Poll

Has the hackabiliy of the E4 made you buy one :  

Yes, I was already looking at the competition at a similar price, but the hack swung it to E4
274 (27.9%)
Yes, I'd not considered buying a TIC before, but 320x240 resolution at this price justifies it (as either tool or toy!)
444 (45.3%)
Yes, I was going to buy an E5/6/8 class of unit but will now get the E4
49 (5%)
No, but am looking out for a cheap i3 to hack
50 (5.1%)
Not yet, but probably will if now that a closed-box hack becomes is possible
164 (16.7%)

Total Members Voted: 803

Author Topic: Flir E4 Thermal imaging camera teardown  (Read 3769907 times)

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Offline amiq

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Re: Flir E4 Thermal imaging camera teardown
« Reply #400 on: October 31, 2013, 04:40:53 pm »
I see these are advertised on aliexpress for $312 (minimum of 10 units) with free delivery to Europe/US.  Anyone interested in taking a punt?
 

Offline mikeselectricstuffTopic starter

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Re: Flir E4 Thermal imaging camera teardown
« Reply #401 on: October 31, 2013, 05:38:01 pm »
I see these are advertised on aliexpress for $312 (minimum of 10 units) with free delivery to Europe/US.  Anyone interested in taking a punt?
Link? I'd be in for a couple at that price. Could be a nice little earner making an interface box to convert to composite.
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Offline amiq

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Offline amiq

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Re: Flir E4 Thermal imaging camera teardown
« Reply #403 on: October 31, 2013, 05:44:05 pm »
I'd be in for one - anyone else?
 

Offline daveshah

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Re: Flir E4 Thermal imaging camera teardown
« Reply #404 on: October 31, 2013, 05:49:12 pm »
Seller has no feedback score. Personally, I think it's a bit suspicious (otherwise I'd be in to buy one!).
 

Offline tnt

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Re: Flir E4 Thermal imaging camera teardown
« Reply #405 on: October 31, 2013, 05:54:15 pm »
For 312$ sure ... I'll take one.

But that indeeds looks very suspicious ... But aliexpress has buyer protection which works AFAIK.
 

Offline amiq

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Re: Flir E4 Thermal imaging camera teardown
« Reply #406 on: October 31, 2013, 05:56:11 pm »
Might well be a scam (although their buyer protection scheme has worked for me in the past).  I guess the question is are they really made in Estonia, or China?
 

Offline mikeselectricstuffTopic starter

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Re: Flir E4 Thermal imaging camera teardown
« Reply #407 on: October 31, 2013, 06:03:09 pm »
Definite scam - thought the OP was referring to ex-BMW car ones, price maybe plausible for ones pulled from crashed cars
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Offline cosmos

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Re: Flir E4 Thermal imaging camera teardown
« Reply #408 on: October 31, 2013, 06:05:07 pm »
here is another one with lots of 35 for 248USD each,  FREE SHIPPING
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Whoesale-FLIR-E4-Thermal-Imaging-Infrared-Camera/1434283893.html
« Last Edit: October 31, 2013, 06:09:42 pm by cosmos »
 

Offline amiq

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Re: Flir E4 Thermal imaging camera teardown
« Reply #409 on: October 31, 2013, 06:05:49 pm »
So are they definitely made in Europe (obviously a scam if they are).
 

Offline Zoltan von Negrow

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Re: Flir E4 Thermal imaging camera teardown
« Reply #410 on: October 31, 2013, 06:12:08 pm »
Might well be a scam (although their buyer protection scheme has worked for me in the past).  I guess the question is are they really made in Estonia, or China?

My arrived today from Sweden, but Made in  Estonia.
 

Offline ron

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Re: Flir E4 Thermal imaging camera teardown
« Reply #411 on: October 31, 2013, 07:34:28 pm »
 

Offline tnt

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Re: Flir E4 Thermal imaging camera teardown
« Reply #412 on: October 31, 2013, 07:39:13 pm »
wrt to the BMW camera, a friend of mine says that not only they use some proprietary crap, but it's also "protect". Attemptin to enable the camera too many times without properly authenticating seems to wipe the fw and brick it. And without auth, the sensor isn't even active (no clock, no nothing).
 

Offline mikeselectricstuffTopic starter

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Re: Flir E4 Thermal imaging camera teardown
« Reply #413 on: October 31, 2013, 08:44:33 pm »
wrt to the BMW camera, a friend of mine says that not only they use some proprietary crap, but it's also "protect". Attemptin to enable the camera too many times without properly authenticating seems to wipe the fw and brick it. And without auth, the sensor isn't even active (no clock, no nothing).
I bet that's just an eeprom count in the camera.
I suppose it is plausible there is some sort of security mechanism to make it hard to re-use due to the ITAR crap. If they wanted to it could be tied to the car's VIN to track ownership etc.
I'd really like to get hold of a 'bricked' camera if your friend knows of any going cheap  :)
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Offline M. András

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Re: Flir E4 Thermal imaging camera teardown
« Reply #414 on: October 31, 2013, 08:50:48 pm »
The E4 probably costs more than $300 to manufacture -- there's absolutely no way that listing is legitimate.
unless its from a stolen shipment
 

Offline Fraser

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Re: Flir E4 Thermal imaging camera teardown
« Reply #415 on: October 31, 2013, 10:19:00 pm »
Ref the BMW and Audi authentication....that must be what people were warning about in a thread I read on the difficulties of use outside the original car. My Audi contains many modules that are 'married' to the various primary computers fro Engine and interior systems. It is often done to prevent repair outside the Dealerships but that was fixed with VAGCOM  ;)  It is also used for to expensive in car entertainment modules as a theft deterrent. These defences have been getting more elaborate than the old eeprom but I am no expert in such. It could be that the expensive TIC is being protected from theft and resale ? If so, the protection could be pretty nasty as both BMW and Audi spend a lot on theft protection now.

As Mike says, a bricked unit may reveal its secrets. I have seen the modern BMW TIC units sell for almost $1000 though so little VFM when compared to the E4.
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Offline Corporate666

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Re: Flir E4 Thermal imaging camera teardown
« Reply #416 on: October 31, 2013, 10:32:15 pm »
The Ali (baba/express) listings are either outright scams, or it could be counterfeit product shamelessly marked as the real thing.

More likely a scam, but I wouldn't be surprised to see some of the Chinese IR sensors showing up in counterfeit "FLIR" cameras.
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Offline mikeselectricstuffTopic starter

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Re: Flir E4 Thermal imaging camera teardown
« Reply #417 on: October 31, 2013, 10:34:29 pm »
As Mike says, a bricked unit may reveal its secrets. I have seen the modern BMW TIC units sell for almost $1000 though so little VFM when compared to the E4.
unless it's cheap because it's bricked. It could also be that the brickage is just in the processor box.

If they wanted to really go to town and be totally secure it could use a secure challenge-response handshake authentication thing between the processor box and the camera, but I have a feeling it probably doesn't.

I'm also curious about how they deal with the shutter cal on this unit - you wouldn't a night vision cam blinking at you...

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Offline Stonent

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Re: Flir E4 Thermal imaging camera teardown
« Reply #418 on: November 01, 2013, 09:48:05 am »
As Mike says, a bricked unit may reveal its secrets. I have seen the modern BMW TIC units sell for almost $1000 though so little VFM when compared to the E4.
unless it's cheap because it's bricked. It could also be that the brickage is just in the processor box.

If they wanted to really go to town and be totally secure it could use a secure challenge-response handshake authentication thing between the processor box and the camera, but I have a feeling it probably doesn't.

I'm also curious about how they deal with the shutter cal on this unit - you wouldn't a night vision cam blinking at you...

Maybe they hold the last frame in the buffer while the shuttter flicks down or sort of buffer the video .5 or .25 seconds and give it some catch-up time while it calibrates.
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Offline mrflibble

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Re: Flir E4 Thermal imaging camera teardown
« Reply #419 on: November 01, 2013, 09:54:49 am »
The problem wouldn't so much be lack of frames, but lack of frame updates. No use staring at last minute's idilic frame buffer when at this very instant you are heading straight towards a big moose/cow/kangaroo/alien*.

* Adjust for local wildlife setting.
 

Offline Stonent

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Re: Flir E4 Thermal imaging camera teardown
« Reply #420 on: November 01, 2013, 09:57:04 am »
The problem wouldn't so much be lack of frames, but lack of frame updates. No use staring at last minute's idilic frame buffer when at this very instant you are heading straight towards a big moose/cow/kangaroo/alien*.

* Adjust for local wildlife setting.
Just go ahead and mow down the alien. You'll want good evidence before the black helicopters and suits arrive.
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Offline Mark_O

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Re: Flir E4 Thermal imaging camera teardown
« Reply #421 on: November 01, 2013, 10:13:05 am »
I had a play with the TargetNoiseMk setting and it does appear to be added noise.
There is a small, but noticeable difference between default value of 135 and a low setting of 13
I can only assume it's to reduce banding and/or give an impression of sharpness

Yes, it's for apparent sharpness, and makes images a bit more distinct.  I took your two 320x240 images, scaled each down to80x60 , then back up, and combined them.  Which side looks perceptually better now?
 

Offline mikeselectricstuffTopic starter

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Re: Flir E4 Thermal imaging camera teardown
« Reply #422 on: November 01, 2013, 10:15:38 am »
The problem wouldn't so much be lack of frames, but lack of frame updates. No use staring at last minute's idilic frame buffer when at this very instant you are heading straight towards a big moose/cow/kangaroo/alien*.

* Adjust for local wildlife setting.
My guess is it's a fast shutter - if it's a 60fps imager, losing a few frames is probably tolerable. It could use avaraging over a few  shutter images to reduce noise in the reference image if necessary. Could also be a continuous wheel, and higher internal sample rate
It could also analyse the image for motion and only do a cal when there's not much action going on.
As it doesn't care much about actual temperature, Another option may be to analyse the incoming data for pixel-timescale variations and take a long-term avarage to estimate the variation between pixels. You may get occasional visual artifacts if the camera is looking at a stationary image for a while, but you don't really care about this for an automotive vision system as it's movement you're looking for.
Another alternative is they do a factory cal over a range of temps and store the nominal offsets for each pixel at each temperature.

« Last Edit: November 01, 2013, 10:18:05 am by mikeselectricstuff »
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Online amyk

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Re: Flir E4 Thermal imaging camera teardown
« Reply #423 on: November 01, 2013, 11:11:14 am »
The Ali (baba/express) listings are either outright scams, or it could be counterfeit product shamelessly marked as the real thing.

More likely a scam, but I wouldn't be surprised to see some of the Chinese IR sensors showing up in counterfeit "FLIR" cameras.
If I can get an actual working 320x240 or even 80x60 thermal imaging camera for $300, I don't care who or what made it... I'm betting more on "no product at all". Even the Chinese ones we found in the review thread were >$1000.
 

Offline mikeselectricstuffTopic starter

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Re: Flir E4 Thermal imaging camera teardown
« Reply #424 on: November 01, 2013, 11:23:13 am »
This just arrived from Flir UK - do you think I should x-ray it before opening....?
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