AXIS Q1932-E Thermal VGA Network Camera teardown

[Cat]

Got this VGA 30Hz thermal imager myself for christmas. In comparison to other thermal imagers there are some
pros: Weatherproof, streaming of the image via ethernet and record on a µSD-card.
cons: No raw sensor data, non radiometric*, no analog video, big (35x15cm) and heavy (2kg).
*maybe there is something possible with the AXIS API.

This particular unit is equipped with a 35mm lens. They were sold between 2014 to 2017 for ~7000€.
Datasheet: https://www.axis.com/files/datasheet/ds_q1932e_1493447_en_1702.pdf

Of course after the Q1932 arrived I spotted some faults: At least four dead pixels, a unsharp or blurry image on the left and a continously working heater.
Regarding the dead pixel and focussing I couldn't find any information online. The heater seems to be activated because the temperature sensor indicates -22°C when cold (should be 20°C) and -13°C when hot (should be 50°C).

So now it is... Teardown time!

The outer ring can be unscrewed, the inner part with the window does not rotate. Between these two there is some sticky grease, probably to aid sealing.
The heater is on a round PCB which is coupled via thermal pads to the front. The PCB is connected with a 3pin plug for heater (7Ohm), common and temperature sensor (NTC 100kOhm).

A die cast frame holds the themal imager and is also connected to a stainless steel frame which holds the other PCBs.
The themal imager or sensor module can be further unscrewed, it is connected via cables to the main board.  These cables can be disconnected (4pin plug for the FCC actuator and a multi pin connector for the sensor data).

I was unable to remove the main board, something didn't allow the PCB mounting frame to slide forward. Because I din't want do destroy anything I continued with the sensor part.

The sensor module consists of a black anodized front part which has the thread for the lens and a milled aluminium part which holds the microbolometer, FCC flag and the interfacing PCB.
The FFC flag is moved by a stepper motor (Stegia 15S40B100X), there is no special feedback for the flag. The Lens (35mm. F1.2) is from Umicore (G4217, probably custom made). The lens is secured with a small screw on the side, when loosing it the lens can be adjusted.

Because I wanted to know which microbolometer is used I disassembled it further and spotted a fingerprint on the sensor window. The aluminium was dirty as well, maybe it was never cleaned after milling.
The most challenging part during disassembly was getting the stepper motor with the flag out of the frame without damaging the flag or the sensor. The sensor is mounted with a aluminium plate and thermal pad, the pins are connected with a pinheaders to the PCB.
The sensor was cleaned, see https://www.eevblog.com/forum/thermal-imaging/how-best-to-clean-a-sensor/msg2843580/#msg2843580. After everything was cleaned I reassembled it and it still works!

The microbolometer is a Pico 640P from ULIS, part# UL04272-032. Specifications: a-Si, 640x480 pixels, 17µm pitch, <75mK NETD.
Why AXIS is claiming  <70mK NETD 

Thermal images will follow soon 

Happy holidays!

[Fraser]

Cat,

Thanks for the teardown 

Interestingly I almost bought an external thermal CCTV camera a week or so ago. The unit was titled "SightLogix NS120-300 SightSensor2". It was an ‘intelligent’ solution with target acquisition and reporting to a central server system. I was thinking of buying it in the hope that it used a standard imaging core as the target acquisition hardware needs connection to the central server to be useful. I started bidding on it but also did some research on the company behind the camera. I had a suspicion that the company might have got another company to build the camera hardware. A search on "Sightlogix Axis" in the search field discovered that they had gone into partnership with Axis. At that point my interest in the camera decreased. Why ? Well I remembered reading that the Axis thermal cameras use a bespoke imaging core that is digital output only. I wanted composite video output. I also read that the Axis cameras will only work with the Axis IPC software. In many applications this will not matter but in the case of the security camera I was looking at, the core would likely be entwined in the digital parts of the bespoke target acquisition hardware and firmware. That would be of no use to me. I was still tempted though. In the end my sensible side won and I stopped bidding. It sold for $208 but shipping to the UK added $100 and import taxes would add 20% VAT and paperwork fees. It was too much to risk on a potentially unusable camera. A good price for a buyer Stateside though 

Your camera is a different beast in that it is a true Axis IPC that you can access with the freely available Axis software  I believe Joe_C may have some experience with these Axis thermal cameras as he was selling one a while back. Joe_C does a lot of clever work modifying and enhancing thermal cameras. He may know the technical aspects of the cameras design as it is likely many AXIS thermal cameras share a similar electronic design. Yours is likely just an exterior rated case version of the common internal thermal cameras Axis sell and that Joe_C was selling.

http://joe-c.de/

I will follow your experiences with this camera with interest as I have often been tempted by Axis thermal camera auctions on eBay. They certainly look nicely constructed 

Merry Christmas

Fraser

[Fraser]

I suspect that the Axis Q1932 has a lot in common with the Q1922 indoor VGA thermal camera.

Sadly I have not found any service information for these cameras or even a teardown. The dead pixel map likely requires a service utility to update it. Joe_C is definitely your best chance of discovering more about the internal workings of these cameras.

Fraser

[Fraser]

The AXIS description of thermal cameras may be of interest as they use their cameras in examples.

https://www.axis.com/files/articles/Ch5_thermalcameras.pdf

Fraser

[Cat]

Fraser, thank you very much for the additional information. This couldn't be the best thermal imaging forum on the internet without a community like this.

The blurry image I had was because the lens was focussed beyond infinity. With proper focus everything is sharp.
Because it's raining outside I could only take a few images inside. With the now freely adjustable lens it's possible to focus much closer.
The first test object is the PCB from my 3D-printer. The lens was ~65cm away and different palettes were used.
The second test object is my router. The image was taken at an angle which shows the small depth of field. The hot areas reach 40°C.
The third object is the phone in the charger which has only a small temperature difference (charger: 27°C, wall: 22,5°C).
I added pictures from the Seek Compact Pro to show the difference 

Interestingly I almost bought an external thermal CCTV camera a week or so ago. The unit was titled "SightLogix NS120-300 SightSensor2". It was an ‘intelligent’ solution with target acquisition and reporting to a central server system. I was thinking of buying it in the hope that it used a standard imaging core as the target acquisition hardware needs connection to the central server to be useful. I started bidding on it but also did some research on the company behind the camera. I had a suspicion that the company might have got another company to build the camera hardware. A search on "Sightlogix Axis" in the search field discovered that they had gone into partnership with Axis. At that point my interest in the camera decreased. Why ? Well I remembered reading that the Axis thermal cameras use a bespoke imaging core that is digital output only. I wanted composite video output. I also read that the Axis cameras will only work with the Axis IPC software. In many applications this will not matter but in the case of the security camera I was looking at, the core would likely be entwined in the digital parts of the bespoke target acquisition hardware and firmware. That would be of no use to me. I was still tempted though. In the end my sensible side won and I stopped bidding. It sold for $208 but shipping to the UK added $100 and import taxes would add 20% VAT and paperwork fees. It was too much to risk on a potentially unusable camera. A good price for a buyer Stateside though 

Your camera is a different beast in that it is a true Axis IPC that you can access with the freely available Axis software  I believe Joe_C may have some experience with these Axis thermal cameras as he was selling one a while back. Joe_C does a lot of clever work modifying and enhancing thermal cameras. He may know the technical aspects of the cameras design as it is likely many AXIS thermal cameras share a similar electronic design. Yours is likely just an exterior rated case version of the common internal thermal cameras Axis sell and that Joe_C was selling.

I watched the SightLogix as well, but the shipping and taxes (damn ebay global shipping program ) usually add to much overhead to the selling price it's unfeasible for me.

Until now I only used the web interface without additional software, I added some screenshots. The "Live View" is displaying the images smoothly and with low lag (server push).
The image can be streamed as MJPEG for example via the VLC player but there is a bit more lag than in the web view (~0,5s).
There are not much settings for the image quality. With the compression set to 0 there are still some compression artifacts visible. Each image is ~160kB when displayed in B/W, thus the network traffic is ~40 Mbit/s!

I suspect that the Axis Q1932 has a lot in common with the Q1922 indoor VGA thermal camera.

Sadly I have not found any service information for these cameras or even a teardown. The dead pixel map likely requires a service utility to update it. Joe_C is definitely your best chance of discovering more about the internal workings of these cameras.

Exactly! The Q1922 has changeable lenses and the drawings in the manual just look like my lens mount.
https://www.axis.com/files/manuals/ig_q19xx_lensrep_48409_en_1206.pdf

I'll get in touch with Joe-C, I wrote a support message to AXIS as well. I'll probably have to wait until the holiday craziness is over to get a reply

The AXIS description of thermal cameras may be of interest as they use their cameras in examples.

https://www.axis.com/files/articles/Ch5_thermalcameras.pdf

They indeed show the ULIS µ-bolometer and the shutter assembly in this description.  Wouldn't have to guess what µ-bolometer they used if I found this description earlier...

[Cat]

Yesterday I was outside and wanted to record aircrafts on the airport, but because of the holidays there were none
As usual there was much traffic on the autobahn, so I recorded this:

Unfortunately there are many FFC events because of the low ambient temperature. When the Q1932 is running for a longer time FFC is done roughly every 20 minutes. There are many compression artifacts because I selected the h264 stream profile instead of mjpeg.
My setup is quite simple, the Q1932 is mounted on a piece of wood which is screwed on the tripod. The camera is powered from a 4S2P Li-Ion battery. Setup and display of the thermal image is done with the smartphone, for WiFi the TL-WR703 and a USB power bank is used.

The culprit for the continuous heater operation was found, the NTC on the heater-PCB had the wrong value!
The original NTC has 100kOhm at 25°C which is interpreted by the camera as -22°C. The heater is active until this sensor measures 20°C. But even with the heater running at 50°C the camera displays a temperature of 0°C and the heater is of course never switched off.
I checked the temperature readings with different resistors and 10kOhm gives a reading of 30°C. Unfortunately I only had a 10k NTC as THT component (the one on the PCB is SMD size 0805) but I replaced it anyway. Kapton tape was used to protect the window from flux. Now the temperature reading and heater operation is working fine.
Unfortunately I can't mount the window assembly because the lens would collide with the NTC 

[Fraser]

Was there any sign of the fitted thermistor having been replaced ? If not, it would be worth checking the circuit that reads out its value in case of a component drift failure.

Fraser

[Vipitis]

surprising find. There was an AXIS camera on eBay Kleinanzeigen for some time, and there is a new one on eBay.de just now - but a smaller model.

The shutter assembly seems to be quite sophisticated.

[firulais]

Hi, do you still have the camera? I have an axis Axis Q1931-E with at least 2 burnt components. If you still have your disassembled camera, would you be so kind as to tell me which is the serigraphy of the component marked as I in the attached image, perhaps with the data sheet I can find out the value of the burned capacitor. Thanks for any answer.

[dthed]

Looks like something like a 2nF 2kV cap and a FDS3890 to me.

[firulais]

Hello, thank you very much for your contribution, I hope to be able to repair the camera, regards (apologies for the English, Google translator)

[just4fun2day]

hey y'all – first post here. I have this camera, and need to replace the CMOS battery. I found this post extremely helpful, and I am also unable to remove the main board assembly 'sled'.

I suspect that one of the around the SD card slot release an internal tooth which is holding the sled in place. Has anyone had any luck with this? Funny, I bought this camera on eBay around this time last year.

[just4fun2day]

hey y'all – first post here. I have this camera, and need to replace the CMOS battery. I found this post extremely helpful, and I am also unable to remove the main board assembly 'sled'.

I suspect that one of the around the SD card slot release an internal tooth which is holding the sled in place. Has anyone had any luck with this? Funny, I bought this camera on eBay around this time last year.

So I figured it out. You must unscrew the stem from the main assembly. It was _extremely_ tight. Attached are some photos of the removal process.