FLIR One Gen2 failure investigation + FULL RESET method by Fraser

[Fraser]

J3SS3,

Sorry to hear that your F1G3 is beyond simple resurrection. I am in the same situation and the battle is ongoing with the less than honest seller in my case. Sadly a faulty F1G3 Pro is not worth much more than a faulty F1G2. I have paid between £35 and £80 for faulty F1G2 units over the years. They are a good source of a Lepton 3 core and this is likely why they retain at least some reasonable value even when dead and likely beyond repair.

Fraser

[J3SS3]

Hey All,
Well my story is done.  I sold my F1PG3 on ebay and got about $150 for it!  I guess covid has somewhat affected the supply of lepton cores for projects (thermal drones, etc).  So I may have caught the market at the right time.  My new Seek Compact is clearly does not have the capabilities of the F1P, but it's sufficient for my meager residential needs (though I already miss the merged visible+infrared image).  Thanks again for the ideas to try for DIY repair.  Good luck and stay well!

[bl4z3]

Hello,

first of all thank you all for the huge guide and shared experiences with faulty Flir Ones. I bought a Flir One Gen2 iOS on ebay wich was sold as working. The camera charges fine and turns on (green flashing light). I replaced the battery since the old one was reported as weak and its still charging and turning on. I hear the lepton calibrating every once in a while.

When I open the Flir One app and connect the camera to my iPhone 7 i get the battery percentage displayed but no picture and then the app crashes. Sometimes the app does not chrash but i still only get a black screen.

I tried with other Iphones (unfortunately all the same model), but no luck. I also tried the reset method but everything stays the same.

Does the Flir One Gen 2 work with newer Iphones and the latest iOS 14? The newest Iphone reported on the packaging is Iphone 6. Did FLir just Sofftware limit the compatability?
Do you have any other tips for me, what I can try? Tanks!

Edit: I also reseated the lepton sensor but no luck
Edit2: Tried a 3rd party app that uses Flir One Camera. It also crahes when trying to connect to the camera

[morbid80]

Hello,

first of all thank you all for the huge guide and shared experiences with faulty Flir Ones. I bought a Flir One Gen2 iOS on ebay wich was sold as working. The camera charges fine and turns on (green flashing light). I replaced the battery since the old one was reported as weak and its still charging and turning on. I hear the lepton calibrating every once in a while.

When I open the Flir One app and connect the camera to my iPhone 7 i get the battery percentage displayed but no picture and then the app crashes. Sometimes the app does not chrash but i still only get a black screen.

I tried with other Iphones (unfortunately all the same model), but no luck. I also tried the reset method but everything stays the same.

Does the Flir One Gen 2 work with newer Iphones and the latest iOS 14? The newest Iphone reported on the packaging is Iphone 6. Did FLir just Sofftware limit the compatability?
Do you have any other tips for me, what I can try? Tanks!

Edit: I also reseated the lepton sensor but no luck
Edit2: Tried a 3rd party app that uses Flir One Camera. It also crahes when trying to connect to the camera

can it work normally using the old battery?

[owenfi]

Does it work if the charger is plugged in while you connect to the phone?

Maybe try the plug in charger -> hold power for 2 minutes (set a timer as this feels like forever) -> while still plugged in press power again (green blinking should start) -> plug into phone.

It seems this has worked for me (sample size of 5 - 10 crashes, followed by above procedure working one time so far)

If this keeps working I guess I can power it off of a USB battery pack until I break it apart and replace the battery.

[morbid80]

so i bought a F1G2, advertised as faulty
got it, symptom: orange light, with a short flicker after 10s like it want to boot, then remained orange
battery was flat, i charged it externally till full. tried again, same symptom
tried Fraser's reset method, unsuccesful

proceed with reballing Nand flash, same symptom.
proceed to reball processor, now the F1G2 boot up, green flash like it would do normally.can hear lepton shutter flickering.no charging LED when charging

however when i tried connecting the camera to my Iphone XS max, phone succesfully detected the camera and prompt to open with Flir One app, but it crashed the app as soon as the camera initiating(can hear shutter flickering).can only see battery level with black screen for maybe half a second before crashing.
tried with my old Iphone 5s with older version flir one app.same thing happen

now i had a spare lepton camera, tried changing the camera but same symptom, so i dont think Lepton is the problem
soldered a known good battery to rule out battery issue, same finding

any idea or solution?

[Fraser]

I have read accounts of flash memory being corrupted by the high temperatures used for BGA rework. There is the possibility that you fixed the processor poor soldering but sadly corrupted the flash data as well

I avoid reworking the FLIR One camera dongles..... nothing but heartache on that path 
The FLIR One series of dongles are, without doubt, the lowest quality, highest failure rate, product that FLIR have ever produced The reason..... FLIR wanted the cheapest possible manufacturing cost so outsourced the work to a sub contractor in China. They dropped the ball on the quality control and testing fronts.

Fraser

[morbid80]

i agree.wont take any chance with flir one anymore. lucky i still have my trusty seek compactpro

[firehopper]

if you have junk flir ones. I could use a new case for mine. front and back, doggy got a hold of mine and munched on it. had to get a new battery but needs a new case yet.

[Propretor]

Guys, and who has not tried to run the Flir One Pro Gen3 without a battery?
First, supply power to Type-C and connect to a smartphone without a battery.
If everything is OK, then you can make one connection internally between the Type-C charger and micro-USB / Type-C data.
Alteration will make a siktermal out of flir
I haven't used flirting for about a year and the battery has completely run out. Now the flir cannot even charge the built-in battery to 100% - the green LED does not stop blinking for 6 hours, and then the orange one turns on. Nevertheless, there is still 10-20 percent of the previous capacity in the battery. And the thermal imager does not work for long.
The question is in the vandal-free analysis of the subject.
Is there a parsing order in pictures or videos?
Modify message

[Silicium81]

Good morning all,
I have been reading you for a few years and own a flir one gen 2 for over 2 years. It worked well until recently ...
But suddenly, I got the famous fixed orange light ... The camera does not start anymore and the orange light turn off only if I press the button for at least ten seconds ...
I checked the power supplies, everything is ok, I will now unsolder the microcontroller to reball it. If that does not solve the problem, i will do the same for the memory. For now i'm waiting for some tools and will learn to use those correctly before doing this delicate operation on the real device, As you can see, i was able to make an x-ray view of the board.

[Silicium81]

I did a data acquisition of the start-up sequence with putty by connecting a serial to usb interface to the card on the dedicated pins. Here is what I get:

The camera constantly reboots ...
Can I deduce from these few lines if the nand flash is ok?

RomBOOT
Start AT91Bootstrap version svn-r5344 ...
Init HALF drive strength DDR... BOARD_ConfigureDdram()
DDRSDRC->DDRSDRC_LPR: 0x12101
Done!
Downloading image...
Trying to load uboot...
nandflash_hw_init()
reset_nandflash()
AT91F_NandReadID()
ManufacturerID: 0x2c DeviceID: 0xa1
chip id: 0x2ca1
Copy 0x50000 bytes from 0x40000 to 0x23f00000
nandflash_cfg_8bits_dbw_init()
switch(sNandInfo.uDataNbBytes) 2048:
read_nandflash: while (1)
read_nandflash: while (1)
read_nandflash: while (1)
read_nandflash(): return 0;
Done!
Returning jump to 0x0x23f00000
After 10s ----------------------------------------> restart line 1 (Romboot)

[W1ngl3t]

Hi, do any of you have a disassembled Flir One Pro handy?

[3DMovieList]

I just wanted to send a quick THANK YOU for all the useful information in this thread.
It helped get a FLIR One device working.
For me, I had to resolder some dry joints in the USB connector.
I also had to update the Samsung Galaxy S8 to the latest OS (from Android version 8 to Android version 9).
With Android version 8, the Play Store would not show the FLIR One software as an option - it just didn't show up in a search.
It wouldn't even list the software but let me know that it wasn't compatible with Android version 8.
I took a hunch and fortunately was able to update the Galaxy S8 to Android version 9, which allowed me to install the FLIR One software, which in turn allowed me to use the FLIR One device.
Oh, one more thing, I needed to use a micro-USB to USB-C adapter to use the FLIR One device on the Galaxy S8, but the first one I tried didn't work with the phone.  Fortunately another hunch, to try another micro-USB to USB-C adapter was successful.
I hope these tips are helpful.  And thanks again!

[jweaver]

I just spotted this thread and it was interesting to read about the issues with the Flir ONE.

Can i ask a question.. I have a G2 Flir One.and have only used it a few times... Its in mint/original condition (with box) and perfect working order. I have just bought a PC210 so was going to sell the Flir ONE and got an idea of its value from other similar sales on eBay..

I wasn't aware of the reliability problems and now worried that if I sell it and it breaks down, the buyer might come back at me and I don't want the hassle.

So what is a fair asking price for a working Flir One in as new condition? But cheap enough where I could say "sold as seen" should anyone come back to me later with a failure?

Jon

[Fraser]

I suggest you not concern yourself about the F1G2 reliability issues as you hear of the failures but there were many thousands of these cameras sold and most are happily working in daily use years after purchase. There appear to have been production batches with sub-standard reflow soldering or poor batteries. My F1G2 is one of the first sold and is still happily working...yet I have at least 5 faulty units bought on eBay that are not worth my time to repair. Whilst the F1G2 and F1G3 are the least reliable products I have ever seen from FLIR, but not all of them fail.

Sell it as working after you have tested it and worry not about it failing soon after. Buying used products brings risks with it and buyers know that. Worst case scenario, if it failed and you decided to refund the buyer, you can still resell it as spares/repair.

Fraser

[Vitt]

Hi All,

I have a F1G2 for over 3 years now. and few months back I lend it to one of my colleagues and he brought it back stuck with orange light.
from that time I was reading all the hacks that people have tried in this group.
I contacted FLIR (Teledyne) for repairs but they mentioned that its not possible.
so finally I started trying out hard reset with battery removal but nothing worked.
Finally today I removed the back cover and with a heat gun i heated the electronics slowly (not heating specific point on the board but genral heating)
after few seconds i could smell some solder and then I stopped. then I let the camera cool down a bit put the battery in again.
at this point the Orange LED was ON again (solid). bt upon pressing the ON/OFF button for few seconds it switched OFF and then I restarted the camera and it was working again.

Thank you for all information provided in this blog.

finally I decided to post back on the blog which really helped.

Once again Thank you all.

[nmg196]

Vitt - following your post I decided to try this with mine.    Previously the board was *completely* dead with no sign of life at all (even with a brand new battery and checking that power went from the connector to the board).   
Now I get both LEDs lighting up as soon as it's plugged in and it looks like it's trying to boot (LED changes colour when you press the button) but unfortunately I accidentally unsoldered the tiny cable which goes to the optical camera module. I suspect this isn't fixable now :/

As an aside, does anyone know if the device can be recognised by the app without any battery connected? (when it's working)

[StephE]

Hello,
i have a FLIR One Gen2 iOS that has a problem with the optical camera, everything else seems to work fine.

 

Does anybody know where/how to find one (Truly A472F-A1-E on the flex cable) ?

I would like to test what happens if i replace it before i start reballing anything.

Thanks

[admxxx]

Hi all,
My serial console shows Romboot and that’s it, is it the eeprom or the Atmel chip? Or is it that the firmware erased ??does anybody has the firmware dump?