I would not be at all surprised to find that there's someone in Sales over at Flir telling management that "Those guys over in that hacking forum just cost us over a quarter-Million USD in profits in the last 2 weeks alone".
Buy the E4 and then you can inspect the prospective houses and be more informed.
Mike,
The drift in pixels is normal and my PM695's do exactly the same. It is the downside of the micro-bolometer technology, and always has been. That is why cryo cooled cameras are so nice to use.....clean images, no pixel drift to be seen. The calibration routine should become less frequent as the detectors temperature stabilises, but this can take a while as there is hysteresis in the system and some initial over/undershoot on the Peltier module.
The comment on TICs becoming cheaper is interesting. One area that is buying into thermal camera technology is the car industry. Its use is safety of pedestrians/animals and predictive braking systems. We could see a large increase in TIC deployment in cars over the coming years. It may follow the model of other safety systems such as air bags and lane dicipline cameras. That can only be good news for TIC fans as more production into a larger market should bring innovative technology and lower prices ? In the UK we did not have 'expensive' air conditioning as standard in our cars. These days it comes as standard on many models sold in the UK and is not the expensive option that it was. It is also more refined, in the form of climate control
I read of a new 80x80 mini TIC called the Atom80 that has just been released. It is designed for the less demanding TIC needs of the marketplace. No idea of cost though. Sofradir is a big player in TICs. It looks like a 'camera on a chip' type solution Could be fun to play with, but I doubt its cheap at the moment.
http://www.sofradir-ec.com/landing_atom80.asp
UPDATE: To save you registering on the site, I attach the ATOM80 datasheet here.
No kidding! You can spend $400 for a home inspection, and still not have them spot hidden, internal things like pest infestations, or water intrusion, etc. A walkthrough with an E4 could net you $thousands$ in pricing accommodations, OR tell you it's time to walk away.
A manufacturer wants its customer base to 'trust' it, and its products. This thread kind of introduced an element of doubt that FLIR will not wish to see extended into its more expensive products. I would not wish to be the salesman visiting a factory to demo a TIC and getting bombarded with questions about hobbling and hacking of firmware
A manufacturer wants its customer base to 'trust' it, and its products. This thread kind of introduced an element of doubt that FLIR will not wish to see extended into its more expensive products. I would not wish to be the salesman visiting a factory to demo a TIC and getting bombarded with questions about hobbling and hacking of firmware
Why would being hackable lose any customer trust? 99.999% of customers will never even know and 1/2 of the people reading this thread only bought one cause they could hack it, IMO they've lost nothing and only benefited by selling a few extra E4s.
Software crippled hardware rubs people the wrong way.
Even the E4 isn't a cheap product - but I can guarantee that nobody here was going to buy an E8 ... and from what I count there were already 50+ E4 sold...
That's true. However, I would not be at all surprised to find that there's someone in Sales over at Flir telling management that "Those guys over in that hacking forum just cost us over a quarter-Million USD in profits in the last 2 weeks alone".
The fact that that is completely false doesn't change the situation that different folks see things in different ways, and for some, that will be their perception.
dr-diesel
I have 'interviewed' FLIR salespersons on several occasions when they have been hawking a new product. To date I have had no reason to think that they hobbled units in firmware. The word is well and truly 'out' in the circles in which I move....industrial & Government techs are not dumb. We will ask FLIR for the best deal, and now be aware that they have employed hobbling to differentiate between models that intrinsically cost the same to produce. I have not seen such publicly proven before. Would you 'trust' a salesman who now stated that the E8 is an intrinsically higher spec product than the E4........before this hack, he/she could have done so without question. Doubt breeds awkward questions
I did some screenshots (VLC -> direct show capture) showing the camera's BETA1 menu/features - examples how it looks here (might vary depending on your caps settings) .. there are some minor issues like when selecting hot/cold spot then the palette gets set to gray (might be related to order of menu items).
I've also noticed that my cam loses lang-settings when cold starting... but no deal-breakers
Attachment: zips contain everything (following postings due to size limits)
Images: peek preview/examples for the zip contents
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/flir-e4-thermal-imaging-camera-teardown/msg326024/#msg326024 (ADDMENU-BETA1.zip)
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/flir-e4-thermal-imaging-camera-teardown/msg325934/#msg325934 (extracting RCC)
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/flir-e4-thermal-imaging-camera-teardown/msg325975/#msg325975 (repacking RCC)
I did some screenshots (VLC -> direct show capture) showing the camera's BETA1 menu/features - examples how it looks here (might vary depending on your caps settings) .. there are some minor issues like when selecting hot/cold spot then the palette gets set to gray (might be related to order of menu items).
I've also noticed that my cam loses lang-settings when cold starting... but no deal-breakers
Attachment: zips contain everything (following postings due to size limits)
Images: peek preview/examples for the zip contents
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/flir-e4-thermal-imaging-camera-teardown/msg326024/#msg326024 (ADDMENU-BETA1.zip)
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/flir-e4-thermal-imaging-camera-teardown/msg325934/#msg325934 (extracting RCC)
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/flir-e4-thermal-imaging-camera-teardown/msg325975/#msg325975 (repacking RCC)
Will be possible to add some parts of this BETA to Mick hack / new colors pal., condensation, isulation mode /?
Or could you help us - how to add this to present system??
I like this BETA / watching on downloaded pictures - dont know how to add /
Thank you
Mike,
The drift in pixels is normal and my PM695's do exactly the same. It is the downside of the micro-bolometer technology, and always has been. That is why cryo cooled cameras are so nice to use.....clean images, no pixel drift to be seen. The calibration routine should become less frequent as the detectors temperature stabilises, but this can take a while as there is hysteresis in the system and some initial over/undershoot on the Peltier module.
The comment on TICs becoming cheaper is interesting. One area that is buying into thermal camera technology is the car industry. Its use is safety of pedestrians/animals and predictive braking systems. We could see a large increase in TIC deployment in cars over the coming years. It may follow the model of other safety systems such as air bags and lane dicipline cameras. That can only be good news for TIC fans as more production into a larger market should bring innovative technology and lower prices ? In the UK we did not have 'expensive' air conditioning as standard in our cars. These days it comes as standard on many models sold in the UK and is not the expensive option that it was. It is also more refined, in the form of climate control
I read of a new 80x80 mini TIC called the Atom80 that has just been released. It is designed for the less demanding TIC needs of the marketplace. No idea of cost though. Sofradir is a big player in TICs. It looks like a 'camera on a chip' type solution Could be fun to play with, but I doubt its cheap at the moment.
http://www.sofradir-ec.com/landing_atom80.asp
UPDATE: To save you registering on the site, I attach the ATOM80 datasheet here.
when menu opened, SD card and wireless icons appear alongside battery neither is useful
Is Temp scale->unlock useful? seems the same functionality can be had by switching to auto or manual modes
Rainbow high contrast palette seems to be same as white hot
I've had it lock up a couple of times while scrolling around palette menu - after to cold restart by long button press I got an "application error" popup window onscreen during boot. Removing battery seems to fix.
Could this be a missing pallette file or menu error for Rainbow High contrast?
What I currently have on the E4 is arctic,iron,lava,rainbow and rainHC,.
Also noticed that if I select RainbowHC and exit (when it doesn't hang), on re-entry to colour menu it shows palette as Interval, so I think something may be wrong with the RainbowHC option
I think your latest zip also omits the rainHC.pal file - I have it on my E4 but wasn't on the original files I backed up a while ago so not sure where it came from - maybe an earlier version of the menu hack zip?
Any recommendations where to buy the E4 in Germany? Many resellers have it for 995€+VAT, whereas it's 995$ (=745€) in the US Does Tequipment ship to Germany?
I did some screenshots (VLC -> direct show capture) showing the camera's BETA1 menu/features - examples how it looks here (might vary depending on your caps settings) .. there are some minor issues like when selecting hot/cold spot then the palette gets set to gray (might be related to order of menu items).
I've also noticed that my cam loses lang-settings when cold starting... but no deal-breakers
Attachment: zips contain everything (following postings due to size limits)
Images: peek preview/examples for the zip contents
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/flir-e4-thermal-imaging-camera-teardown/msg326024/#msg326024 (ADDMENU-BETA1.zip)
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/flir-e4-thermal-imaging-camera-teardown/msg325934/#msg325934 (extracting RCC)
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/flir-e4-thermal-imaging-camera-teardown/msg325975/#msg325975 (repacking RCC)Will be possible to add some parts of this BETA to Mick hack / new colors pal., condensation, isulation mode /?
Or could you help us - how to add this to present system??
I like this BETA / watching on downloaded pictures - dont know how to add /
Thank you
BETA
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Disclaimer:
Only for educational purposes,
Use on own risk,
Know what you're doing
... keep backups
-------------------------------------------------------------------
This archive contains a mashup of published Ex and Exx
files which perform the following changes, compared to a
regular Ex series cam:
- Change Bootup logo (9Hz version is not export restricted)
- Make hidden menu accessible (menu: Device Settings)
- Make FLIR logo in lower left corner 100% transparent
- Add quick-access to USB-Mode menu (also Device Settings)
- Enable PIP in two sizes
- Add extra options at the measurement-menu:
- Center/Hot/Cold combined mode
- Delta center-hotspot
- Delta center-user defined temperature
Note: not tested with advanced measurements enabled (tends to be crashy)
- Add extra palettes
- Rainbow high contrast
- White hot (=gray)
- Black hot (=gray inverted)
- Arctic
- Lava
- Condensation (color anything below 9,3°)
- Insulation (color anything below 18°C)
- Interval (user defined range - use cursors to set)
- Add "manual" range to temperature scale options
- has 3 submodes: Min, Max, Both (use cursors)
Installation:
You need to have the Ex camera in FTP-accessible mode,
then simply overwrite the corresponding filestructure.
(Filezilla suggested).
Then cold boot your camera or use restartapp via telnet.
Troubleshooting:
Some features can require .caps modifications
(not documented here)
Mike,
I saw the ULIS site...very interesting stuff there, Note that the micro-bolometer does not need a Thermo-Electric Cooler so they have managed to get rid of the Peltier module and maintain temperature stability ?
What I am saying is that this hack does create doubt in customers minds as to whether they are seeing value for money from FLIR.
...but I wouldn't expect them to welcome the news that they firmware hobble their high end products to create low end versions. It just sits poorly with the customer base. No one likes to think they have been overcharged. Nothing more than that. ...
I am just an end user, so maybe I am wrong about all this ?
It did not sit well with the customer base and is still quoted to this day as an example of devious sales tactics and the potential consequences.