Flir E4 Thermal imaging camera teardown

[mikeselectricstuff]

Hi Mike,
may I ask, how much you paid for the Audi automotive cam?
Thanks, Thomas

I think 550 Euro. There are loads of them on Ebay.de - just look for
(bmw,audi) night vision
and sort by price descending

[Taucher]

...the high-contrast rainbow palette (which presumably works for you?)

Hint: lowercase the "HC" in your filename

[mikeselectricstuff]

First I did change the [tab] to a [space] in arctic.pal and tried it out - no difference_ crashed quickly.

Crash conditions and how to reproduce is:
· normal spot mode
· open color selection
· move cursor a few times between "Arctic" and its neighbor "Lava": crash. Also happens with "Arctic" and "Black hot". You might need jump 20x back an forth between the color modes, sometimes just 1x or 2x.

I then moved Arctic to the end of the list..... the same problem now happens with "Lava" and "Black hot". Then I moved also "Lava" towards the end - no problem anymore (if not selecting lava or arctic). Maybe the .pal files are in format the E4 does not like.
Just tested it: I jumped 40x back and forth between the first 11 color settings - no problem. Then moved to the end and jumped 2-3x between Lava and Arctic: crash

Attached is the changed file - just exchange and you are set.

I have not tried this hack out, nor looked particularly closely at any of the files, but one think I do notice is that the two palettes which crash for you have no line-feed/carriage-return at the end of the file, but the high-contrast rainbow palette (which presumably works for you?) does (indeed, it has two, as there is a blank line).

There could be a bug with end-of-file parsing, causing an intermittent crash, though I'm kind of sceptical.

I spotted this too and already changed the .pal files (attached), so they are using the same format as the default .pal files (iron/rainbow/rainhc) (no spaces between the commas and a CR at the end). But it seems to make no difference.

It would be easy to tell if it was something to do with  the file content just by copying a "known working" pallette with the name of a suspect one

[Pinkus]

It would be easy to tell if it was something to do with  the file content just by copying a "known working" pallette with the name of a suspect one

then arctic and lava are working. So the problem it is definately the .pal file

[tnt]

All the default palettes have exactly 224 colors in them.
artic and lava have 240 for one and 120 for the other ... Maybe just putting exactly 224 colors would fix things. (just generate a new net of color by interpolation)

[Pinkus]

All the default palettes have exactly 224 colors in them.
artic and lava have 240 for one and 120 for the other ... Maybe just putting exactly 224 colors would fix things. (just generate a new net of color by interpolation)

Thats it.
Please find attached the new .pal files: working without a flaw. You may skip the change of "toolbar-config_Z3" now (see some postings above).

[mikeselectricstuff]

Yes - seems to have fixed it- I can't get it to crash now.
Has anyone seen any other issues with the menu hack apart from crashing in palette select/arctic/lava mode? Can we call it stable now?

[Taucher]

All the default palettes have exactly 224 colors in them.
artic and lava have 240 for one and 120 for the other ... Maybe just putting exactly 224 colors would fix things. (just generate a new net of color by interpolation)

Thats it.
Please find attached the new .pal files: working without a flaw. You may skip the change of "toolbar-config_Z3" now (see some postings above).

Great finding - *confirmed*!

[mikeselectricstuff]

All the default palettes have exactly 224 colors in them.
artic and lava have 240 for one and 120 for the other ... Maybe just putting exactly 224 colors would fix things. (just generate a new net of color by interpolation)

Thats it.
Please find attached the new .pal files: working without a flaw. You may skip the change of "toolbar-config_Z3" now (see some postings above).

Great finding - *confirmed*!

Assuming the original files came from a Flir distribution, should we send them a bug report?

.and how about a challenge to make the most interesting/psycadelic/horrible new palette?

[Taucher]

Yes - seems to have fixed it- I can't get it to crash now.
Has anyone seen any other issues with the menu hack apart from crashing in palette select/arctic/lava mode? Can we call it stable now?

condensation mode still gets lost while zapping some of the measurement modes... I'd also really like to check if there's a menu to be added so one can set the humidity level for that mode - otherwise it's pretty pointless

[Taucher]

Assuming the original files came from a Flir distribution, should we send them a bug report?
.and how about a challenge to make the most interesting/psycadelic/horrible new palette?

my ideas:
- hybrid palette with blue for "below scale", red for "above scale" and gray or lava between
- zebra palette instead of rainbow-hc - just two alternating colors per isothermal step

[mikeselectricstuff]

Yes - seems to have fixed it- I can't get it to crash now.
Has anyone seen any other issues with the menu hack apart from crashing in palette select/arctic/lava mode? Can we call it stable now?

condensation mode still gets lost while zapping some of the measurement modes... I'd also really like to check if there's a menu to be added so one can set the humidity level for that mode - otherwise it's pretty pointless

Seems to me the condensation and humidity are just special cases of above/below modes so are they doing anything other than just clogging up the already long menu?

[amyk]

move cursor a few times between "Arctic" and its neighbor "Lava": crash. Also happens with "Arctic" and "Black hot". You might need jump 20x back an forth between the color modes, sometimes just 1x or 2x.

Based on the intermittent nature of the issue I'm guessing it's something to do with uninitialised memory - notice that Arctic is the one with far fewer colours than the others.

[mikeselectricstuff]

- zebra palette instead of rainbow-hc - just two alternating colors per isothermal step

Otherwise known as "drifty pixel spotter"

[Taucher]

I've updated the menu package  - now at Beta 2
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/flir-e4-thermal-imaging-camera-teardown/msg326024/#msg326024

[Taucher]

Matter of fact: a "heat detection" palette already exists:

replacing palettes on the fly works nicely - just switch the palette once when ftp complete.

I've tested the attached file to work with Ex series.
Telnet: \FlashBFS\System>palette heat_det.pal
... or just rename it to the name of your least loved palette and overwrite it

[kjk24]

Hello,

i follow the thread a while now Respect !
tryed to install the E4 hack & beta2 Menu but i have some problems, the resolution is changed but i have no camera anymore.
no temperature left top (no icons LTop), hotspot is not changing, no mixed cam icon in the menu, Hotspot Menu right icon not useable (cant select it)
is there anything else what i have to do or just adding the .cfg file ? and copy the MENU staff.

please let me know.

[Pinkus]

Hello,

i follow the thread a while now Respect !
tryed to install the E4 hack & beta2 Menu but i have some problems, the resolution is changed but i have no camera anymore.
no temperature left top (no icons LTop), hotspot is not changing, no mixed cam icon in the menu, Hotspot Menu right icon not useable (cant select it)
is there anything else what i have to do or just adding the .cfg file ? and copy the MENU staff.

please let me know.

Mmmh - normally thats all: .cfg and copying the menu stuff. I hope you made a backup before, try copying back everything before you continue.

[cosmos]

Hello,

i follow the thread a while now Respect !
tryed to install the E4 hack & beta2 Menu but i have some problems, the resolution is changed but i have no camera anymore.
no temperature left top (no icons LTop), hotspot is not changing, no mixed cam icon in the menu, Hotspot Menu right icon not useable (cant select it)
is there anything else what i have to do or just adding the .cfg file ? and copy the MENU staff.

please let me know.

That sounds a bit like the one hang I have seen, several functions stopped working but I could still move around,  IR picture was still there and I could turn it off with the button.
I have only applied the E8.cfg and have 1.19.8.
In the process I removed the battery, so I am not sure if that was part of clearing it.

[gotvolts]

Just a follow-up.
My firmware for my e4 was 1.17.1.

Took me about 5 minutes to follow the hack instructions and perform the upgrade.
Works like a charm!

Thanks to Mike for everything and the great write-up!

[andy_silicon]

Just received E4
Version 1.19.8
Calibrated 13th November

It's great fun - already seen a fox in the garden !
And I now know where the central heating pipes go - and that an RCD I have gets warm!

But the reason for buying - confirming the cold corners in the kitchen.

[neggles]

Just received E4
Version 1.19.8
Calibrated 13th November

Does the recent cal date here mean we can probably call BS on a hack-killing FW update? (at least for the immediate future)

[mikeselectricstuff]

Just received E4
Version 1.19.8
Calibrated 13th November

Does the recent cal date here mean we can probably call BS on a hack-killing FW update? (at least for the immediate future)

We don't know. All we know is nobody has yet seen it on a new unit, and that the distribution chain is very short. 

[georges80]

I'm a happy owner. My primary reason for purchasing a TIC was for fault finding and evaluating my LED drivers' thermal paths.

Received 250 buck/boost LED drivers from my assembly house today (nominal 70W output capability from 10 - 30V DC input) and was testing them prior to shipping to one of my customers. Found one that was restarting due to over current limit trip.

Did a quick measure with a meter and found the output impedance was MUCH lower than it should be (60 ohms versus megaohms). Figured it was likely a faulty output cap (there's 4 in parallel).

So, took a thermal image with the board unpowered and then another after a couple of seconds. Very obvious which cap was at fault, removed it and replaced with a new one and fault gone. The removed cap shows about 60 ohms on the meter...

I did adjust the lens with my lens tool about 2/3 a turn CCW.

Attached pics: off.gif the driver quiescent and no power, on.gif after a couple of seconds powered up. The jpg shows the 'visible' view of the board for orientation purposes.

Great tool - especially as a M8 (Mike E8 or 'mate' )

cheers,
george.

[max-bit]

if you bought which is part of the can with his grace to Post whence comes this camera ?