Flir E4 Thermal imaging camera teardown

[murcielago]

With this kind of sucess we can do more experiments and I release this 2.3.0 menu 2014 advanced update for E4.
This is for users who have already new menu or for all who like to make a custom conf. I have included readme's
and all hints are in guide. You can use this update in other cameras with custom conf.
New menu adds user defined presets what you can configure and save. They replace factory predefined presets.
Furthermore you can in settings adjust more measurement parameters and MSX focus distance with smaller
increments. Saved images can you edit with advanced measurement tools and change all parameters before
saving it again. I'm sure you find new recording mode for time lapse and palettes are in two groups so you can
jump up and down in their rows.
There is not clear thermal screen without graphics any more but  this can be done with programmable button
in the future. Now this screen is needed for preset making.
This menu is tested and working fine at least in one 1.22 to 2.3.0 upgraded E4 now, like my previous menu did.

At this rate it's going to have more functions than my phone

[murcielago]

Anyone knows how to remove the battery from the bottom battery and cap housing??

I am thinking of modding it to either upgrade to a higher cap battery or allowing a simple drop-in battery compartment

I've tried removing according to the youtube video but it looks easier than it is

[gif999]

That's awesome! Please expand on the details of this when you have the time as it could be very helpful digging deeper into these units in the future.

It seem the bootloader is looking for a signature inside the NK.bin file (possibly in NK.exe at 0x80101330 but I could be way off)  and if it doesn’t match, it disables “autoboot” and sets the “Host connection” to MSD which forces the use of the serial port to get anything working again. The “debug” serial port can be used to connect to the camera but there is a substitution cypher with ASCII = (255-serialData)/2 to display what is received and serialData = 255-2*ASCII to transmit to camera, '\r' terminated lines. To get the bootloader menu, hard reboot the camera and send “space” within 1 second. You can then set the “Host connection” to rndis, the IP address to 192.168.0.2 and enable autoboot, save the changes. I then used  “Download image now”/”Download OS image with PB and save to Flash” which resulted in “BOOTME” being sent to my desktop. I had windows Visual studio 2005 running with with Windows CE 6 platform builder on my PC. As soon as I connected platform builder to the device with the NK.bin as the project file, the download started, the image was flashed and the camera booted right-up (well... almost, I had to put back some other files that I had changed in other places).

I tried to execute “Download image now”/”Download OS image with PB and save to Flash” again once my camera was fixed but the camera would not send “BOOTME” anymore. I don’t know if NK.bin needs to be corrupted for this to work or if I did something else to enable it while I was playing with the camera for a few days. Edit:I tried again after fixing-up some driver issues on my PC (uninstall/reinstall flir device driver) and it is working fine. I loaded a modified NK.bin file and executed from RAM (not flashed). It crashed because of my mods but the bootloader didn't prevent it from loading

There are other options to send the OS file that could be simpler but I didn’t try them (tftp client/server, Mass Storage Device). The Mass Storage Device sounds interesting, maybe you just leave the “Host connection” to MSD and put NK.bin in the ASCO MSD folder.

[GARRETT64]

Adjust the focus of the E4 lens for a wee bit sharper image at infinity

Today I made a lens tool almost like the one in one-of-Mikeselectricstuff E4 YouTube movies.
Not easy to make because polymorph cools quickly, I have been lucky to make a good one the first time.

I found out to get the best sharpness at infinity I must turn the lens 15 degree clockwise from the original position which I had marked.
In the image left is the original position, right is wee bit sharper.
Now I have 360x280 resolution @ infinity 
(no grammatical errors this time?)

Garrett

[janekivi]

You like to say we can now remake drone view with programmable (down)button
and use zoom popup (with up button) from EXX
http://wikisend.com/download/882832/flir_bw_zoom.mp4

Yes one button operation adds convenience, I find it useful to be able to switch fast between two palettes for example, without going to the Palettes menu. A shortcut for zoom switching may also be convenient for things like home inspection.
I guess none of Ex and may be Exx have this combination of features.

I did this video with my E4 : )

[clubmkred1]

I finally brought my E4 2.3 back to life  . The console and debug serial ports are kind of working in 2.3 but they are ciphered. I had to write a small app to decode (Rx) and encode (Tx) while  communicating with the camera. Once I got that working, it was just a matter of using  the bootloader configuration menu to enable RNDIS and  set the IP address before downloading and flashing an official 2.3 NK.bin (using Visual studio 2005/windows platform builder to send the file to the camera).

@ gif999: I am trying to catch up as best as I can, reading all of these threads...So, what were you trying to do when you bricked your E4? Were you trying to do a resolution hack, or were you trying to upgrade the menu? I want to just do the resolution hack to mine, but I am scared to brick it. I don't think I would have the skills to bring it back to life. Everyone on here seems to have pretty decent luck with the resolution hack, it seems anyway.

[gif999]

I was trying something else entirely which required me to change the OS files, not something I have seen anybody doing here.

[clubmkred1]

I was trying something else entirely which required me to change the OS files, not something I have seen anybody doing here.

Ok, thanks for the quick reply. I feel better now. I am pretty confident that I can do the hack with very little problems. I am collecting the files needed and printing excerpts from here to make sure I am prepared. I just got a little concerned when I saw that you bricked yours and was about to abort all attempts. I feel like a kid the night before Christmas. Tomorrow is THE day.

[Emoticon]

Is it possible to enable thermal fusion mode like the E60 has? Has anyone had any success with this? You can see it in EEV #402 around 11:30 looks fairly interesting.

[OrBy]

Just wanted to give a quick  to janekivi and everyone else that's been working on 2.3.0.

I decided to upgrade from 1.18.7 to 2.3.0 today on my 1.0 E4.

I just flashed the 2.3.0 FIF and rebooted and it retained my "upgraded" status. Installed the 2014 menu FIF and had to add a little tweak to my e8.cfg and recrc it to get the manual adjustments working.

So far I really like the clean no measurements screen! Makes for "truer" video capture in UVC mode and allows me to "frame" my shots better! Also the thermal blending is a nice addition.

Cant wait till I have some more time to play with the advanced ed.

[Bud]

Is it possible to enable thermal fusion mode like the E60 has?

Sort of

http://wikisend.com/download/930750/test4.avi

[Zucca]

I decided to upgrade from 1.18.7 to 2.3.0 today on my 1.0 E4.

Thanks OrBy





I have a HW 1.0 E4 with FW 1.19 and I was waiting for months to see who would have been the first to jump in the dark!

...had to add a little tweak to my e8.cfg...

Can you provide a cook book for that? Details, please!

Now, people like Taucher (old dragon with Flir FW) may prefer to have an 1.19 unencrypted FW, see here

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/flir-e4-thermal-imaging-camera-teardown/msg582792/#msg582792

Personally I am not interested on clear FW. It is just my personal opinion nothing more.
I will wait a little to see if someone will report any show stopper issues with the upgrade from FW1.1x to FW2.3 on HW 1.0, and because I have no time now to play with the E4.

Oh God, now I have to read 1000 of pages to understand how to properly high res the FW 2.3 (seems like the one click is now reliable?) and finally get the janekivi menu drug in my blood system.

Very happy about the good news, Prosecco on me for everybody!

PS: anybody knows what where the differences between HW releases 1.0, 1.1, and so on?

[kilobyte]

Oh God, now I have to read 1000 of pages to understand how to properly high res the FW 2.3 (seems like the one click is now reliable?) and finally get the janekivi menu drug in my blood system.

It was easier than I thought.

The instruction here are a good startpoint https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/flir-e4-thermal-imaging-camera-teardown/msg585647/#msg585647
I got a 550 error with the apply script but it worked.


I got my E4 yesterday. The first thing that i have done was the Resolution hack. Much cleaner and sharper image compared to the E6 here at work but with less menu functions.

And yesterday evening at home i did the menu upgrade from janekivi.
Big Thank You

The feature to set the temperature scale manually is the best thing and very useful.

And with a ZnSe lens it's great to look at components  / PCBs.

BR
Kai

[OrBy]

...had to add a little tweak to my e8.cfg...

Can you provide a cook book for that? Details, please!
PS: anybody knows what where the differences between HW releases 1.0, 1.1, and so on?

To start off - if your  sticking with stock firmware and features and you already have a working e8.cfg on the camera - just flash the stock 2.3.0 FIF and your done - nothing else is needed - it just worked for me.

But if your going to use janekivi's menu's you need to go through your e8.cfg line by line and make sure that you have all the entries present that he lists in his conf_contents_requirements.txt.

I had tweaked mine many times in the past but was missing the block that had:

Code: [Select]

.caps.config.ui.image entry
.caps.config.ui.image.adjust entry
.caps.config.ui.image.adjust.enabled bool  true
.caps.config.ui.image.adjust.manual bool  true

in it - but yours may differ so it's best to check.

Once I added them I used the original CRC01 hack method to re-CRC it and uploaded the E8.cfg and rebooted.

No need to touch any DLL's, run .py scripts, or mess with encrypted cfg files.

As for the differences in 1.0/1.1/1.2 + L etc... I actually emailed support yesterday about it and they indicated that it's actually config not hardware revisions. I don't think anyone has torn down anything publicly other then mike's 1.0 and shared yet to prove otherwise.

[OrBy]

janekivi is there any way to integrate the ability to toggle NUC on and off through a menu?

Code: [Select]

# turn off auto-nuc
rset .tcomp.services.autoNuc.active false

# turn on auto-nuc
rset .tcomp.services.autoNuc.active true

I would love to see an option for it under the main settings screen.

[Bud]

Do not know about if auto NUC can be disabled but a press and hold on Archive button (when in live view) performs a NUC. So at any time you can do a manual NUC .

[OrBy]

Do not know about if auto NUC can be disabled but a press and hold on Archive button (when in live view) performs a NUC. So at any time you can do a manual NUC .

Oh yes I know about that. The idea is to power on the camera and disable the NUC'ing. Wait 5-10 min for it to warm up and stabilize temp wise. Then do a manual NUC and start recording video over UVC to a PC. This could allow for smoother capture without any text or calibration popup's with janekivi's menu installed and the clear screen option. I prefer to leave mine in UVC and MSD mode for easy capture and file export and not in RNDIS mode so having a menu option to toggle NUC'ing would help avoid having to swap modes, TELNETTing in, and manually toggling the option all the time.

[janekivi]

We haven't found the way to add custom menu points like this. For example
jpg save quality 100 is accepted only in preset file. Menu seems to doesn't
have access to change resource values which you can set by telnet.

[OrBy]

We haven't found the way to add custom menu points like this. For example
jpg save quality 100 is accepted only in preset file. Menu seems to doesn't
have access to change resource values which you can set by telnet.

Either way your doing great work and I hope your having fun messing with things like I am!

[clubmkred1]

Thanks to everyone who has dedicated their time to make this hack available to the rest of us. I did the v2.3 resolution hack today on my E4 and it is awesome. I am astounded how much more sensitive the camera is now. I was a little confused on the last portion of the instructions where "you will find newly created conf.cfc and common_dll.dll in that folder and upload them back to the camera". I didn't upload those two files back to the camera, mainly because I didn't know how...

But, I actually had the Error 500 occur, and the program tried to load 4 different time, having successfully loaded it on the fourth try. In the end, it told me to reboot the camera... I did and now I have 240x320 resolution. I have no obvious menu changes, if there was suppose to be any. The only thing that I found to be a little strange is that the camera takes a very long time to boot up and sometimes it will lag trying to display photo information. Anyone have any experience with issues like I am having?

[janekivi]

Yes, camera is slower now while resource tree is much longer now. And I have seen lag in
archive too. Everywhere is more information now and booting take longer time. After all is
readed, camera seems to run fine.
Second thing I saw here is some feel like noise is back and picture is not sharp. This is because
of new look. You can see more now and palettes bring out more contrast. I see lines like here:

http://www.flir.com/thermography/americas/us/view/?id=65982
Uncooled Thermal Camera Image of Handprint on Wall - Initial Image

But real noise you can see here
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/flir-e4-thermal-imaging-camera-teardown/msg588471/#msg588471
and here
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/flir-e4-thermal-imaging-camera-teardown/msg589550/#msg589550

[GARRETT64]

Second thing I saw here is some feel like noise is back and picture is not sharp

Its depends on what you are imaging, a object with high contrast looks sharper, the image of the lace curtain is 100% 320x240 IR image, no MSX or other tricks, it looks really sharp, the focus was adjusted for close-up (25 cm) the background is cold and thus black.
The other image is my PC desk, monitor, keyboard, mouse... the focus was adjusted for this distance, still the image looks not sharp, just poor.

Garrett

[GARRETT64]

Since I have a interest in having a TIC from Flir I get numerous Google ads from FLUKE thermal imaging devices on almost all other websites I visit...
When will this stop Mr FLUKE?

Garrett

[gif999]

If anyone else is having issues with getting strange IP addresses (instead of 192.168.0.2) and not being able to communicate with the camera anymore when connecting to a PC... Uninstalling and re-installing the FLIR device driver has solved the issue for me

[Swake]

Another successful 2.3.0 upgrade.

Started on a Win8 64-bit. Could only set the RNDIS to permanent, after hours of trying and still no connection I almost gave up.
Tried on another Win8 32-bit, with totally different hardware to no avail. The RNDIS interface never connected with the FLIR correctly.

Had to use an 'old' win7 32bit laptop. That really went smooth. Installed drivers and python, connected the camera and got a new network.
Local IP: 192.168.1.1
Flir IP: 192.168.1.2.

Backup everything with Filezila, run the resolution patch and done.
The IP's are slightly different from the 192.168.0.1 range. Reason is the thing is smart enough to recognize that range was already in use.