with two without success, android app does not see the attached T.E. module.

[mahony]

@Vipits: Very nice - I am following your progress in the thread you created. Looks like a really nice experimenting setup. I may post some update here as I am almost finished with my V1 to M34x0.5 adapter.

@frenky: Sorry but I am not very helpful here - I just own phones/tablets with the old mini-USB port up to now.

[Berni]

I have tried a Thermal Expert Q1 on multiple phones and could never get it to work. On some the app wouldn't install properly or the camera would not detect. on others i got the app to run just fine but it never produced a image.

I ended up making a mini USB to USB-A cable to connect it to a PC and use there software. This worked fine. Later on i managed to get it working on a Raspberry Pi too but that involved programming.

So as long as you can get USB connected somehow and get the software working it should run.

[mahony]

@ Berni: are you sure you got the right ThermalExpert App version - because what you are describing sounds a lot like the sh***y TE-V1 App that was not update since over a year… 

Small update on the TE-V1 front. I got an almost finished adapter to screw on all 3 of the Ophir lenses I got (14mm, 35mm and 100mm). The adapter is 3D printed by one of the online services in Polyamid by SLS technology. This works really nice - but see the attached images. To switch you just have to release to 2 housing screws and mount the complete backplane of the camera to the adapter. Focusing works via the M34 thread …

Edit: The gallery also got a test-panorama using this combo, see link: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/thermal-imaging/thermal-imaging-gallery/msg1945960/#msg1945960

[Berni]

@ Berni: are you sure you got the right ThermalExpert App version - because what you are describing sounds a lot like the sh***y TE-V1 App that was not update since over a year… 

I found two apps and had success with neither of them.

The plan was to turn it into a standalone camera with a screen anyway, but i wanted to try it out on a phone.

[TE-V1]

Hi guys,
as I recently bought a TE-V1 with the standard 19mm f/1.0 lens and I am not aware that anyone else on the forum has one so far I though it might be of interest to see some comparision to the TE-Q1 (plus in my case with the 13mm f/1.0 lens).
I got mine from the european distributer in 30 Hz fashion because there was a good offer that I could not resist.
The camera is currently selling for a regular 2490€ in 9Hz trim which makes it the cheapest offer for a VGA thermal imager at the moment as far as I know.

I will post some images of the final camera itself but as my unit will be exchanged I will wait for the new one to arrive.

I mounted both cameras on a pan-tilt unit and pointed them just down to some houses in the neighboorhood. I had to manually flip the images from the TE-V1 as the app is a bit weird and not very stable.
Each camera was used on a phone with the respective TE App and a PC using my custom software. For the naming:
_init = image without any NUC applied
_NUC = image after NUC
_raw = custom software without any denoising/deblurring or any other image processing except the factory gain/offset correction (+NUC for the _NUC files)

You can see already from those few images how bad the App degrades image appearance compared to the raw data. Especially regarding the TE-V1 there is no point in upgrading from the Q1 if you plan on using it on the phone WITH the original App! What surprised me though was the fact that the TE-V1 images w/o NUC did not show any column noise or other high frequency fixed pattern noise but only a very smooth non-uniformity pattern.

#removed the video link#

I know this is an old post but just in case readers get the wrong idea...The TE-V1 actually has it's own special app, but this post makes it appear you were using the older app made for the Q1 with it?...That is perhaps why you were not getting optimal results from your TE-V1?  By the way, I asked for the 30hz version too, but going from its jerky frame rate I am now sure he has sent me the 9hz version by mistake!